Common Sense

The New York Times just put a story up on the Web that quotes someone inside the International Cycling Union claiming Floyd Landis’ B sample of urine from Stage 17 of the Tour de France has synthetic testosterone in it.

During a news conference in Madrid on Friday, Landis said: “We will explain to the world why this is not a doping case, but a natural occurrence.” He explained that the testosterone levels throughout his career were “natural and produced by my own organism.”

But the French national antidoping laboratory in Châtenay-Malabry performed a carbon isotope ratio test on the first of Landis’s two urine samples provided after Stage 17 of the Tour de France, said the person, who works in the cycling union’s antidoping department. That test was done after Landis’s ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone was found to be more than twice the allowed under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, the person said. The rules limit the ratio to four to one. The normal range is between one to one and two to one.

Landis’s personal doctor, Dr. Brent Kay, of Temecula, Calif., said the initial result was a false positive. He did, however, acknowledge that the test found a ratio of 11 to 1 in Landis’s system. He and Landis are seeking an explanation for that high level.

Breathlessly, I have to ask: Who cares? It’s not like this is baseball. Big deal if he cheats at a bicycle race. It only really matters to the French anyway.

Barring that defense, there isn’t much of an explanation for why he would have synthetic testosterone in his blood unless he put it there… or if someone put it there without his knowledge in an effort to discredit the Americans. They couldn’t get to Armstrong so they went after Landis. Sneaky French bastards!

The New York Times just put a story up on the Web that quotes someone inside the International Cycling Union claiming Floyd Landis’ B sample of urine from Stage 17 of the Tour de France has synthetic testosterone in it.

During a news conference in Madrid on Friday, Landis said: “We will explain to the world why this is not a doping case, but a natural occurrence.” He explained that the testosterone levels throughout his career were “natural and produced by my own organism.”

But the French national antidoping laboratory in Châtenay-Malabry performed a carbon isotope ratio test on the first of Landis’s two urine samples provided after Stage 17 of the Tour de France, said the person, who works in the cycling union’s antidoping department. That test was done after Landis’s ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone was found to be more than twice the allowed under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, the person said. The rules limit the ratio to four to one. The normal range is between one to one and two to one.

Landis’s personal doctor, Dr. Brent Kay, of Temecula, Calif., said the initial result was a false positive. He did, however, acknowledge that the test found a ratio of 11 to 1 in Landis’s system. He and Landis are seeking an explanation for that high level.

Breathlessly, I have to ask: Who cares? It’s not like this is baseball. Big deal if he cheats at a bicycle race. It only really matters to the French anyway.

Barring that defense, there isn’t much of an explanation for why he would have synthetic testosterone in his blood unless he put it there… or if someone put it there without his knowledge in an effort to discredit the Americans. They couldn’t get to Armstrong so they went after Landis. Sneaky French bastards!