Hamilton a Chimera?



nun

New Member
Sep 10, 2004
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Does anyone believe Tyler Hamilton when he says that the reason someonelse's
blood was found in his circulation wasn't blood doping but becasue he's a chimera, ie he absorbed a twin in the womb and so has two sets of DNA. While there are proven cases of this it seems starnge that he tested positive twice and other tests have proved negative.
 
There was a great interview with him a couple months ago in one of the bike mags.

I don't think they are actually suggesting that he is a chimera, it is just one of several different scenarios that would throw off the results, and these scenarios have not been addressed in the testing.

Turns out that the test had never been used before. It had one peer review, as opposed to many reviews of most other tests before they are implemented. This peer review stated that there were significant possibilities of false readings and that they suggested that no readings of secondary peaks (other peoples blood factors) below 5% be considered a positive.

Tyler's reading was 1%.

The amount of blood from another person that would have to be injected to result in this reading is about 1.5 ounces.

Not only would that do nothing to enhance performance, but the timing of the positives would have him injecting this stuff during training periods, not racing.

I have no idea if he is/was doing something illegal, but the testing was seriously f'ed up and would never stand up in a court over here.

Not only that, but someone called up the team twice, before both he and Santi Perez came up postive, and said that they were going to pop positive and demanded money to keep it from happening.

There was also the question about hematocrit levels and warnings that people on the team were getting near the limit. Turns out that they were tested at one race and were just fine, and they were tested 2 days later at another race and 3 people on the team had jumped by EXACTLY the same amount and were just under the limit. The chances that 3 people inject some amount of epo and all show exactly the same increase is pretty small.

In fact, Phonak, like many of the pro teams, had their own hematocrit checking equipment, which showed no change in levels, and which they submitted to the authorities. Unfortunately, it wasn't the exact same machine that the authorities use, so they refused to accept the results.

It should be noted that Phonak had protested the official testing results 3 times already last year because of questionable levels. Many of the pro teams have their own machinery and test before every event because it is a widely held belief that the certified machines return bad results on a regular basis.

upshot is that it is a hell of a race between the dopers and the investigators, and it is hard/impossible to tell who is doing what -- BUT before you ruin a guys career, you better have damn good evidence, and I think it is pretty shaky here.

Whit
 
i read the hamilton defense brief for the first hearing. i thought the evidence was pretty solid against him and his defenses, while well thought out, were a bit of a stretch (i.e., if he is a chimera, then i am the tooth fairy). apparently, the 3 judge panel thought so too, as they voted 2-1 for his suspension. if i recall correctly, hamilton got to pick 1 judge and the drug testing agency got to pick either 2 or 1. not surprisingly, the vote was along party lines.

it will be very interesting to hear the final result of his appeal. his team of lawyers and scientists have had another 6 months or so to refine their rebuttals. i don't know how many people are on the appeal panel this time, or who gets to name them.

i DO agree that the science needs to be correct before accusations are made. but, when you read articles written by doctors that show how some pro's dodge doping controls with micro-dosages of all sorts of drugs, it lends credibility to the notion that only a WEE amount of a banned substance might be detected. the tiny amount is then disputed by the cyclist on the grounds of being irrelevant, or the accuracy of the test is questioned, or the "i passed all the OTHER tests" defense is offered.

in the armstrong case, i find it interesting that "integrity" is the biggest issue being investigated. this is a smokescreen. the real issue is how did EPO get in armstrong's urine? would a lab with international credentials purposely taint the samples? doubtful. could a lab technician have accidentally tainted the samples? possible, but it seems the lab could determine whether EPO was near the location where the tests were being done (i.e., either confirm or eliminate the possibility that a technician could have touched EPO then touched the urine sample). could armstrong have been taking EPO prior to the availability of a valid test for it? possibly.

who has the most to gain here? it is not the lab nor is it is the anti-doping entity. it is the cyclist who earns a living being better, faster, stronger, etc. than his rivals. does this make him a cheater? not by itself. but in the presence of a banned substance, it righfully makes him the #1 target who will deny the accusation MOST of the time.