Well, I Did Say, "This Was Impossible"
It was certainly a disappointment, though not a shocker, to learn in the last two weeks that Floyd Landis had tested positive for a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (effectively a very low amount of epitestosterone and not a high amount of testosterone, as many crap media outlets have reported), the day of his amazing breakaway stage 17 win that earned him the Tour de France victory. His incredibly poor legal team threw out a bunch of excuses and possible reasons for the result – personally, I would’ve just said, "Have you seen how hot my wife is? I need to come with the thunder every night, my friend!" But no, they trotted out explanations including drinking several shots of Jack Daniel’s the night before, and it being a natural anomaly of his system. Well, certainly the latter example was shot down when further testing (which occurs when a rider has a testosterone to epitestosterone level over 4:1), showed the presence of synthetic testosterone in his urine samples.

Now, I know several pro and semipro cyclists here in Atlanta and in Boston, and I know how prevalent drug use is on the relatively minor domestic circuit here in the U.S., so I am completely convinced that the entire professional peloton are doping. Yes, even Mr. Livestrong himself. And it’s not just cycling, every sport on earth is dirty, from baseball, football, and soccer to track and swimming. What surprises me at this point is that anyone actually gets caught. The doctors, trainers, and athletes are many steps ahead of the testing methods. So what happened to result in Landis being found guilty?

A likely reason could be the cortisone shots he has been taking for his osteonecrotic hip. Cortisone is, after all, a steroid. A synthetic steroid. Another possibility, mentioned by an in-the-know (and clean) cyclist friend is that Landis was hyperhydrated that day in the French Alps (he consumed over 70 water bottles during the six hours on the bike), which threw his whole body out of whack and caused the positive test – I’m not inclined to go with that one because Landis would’ve suffered from some of the serious side effects of hyperhydration and not finished the stage as he did.

Note that Landis had a ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone of approximately 11:1. Pretty much every human on the planet never has that ratio vary much from 1:1 – that 4:1 standard is an outrageous "acceptable" limit anyway. So something was very weird in his bloodstream. But again, the same was true for everyone else he destroyed that day. It still goes down as the most amazing day of cycling I’ve ever seen. Just with a bit of a caveat. And Floyd gets more respect from me than Mr. Livestrong. Clean or dirty, stage 17 was a brazen, jawdropping display of balls. Huge brass ones. And that’s cool with me.
- posted by Liebs @ 6:20 PM