We’ll never know for sure unless Floyd decides to 'fess up. But just as sure as a foul up with regard to his preparation resulted in his failed test after Stage 17, an equally fatal foul up occurred sometime prior to Stage 16.
As a result of Stage 16, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that Landis overreacted to this crash. Whether he overdid his testosterone application or went overboard with his LH dose, his miscalculations were fatal. Perhaps Landis’ lame “blame the booze” excuse could be valid in that his drinking binge threw a monkey wrench into his doping binge.
Or perhaps Landis felt that he was so out of contention that he could ramp up his dosage because there was no way that he could make up all that lost ground in just one stage, and probably wouldn’t get tested because there was no way that he could win the stage. Maybe Landis surprised himself by turning in such a great performance in which he not only won the stage, but regained the yellow jersey.
Regardless of the hows and whys, once Landis’ ratio tested at over 4:1, that gave the authorities the opportunity to look for – and ultimately find – the synthetic testosterone that Landis could have misapplied during the Tour or at sometime before the Tour. Don’t forget, Landis could just have used LH during the Tour – thus being able to say he didn’t use synthetic testosterone – and still could have raised his natural testosterone levels high enough to fail the ratio test.
When you consider that the accepted test/epitest level is 4:1, it’s not that hard to understand how someone’s ratio could be thrown out of whack. When you keep in mind the way in which athletes dope, it isn’t that hard to get a good idea of how things could have gone wrong for Floyd Landis.
Article comments
1 - lori
I wonder if it hurts to take the patch of the 'nads. Or maybe cyclist's balls are so numb by the time their done for the day that they don't even notice.
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
Does WADA test for tinfoil?
3 - Mike
According to Landis' comments on TV - he said his testosterone level tested NORMAL while his epitestosterone tested LOW. He DIDN'T have a RAISED testosterone level, just his RATIO of T/E was high. The LOW result on the epitestosterone CAUSED the ratio to be out of range - NOT that he took additional testosterone!!
I wish the media would get this FACT straight and stop saying Landis TOOK testosterone..... it is not a correct statement!
4 - Jerome Lacoste
- Why aren't athletes tested all over the year ?
- Why aren't all samples tested for syntehtic ? Just because of costs ? If more tests were done, cost would go down, right ?
- Why aren't all samples kept for future tests (let's say 2-3 years, when the testing technology catches up with the cheating one) ?
- Why aren't managers/directors never affected by these failed tests ?
I often doubt that everything is really put in place to detect the cheaters.
5 - Pierre-Selim Huard
Jerome I think that some samples are kept for the futur and that's how Lance Amstrong got tested positive. But I'm not sure this results can be used against him.
6 - sal m
guys i think that certain loopholes,like the ones jerome has pointed out, exist simply because the authorites are willing to tolerate a certain amount of doping.
everyone bandies about the 4:1 ratio issue without really thinking about the reality that it represents. a 4:1 - hell even a 3:1 - ratio happens because of disease or doping. a person's test levels are steady and can be charted over a period of time, so any normal spikes can be accounted for.
a 4:1 ratio is due to manipulation.
7 - RJ Elliott
Drew Sharp weighs in...
8 - sal m
the espn reporter who broke the bomar story said that bomar didn't tell the program what he was doing, and that the kid would go to the dealership before practice, check in and go to practice, then go back and check out.
these kids have to fill out paperwork that goes through the school's compliance director for approval. so the school will definitely have some cover, whether or not it's enough to avoid sanctions we'll see...
for what it's worth, this isn't as bad as the bush and leinhart issues, or the jarrett issue.
9 - PatsFAn
Your argument works, except for one very vital mistake: Floyd's T wasn't high; his E was exceptionally low, skewing the ratio. He says it on his own Web site, as do a few other URLs which actually have the information *correct*.
10 - sal m
that's what he says, however, his test was 11 times higher than normal and he had synthetic test in his system as well.
landis' site - where he stopped people from leaving comments - is hardly a source for accurate information, as his defense is laughably pathetic.
11 - Justin
godd!!! Floyd is innocent ppls