**** Breaking News: Hamilton Tested Positive? ***

jhuskey

He certainly sounds sincere and makes what appears to be good points. I would certainly like to believe that he is innocent.
The world needs heros.
If for some reason the tests are proven to be wrong or questionable I fear that it may open up an entirely different "can of worms" in that future testing will be invalidated and the testing process confused more than now along with cycling fans all over the world.
Sure was simple when the good guys wore white hats!

__________________
Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

homeycheese

Are you kidding my? "Both sides"? There are so many sides to this sordid tale that it makes a dodecahedron look simple.

I'm on the side of myself as a fan who is tired of all the BS from these athletes. Tyler and his various "spokespeople" have issued so many different "spins" on these events that I'm actually looking forard to what their position will be next.

The sport has a problem and it needs to get clean before the fans revolt and the mass media starts treating this like wrestiling or bodybuilding.

cheapie

i'm watching the tour recap on oln and tyler just finished. so what do you think of his release? doesn't it sound odd that the olympic judges deemed his blood to be fine twice before thinking otherwise?

Saucy

He makes some valid arguments, most of which we have heard already. If this had been a one-time violation then I would be more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he tested positive at two different events with two different testing bodies. Add in the fact that his teammate also tested positive. All of these factors in combination point to his guilt.

One thing caught my eye:

"On that note, I have been tested over 50 times throughout my career and this is the first time I have ever even been questioned, so again this is new and beyond upsetting to me."

This is in contradiction to the L'Equipe article which stated that he had previously been warned by the UCI about his blood values at the Tour de Romandie and the Dauphine Libere.

Beastt

In other words, you believe that you are better informed in this particular case and have better access and understanding of the facts than any of the people directly involved? And as such believe that you are in a unique position to declare guilt?

'Cause that's what it sounds like you're saying.

fixed

So,

read Tyler's comments at his site...definately casts the whole thing in a different light. i was never really passionate about tyler either way but i liked the guy from what i saw of him on the bike. when i first saw the newspaper article on his doping situation i must say i was very very suprised and did not believe. though i was more than ready to hold judgement until the whole thing was over it didn't sound good. but look at the way the story was told in the press...a positive A test and then and accident with the B test saved his gold...sounded very bad for Tyler and gave him no chance of really coming away clean. Having heard Tylers side the whole slant of the thing changes, for me anyhow. The fact that the A test was deemed negative multiple times...then the B sample frozen according to protocol...and then the A sample deemed positive is a simpler explanation of what actually happened. Also reports all along mentioned inconsistincies in the samples without really going into detail. The way it was frased basically made Tyler look guilty. Tyler's explanation that it may not even be his blood and demanding a DNA test is certainly valid. A dna test should also shed more light on the foreign antibodies...which have always been of issue. Also, as far as hematocrit warnings go...I've never liked that. If you guys remember Pantani went through the same crap...no actual positive test (and the later doping issues with insulin still involved no positive test for drugs) just people saying his body was too good for it to have gotten there naturally. Is it really impossible that Tyler (who trains in the thin air of the colorado mountains) could not have just had a high crit level? So, I intend to wait for more information before passing judgement...and I suggest others do so also.

homeycheese

It's called "judgement" you dolt. It's what we as consumers, fans , supporters and free thinking human beings are capable of excercising. It allows us to express ideas and opinions on this message board and not in a court of law. It comes with age, experience and education and is somethig we use every day of our living, breathing lives.

boudreaux

There is also bad or flawed judgement, often dandered by 'DOLTS' as fact.

Brian Cotgrove

I agree with "Richard", I have my suspicions about "Lance" too. As much as I would like to consider "Lance" and "All the Others" above all of that stuff, he is a smart man with a smart team behind him. Not only good quality riders but doctors (Medical Technicians) who can manipulate whatever we mere mortals could only imagine to be out there. The sad truth is, it's been going on since bike racing first started at the turn of the 20th century, if you don't believe that you've been living on another planet or you're too trusting, possibly neive.

Bearing in mind that there is a "Squillions of Dollars Riding on any Big Result" such is "Le Tour". The sponsors, endorsements, contracts, you name it, they all have a major part to play. Most of us who ride and train will appreciate how "Bloody Hard" this sport is. If it were easy everybody and his dog would ride a bike, a majority of us only ride a race once or twice a week and under normal conditions of working for a living etc.

Let us all look at this phenomenon as the way it is until there is a real change for the better and the honest amongst us are vindicated for not going down that path.

Keep the wheels turning, have fun doing it too! Brian Cotgrove?

Beastt

You're not entirely wrong but you've truncated what it's really called. It's called "judgement without all of the facts". Also known as exercising a "lynch mob mentality". In any issue there are two sides and anyone who thinks they can properly assess a situation after hearing only one side is showing a decided disinterest in the truth. Your conclusion isn't the result of free-thinking because free-thinking involves having sufficient information to make a proper assessment and then arriving at a decision by reasoning through all of that information. When you arrive at a conclusion without examining both sides it's a knee-jerk reaction, a "jumped to" conclusion and quite prone to severe error.

Your use of the term "dolt" is perhaps another example of an incomplete thought process. You really don't have nearly enough information about me to be able to make any educated assessment of my intellect one way or another. But because you felt that I challenged your view, you reacted to the need to defend your damaged ego. The most obvious ways to do that would be to either (A) - post a plethora of proper data and illustrate why the supplied information lead to your conclusion and then go on to explain how the challenge to that conclusion was incorrect or to (B) - carelessly toss about insulting terms, the substantiation of which would require far more information than you possess. You obviously chose the latter despite the lack of supporting information. In doing so you've again illustrated the single-sided, snap-judgement which so often leads to erroneous conclusions. And with that same ego issue still present, the need is then created to attempt to stand by the results of the aforementioned improper judgement process.

"...living, breathing lives"? Is there a non-living kind of life?

Brian Cotgrove

I read what appears to be the writings of a "Spin Doctor", politicians employ this sort person to bamboozal the electorate in an attempt to cover up. They attempt to cloud the real issue by beating around the bush with hyperbole but not really coming up with a definite conclusion either negative or positive.
While I personally believe the only answer to winning such an event as "Le Tour", is of course, "Extreme Hard Work and Dedication to the Training". There will always be the taint of being less than honest and wanting to gain the advantage by whatever means is available to one, this is human nature.
"Lance Armstrong" is in my humble opinion one of the best cyclist to ever grace the peleton and I personally look forward to his appearance in 2005.
There have been many attempts to spoil his winning but all have come to nothing as hystory will show.
However there have also been many other champions of our beloved sport who have acheived great feats on the saddle of a bicycle, they too, were at times, under a cloud of suspicion. I will not of course denegrate them by name, they were my hero's too and I watch endless re-runs of their feats of strenght and heroism under extreme conditions.
We must however not look at the world especially cycling through "Rose Coloured Spectacles" mainly because we as human being are by nature cheats, driven by the "EGO". It is only when we become totally enlightened that we find the "REAL TRUTH" and are able to rise above these things.
That might be a little deep for beastt to comprehend but one day we all come to judgement.
Well that's it for now fellow velocitarians, (new word that I've applied to patent) the sun is shinning which is usual for "Sunny Queensland, Australia, Mate", and as usual my wheels are champing at the bit to get rolling, I'm off to get a FIX. Brian Cotgrove.

Brian Cotgrove

I read what appears to be the writings of a "Spin Doctor", politicians employ this sort person to bamboozal the electorate in an attempt to cover up. They attempt to cloud the real issue by beating around the bush with hyperbole but not really coming up with a definite conclusion either negative or positive.
While I personally believe the only answer to winning such an event as "Le Tour", is of course, "Extreme Hard Work and Dedication to the Training". There will always be the taint of being less than honest and wanting to gain the advantage by whatever means is available to one, this is human nature.
"Lance Armstrong" is in my humble opinion one of the best cyclist to ever grace the peleton and I personally look forward to his appearance in 2005.
There have been many attempts to spoil his winning but all have come to nothing as hystory will show.
However there have also been many other champions of our beloved sport who have acheived great feats on the saddle of a bicycle, they too, were at times, under a cloud of suspicion. I will not of course denegrate them by name, they were my hero's too and I watch endless re-runs of their feats of strenght and heroism under extreme conditions.
We must however not look at the world especially cycling through "Rose Coloured Spectacles" mainly because we as human being are by nature cheats, driven by the "EGO". It is only when we become totally enlightened that we find the "REAL TRUTH" and are able to rise above these things.
That might be a little deep for beastt to comprehend but one day we all come to judgement.
As a young competitive cyclist in Holland, back in the dark days of crispy bacon, "1957", I too was offered a susbstance, "To Make It Easier", I was told. However being very suspicious of such things and having a mind of my own I refused. I used to ride training with some of these guys and could more than hold my own even kick butt, when it came to hard riding, however when some of them disappeared up the road as in a puff of smoke I questioned "WHAT". The next morning when I called them to trainig again I was suprised how tardy their effort was when it came to a Northerly Head Wind, that seems to always be blowing there.
Well that's it for now fellow velocitarians, (new word that I've applied to patent) the sun is shinning which is usual for "Sunny Queensland, Australia" and as usual my wheels are champing at the bit to get rolling, I'm off to get a FIX of real fresh air and of course Vitamin "D". The term "Dolt" was not coined by me mate? read again my comment? Brian Cotgrove.

Beastt

Once again we see the self-proclaimed instantaneous ability to judge another posters intellect, or in this case, ability to digest philosophical subjects, with no real knowledge of the person. Even telephone-based psychic services would shy away from attempting such broad judgements with so little information on which to base their predictions.

I would suggest that you're just a bit to quick to discredit others of which you know very little or perhaps, just give yourself way too much credit. I agree with you concerning Armstrong but I'm certainly not wearing glasses of any color when assessing the degree to which doping is used among professional sports. Perhaps if you spent a little less time at the mirror, in self-admiration of your keen philosophical insights, you'd realize that you're not standing above the crowd.

Let us hope that on the day each of us "comes to judgement", the individual standing in judgement shows enough responsibility to hear both sides before arriving at any conclusions.

Enjoy your ride.

meb

Anyone who has ever had a bone marrow transplant would forever test positive (unless the donor came from a twin or was similar in antigen makeup). Sometimes when a blood transfusion is given, bone marrow cells are in the transfused blood- if those set in the recipient’s marrow, those transfused marrow cells will forever become a part of the recipient’s rbc population distribution.

Many types of cancer will throw the antigen testing off. An autoimmune disorder affecting the blood could lead the test reading false positive.

Anemic conditions could also throw the test off (although that would clearly remove him from world class competitive performance).

Some genetic and congenitcal conditions result in a mosaic-ing of phenotypic expression from the genetically expected phenotype. Some cell groups expressing the dominant gene others expressing the recessive. Well known forms of this includes someone with one blue eye and one brown eye or blond hair on part of the scalp and brown or red elsewhere.

Keep in mind since the test is looking for mixed populations, a false low read on an expected positive antigen is a positive test failure result for this transfusion test.

Amongst the blood antigens, heterozygous individuals sometimes produce less than a 100% full population distribution of a couple of the test antigens.

A couple of the antigens have several antigen binding sites so expected 100% populations read inconsistent from test to test making it hard to accurately test a phenotypically positive recipient receiving blood from a phenotypically negative individual.

Similar proteins might bind with the sites blocking the dyed antibodies from binding to the rbc giving a low read

Similar polysited proteins might complex up and bind on one site with a rbc and link a dyed marker giving an unexpected high antigen read.

Nutritional deficiencies might result in undersynthesis of an expected 100% population for an expected antigen or an exhausted athlete’s body might undersynthesized an antigen.

Too early to tell if there obscure athletic nutritional supplements that may affect the antigen tests. Hard to tell yet if there are/or will be nutritional supplements that mask the test. In time these will be vetted out and possibly banned themselves if they interfer either way with this test.

Maybe there are performance enhancing drugs not known and tested for that effect the antigen production.

Some of these possibilities could be ruled out or alternatively focussed upon and explored further if the test data were known.

It should be harder to accurately detect a recipient phenotypically positive for an antigen receiving blood from a phenotypically negative donor than the other way around since there are a lot more factors that would cause a low antigen population read than a high population read.

It could even be that Tyler transfused or had a medical procedure at a time prior to the expected test detection window, yet found the test was picking up transfusion evidence older than expected. There have obscure instances of transfusion products detected from transfusions as old as 8 years.

Given the newness of the test, it is hard to tell and premature to determine whether Tyler is a victim of an inadequately vetted test or someone caught by the emergence of a test directed at type of cheating he may have engaged in without adequate time or notice to adjust or expectation of detection.