Landis Innocent! on CNN and Lance agrees!!!



Felt_Rider said:
I will post this LINK of my attempt to answer this a few days ago.

I competed in the NPC, which was well known for users.
It was very difficult for a non-user to beat someone like myself and I was obsessed with winning. If you asked, "how much did steroids help you?" I would guess only 10% at the most, but in competition 10% can be enough to put a person out of reach for a drug free competitor. Now if the other guy was using it came down to a more level playing field and it came down to who paid their dues in training off season and on season.

So in summary, I suppose you take them because you know your competitors are taking them and you don't train hard just to lose all the time.

I believe most competitors would like to be drug free, but there is always a paranoia if "I show up drug free and the other guy doesn't I am going to lose" so "I won't take a chance that the other guy may not keep his word and I will go ahead and use them as well so that I have a chance of winning."

I'll be honest I hated using drugs and I won almost every competition that I entered, but I couldn't wait to get off steroids after each competition. I used them because I felt like I had to, but I hated every day that I had to prepare another syringe. I bet there are many people like this.
I concur. Excellent, honest post. Thanks. That one post literally wipes out pages of conjecture. We could use more of that.
 
In my life I sank to much lower depths in society than most users and now when I consult with athletes it is more of trying to think about their mental state of why they feel compelled to use.

Even though this was not my story because I did not make it to the upper levels of competition, I sometimes wonder about this scenerio.

Let me paint this picture for you and see if this makes sense as another reason so many are compelled to take the risk of using. This could apply to many different sports.

A young guy has incredible talent and he climbs the ranks very quickly. So quickly that talent agents take notice and begin to toss his name around. Instead of finishing college he takes an offer to become a paid athlete and finds that his once outstanding talent at a local level is now equally matched at the professional level. Things are much tougher than he imagined, but the money is good and there are many perks to being in the lime light. A few years pass by and there are more young talented guys threatening to take this athletes position and he knows it. He wonders how he can keep up and how he can keep impressing the team directors so that he can stay on the team. What could give him that edge? Hmmmm...he considers the alternative as somehow time has passed by quickly and he realizes he doesn't have a college degree. He has never worked a real 8 to 5 job and can't imagine having to work in such conditions. All he has done with his life in these years is train to win and the big money he earned was squandered with living in the high life. He realizes he has no other skills in the work place and if he were replaced by the next young star he fears his nightmare may come true. He will go from being a star of sorts to working minimum wage jobs. He considers the risks and ask some discreet friends if they know anything and they get him hooked up. Training improves, his focus improves, his performance improves and the fear begins to subside for the moment, but he realizes now he has to keep using for the moment.


If this athlete could play on a level playing field that would be one issue, but if there were programs to help these athletes as they move on in life maybe that would be helpful. Besides these federations make a lot of money from having these athletes available.

Just trying to paint another possible picture as to why athletes use.
 
The story you tell is very similar that Will Voet detailed in "Breaking the chain". He said that Richard Virenque and team sat down and talked about how they would compete against newer, younger and stronger teams. They had all tried PED's on an individual basis but decided that they needed to get serious about it and do it under control of a doctor.

More importantly your story sounds very similar to the story that Frankie Andreu portrayed in his testimony in the Armstrong insurance case. Armstrong, Hamilton and Hincapie had to find a way to compete against the Europeans in addition that Motorola their sponsor would soon pull out if they didn't get results. Similar to what you mention these guys had no education, no training and they couldn't ever make as much money in cycling in the
US as they could in Europe. They had to step up to the PED’s.


Felt_Rider said:
In my life I sank to much lower depths in society than most users and now when I consult with athletes it is more of trying to think about their mental state of why they feel compelled to use.

Even though this was not my story because I did not make it to the upper levels of competition, I sometimes wonder about this scenerio.

Let me paint this picture for you and see if this makes sense as another reason so many are compelled to take the risk of using. This could apply to many different sports.

A young guy has incredible talent and he climbs the ranks very quickly. So quickly that talent agents take notice and begin to toss his name around. Instead of finishing college he takes an offer to become a paid athlete and finds that his once outstanding talent at a local level is now equally matched at the professional level. Things are much tougher than he imagined, but the money is good and there are many perks to being in the lime light. A few years pass by and there are more young talented guys threatening to take this athletes position and he knows it. He wonders how he can keep up and how he can keep impressing the team directors so that he can stay on the team. What could give him that edge? Hmmmm...he considers the alternative as somehow time has passed by quickly and he realizes he doesn't have a college degree. He has never worked a real 8 to 5 job and can't imagine having to work in such conditions. All he has done with his life in these years is train to win and the big money he earned was squandered with living in the high life. He realizes he has no other skills in the work place and if he were replaced by the next young star he fears his nightmare may come true. He will go from being a star of sorts to working minimum wage jobs. He considers the risks and ask some discreet friends if they know anything and they get him hooked up. Training improves, his focus improves, his performance improves and the fear begins to subside for the moment, but he realizes now he has to keep using for the moment.


If this athlete could play on a level playing field that would be one issue, but if there were programs to help these athletes as they move on in life maybe that would be helpful. Besides these federations make a lot of money from having these athletes available.

Just trying to paint another possible picture as to why athletes use.
 
Why would Armstrong have needed to figure out how to compete with the Euros? He already was and was winning things like the WC's.
 
whiteboytrash said:
The story you tell is very similar that Will Voet detailed in "Breaking the chain". He said that Richard Virenque and team sat down and talked about how they would compete against newer, younger and stronger teams. They had all tried PED's on an individual basis but decided that they needed to get serious about it and do it under control of a doctor.

More importantly your story sounds very similar to the story that Frankie Andreu portrayed in his testimony in the Armstrong insurance case. Armstrong, Hamilton and Hincapie had to find a way to compete against the Europeans in addition that Motorola their sponsor would soon pull out if they didn't get results. Similar to what you mention these guys had no education, no training and they couldn't ever make as much money in cycling in the
US as they could in Europe. They had to step up to the PED’s.
I think this is a common theme in many sports that have become dependent on drug use. It is very hard to convince an athlete that is facing this type of fear to compete clean because they have a great fear of working a low wage job. That type of fear sometimes make the risk of being caught cheating somewhat insignificant.
 
House said:
Why would Armstrong have needed to figure out how to compete with the Euros? He already was and was winning things like the WC's.
Who knows I'm just repeating the testimony as stated. This was during the Motorola years 92-96 he was hardly cutting it up amongst the big boys !

 
whiteboytrash said:
Who knows I'm just repeating the testimony as stated. This was during the Motorola years 92-96 he was hardly cutting it up amongst the big boys !



But that part of the testimony does not bear anything out. Here are some results which will obviously, based on your comment, surprise you about LA.


1992-

2nd at Zurich


1993

1st at Trofeo Laigueglia
1st at 8th stage of the Tour de France

World Champion

1995


1st at Clasica San Sebastian
1st at 18th stage of the Tour de France
1st at Tour du Pont (3 stage wins)
1st at Stage 5 Paris Nice


1996

1st at Tour du Pont (5 stage wins)
1st at La Flèche Wallonne




Sounds like he was doing quite well against the Euros right from the start.
 
Your right... the race "zurich" is huge ! What is it ? Trofeo Laigueglia ? Never heard of it ! World Champion 93... nice win where 78% of the field pulled out because of the weather and the new white lines on the road which caused the riders to slip... Tour de Pont ? Isn't that race in the US where Europeans wouldn't even embarrass themselves by turning up... (almost as big as Kmart West Virginia Classic ! LOL !) what else you got down there ? Oh the stage that was gifted to Armstrong in the Tour because of Casartelli‘s death and because he was an hour down on GC.... Jezus these results are telling ! LOL ! :p


House said:
But that part of the testimony does not bear anything out. Here are some results which will obviously, based on your comment, surprise you about LA.


1992-

2nd at Zurich


1993

1st at Trofeo Laigueglia
1st at 8th stage of the Tour de France

World Champion

1995


1st at Clasica San Sebastian
1st at 18th stage of the Tour de France
1st at Tour du Pont (3 stage wins)
1st at Stage 5 Paris Nice


1996

1st at Tour du Pont (5 stage wins)
1st at La Flèche Wallonne




Sounds like he was doing quite well against the Euros right from the start.
 
Though Dr. David Black stressed that judgment in the Landis case should be withheld until further test results are made public - he was a lead defense witness in the case of former track star Butch Reynolds, who spent two years in court and was finally exonerated -The one thing he does know is that Landis is in for a rough time, regardless of the eventual outcome. Reynolds,

***whose botched drug test was handled by the same Paris lab as Landis'***


, suffered two years of mental anguish and lost his earning power.

"These cases can drag on for a long time," Black said, "and most people will always associate the accused athlete with drugs, even if it is proved conclusively that he was clean, as was the case with Butch. Depression can set in for the athlete because being accused of being a cheat is a very hard thing to deal with."
 
whiteboytrash said:
Your right... the race "zurich" is huge ! What is it ? Trofeo Laigueglia ? Never heard of it ! World Champion 93... nice win where 78% of the field pulled out because of the weather and the new white lines on the road which caused the riders to slip... Tour de Pont ? Isn't that race in the US where Europeans wouldn't even embarrass themselves by turning up... (almost as big as Kmart West Virginia Classic ! LOL !) what else you got down there ? Oh the stage that was gifted to Armstrong in the Tour because of Casartelli‘s death and because he was an hour down on GC.... Jezus these results are telling ! LOL ! :p
yeah not to mention he was allowed to solo out in the WC and ened up staying away. therre is no chance after that the peleton would ever, ever, ever, let him ride away again in a single day race. don't get me wrong he's got some really nice wins in there but hardly bettini-esque. it's one thing to get a few big wins. it's quite another to get a few ever year for years.
 
SaintAndrew said:
yeah not to mention he was allowed to solo out in the WC and ened up staying away. therre is no chance after that the peleton would ever, ever, ever, let him ride away again in a single day race. don't get me wrong he's got some really nice wins in there but hardly bettini-esque. it's one thing to get a few big wins. it's quite another to get a few ever year for years.
No one is allowed to get away in the Worlds on the last lap, and Indurain, a pretty good time trialist, couldnt chase him down. Can we stay on tpoic like read the above post about how the lab that tested FLoyds urine screwed up another athlete's.
 
limerickman said:
We know the test result.

Sample A Ratio 11:1

Threshold is 4 :1.

Landis A sample is nearly three times in excess of the threshold.
True. And alcohol use can account for an in increase in ratio "from 30% to 200%". Or up to three times the normal level. Floyd's doctor stated that his ratio is normally high (and will release the records to prove it). He didn't put a number on it, but multiply 3.5 times 3 and what do you get? Without drug use.
 
whiteboytrash said:
Facts are facts, American or not American, Landis took testosterone.
We don't know that yet, and if you insist upon it you're simply talking out your ass. For one thing, the test is a flag for many other substances besides testosterone (none of which work on a one-day basis).

We will know about it when they do the isotope marker test. Why not hang on a while and use brain before engaging mouth?
 
Ullefan said:
Fact: Testosterone ... was found in his sample, the day of his ride stage 17.
That means nothing. Testosterone is found in everyone's urine. Nor is that what the lab was testing for.

Read a little about the case before deciding to hang the guy.
 
limerickman said:
Indicators larger than a ratio of 4:1 are either down to naturally high testosterone levels ... or through doping.
Not true. Low epitestosterone levels cause a high ratio without high levels of testosterone. EpiT isn't affected by steroids, which is why they use it as a control. But the level does vary, and independently of testosterone levels.
 
DiabloScott said:
His T/E ratio is three times higher than the threshold, not the same as having three times the accepted concentration of testosterone and not evidence that he took extra testosterone although that's one possibility (but unlikely if his T was low). This is definitely one of the more subjective tests out there and I think he's got a good chance of beating it - which is not the same as being innocent.

So if the big deal is about having a high level of t and Landis didn't, rather having an unusually low level of e, then why do they test for the ratio between the two and not just test for the level of t?
 
House said:
1995
1st at Clasica San Sebastian
1st at 18th stage of the Tour de France
1st at Tour du Pont (3 stage wins)
1st at Stage 5 Paris Nice


1996
1st at Tour du Pont (5 stage wins)
1st at La Flèche Wallonne

We know from Stephen Swart that Armstrong started using EPO no later than 1995. He was on the juice during the 1995 Tour de France at the very latest. He also sought out Dr. Ferrari after the 1994 Fleche Wallonne, when the Gewiss team Ferrari worked for rode off the front and took first, second, and third places.
 
Tonto said:
So if the big deal is about having a high level of t and Landis didn't, rather having an unusually low level of e, then why do they test for the ratio between the two and not just test for the level of t?
Because the level of T varies so much naturally. The ratio is more stable. But it's still not all that stable.
 
DMF said:
True. And alcohol use can account for an in increase in ratio "from 30% to 200%". Or up to three times the normal level. Floyd's doctor stated that his ratio is normally high (and will release the records to prove it). He didn't put a number on it, but multiply 3.5 times 3 and what do you get? Without drug use.
No that's not correct. Alcohol has minimal effect and the alleged quantities consumed by Landis next to non-existent. It has been posted here and also on cyclingnews.com (can't be bothered to find link).
 
All these people saying that the test "proves" he took testosterone are full of it. The test only proves his T/E ratio was high. It doesn't prove anything else.

Personally I'm going to wait and see what the actual results of the test were before hanging him.
 

Similar threads