The Straight Dope by Iron Pol
On Friday, September 21, the arbitration panel reviewing the doping case of Floyd Landis ruled that the positive test result that has stalled his career would stand. This ruling, which will result in a 2-year ban from the sport of cycling and his being stripped of his Tour de France title, is laced with controversy.
(Picture at left, Floyd Landis after his Tour de France victory. AP Photo)
First, there was a dissent in the ruling. While the majority held that the errors committed by the testing lab do not automatically nullify the second positive, the minority opinion raises an interesting question. Can a lab notorious for administrative and procedural errors, testing discrepancies, and flawed results be trusted? More importantly, if the lab screwed up the simple initial testing process, how can they be trusted to have properly complete the secondary testing, an admittedly more complex and challenging process? In the opinion of the minority, that trust cannot be granted.
Also intersting is the stance that Landis' lawyer has taken. If Floyd Landis is unable to vindicate himself in this case, it is senseless for anyone charged (rightly or wrongly) to even attempt to clear their name. Let's face it, the majority opinion admitted in their decision that mistakes were made, and the lab may well see future rulings dismissed if they continue the same practices used in this case.
Say what?!? Future cases will face dismissal, but this one stands? Here's an analogy. "We acknowledge that the evidence used to convict this death row inmate may be flawed. And we acknowledge the methodology used to convict said inmate may have been improper. In the future, such cases will face dismissal. But in this case, carry on with the execution." How would you like to be that inmate?
I don't know if Floyd Landis used illegal substances to fuel his amazing victory in the Tour de France. I do understand that there are valid and compelling questions about his recovery that tend to lend credence to the theory he did. There are equally compelling arguments that tend to support negating the testing as potentially flawed and untrustworthy (note, I didn't say "inaccurate," simply untrustworthy).
One thing is certain, though. Cycling (and hopefully triathlon) will not follow the same path taken by many sports, baseball in particular. Negative drug tests will not be met with a lackadaisical attitude. There will be no hearings 10 years from now about whether so-and-so was on steroids. The use of illegal substances, when identified, will be dealt with quickly and harshly. And defending oneself against such charges will be difficult.
That, of course, is the real challenge. How do we balance strict enforcement with equitable treatment? If a case riddled with inconsistencies and errors such as this one are still indefensible, has enforcement outweighed justice?
Doping is as old as sports by Everyman Tri
He now has the dubious distinction of being the first Tour winner to have his titled stripped and given to somebody else.
I guess that's something.
Basically, he and his defense team tried to discredit the testing lab used to test his blood sample by pointing out numerous sloppy mistakes in the testing procedure.
The arbitration panel ruled that while some t's were not crossed and some i's were not dotted in the testing procedure, this did not change the fact that his sample came back positive for steroid use.
Floyd, like almost every athlete caught with his hand in the steroid cookie jar, maintains his innocence. He and his team of lawyers now have three weeks to appeal the ruling to an international arbitration panel in Switzerland.
Good Luck with that Floyd as I really don't care anymore.
To me you are just another athlete in a long line of dopers who used every advantage possible to win. I found this great story about the history of doping on the NPR's web site.
Below is a short excerpt:
"Seeking an edge in sports is as old as the noble Olympiads. During the Greek games, athletes caught cheating paid fines. The money was used to erect statues of Zeus. These statues were placed along the passageway that led to the stadium, with the name of the cheater inscribed on their bases — a public humiliation, the precursor to bad press.
Some of the ancient Greek athletes were known to ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms — as well as animals' hearts and testicles — all to enhance performance, according to Charles Yesalis, professor of health and human development at Penn State, quoted in The Washington Post.
World's First Dopers
In other words, the ancient Greeks, fathers of democracy and Western culture, were also the world's first dopers. The Romans weren't much better. Gladiators used stimulants in the famed Circus Maximus (circa 600 B.C.) to overcome fatigue and injury.
In modern times, runners doped themselves with strychnine as early 1904.
Today's technology is, of course, more sophisticated. But the underlying problem remains the same: some athletes are willing to cheat to win, by doping or other means."
In the world of triathlon, it was very refreshing to see the 2004 women's Ironman winner Nina "the Machina" Kraft say, "Yup...you got me. I sure did use EPO. I screwed up" after she tested positive for EPO.
But instead of thanking her for her courage to admit the truth, most people vilified her as a doper.
I think that we missed a great opportunity to change the doping culture in our sport. It was such a breath of fresh air to have an athlete admit the truth. We should have used this opportunity to build and enforce a culture of clean racing in the sport of triathlon.
It could have been the cornerstone of a new movement of pride in clean performance that would have gone a long way toward helping to keep the sport of triathlon free of doping by an honest code of pride and personal race conduct.
Instead, I'm willing to bet that the next person to get caught doping at Kona will follow Floyd's example and come up with an imaginative tale of woe.
I'm guessing they'll insist that they just happened to get drunk the night before the test (and by accident of course) wonder into a steroid factory instead of their hotel, were they tripped and fell into an open box of unwrapped steroid patches.
Or perhaps they'll just just swear to God that they are clean, and point their finger at everybody and everything under the Hawaiian sun...while getting all lawyered up.
Non-Doping Cyclists Finish Tour De France by The Onion
PARIS—A small but enthusiastic crowd of several dozen was on hand at the Tour de France's finish line on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées Tuesday to applaud the efforts of the 28 cyclists who completed the grueling 20-stage, 2,208.3-mile race without the aid of performance-enhancing drugs.
Finland's Piet Kvistik, a domestique with the Crédit Mondial team, was this year's highest-finishing non-doping rider (142nd overall). Kvistik claimed the maillot propre, the blue jersey worn by the highest-placed "clean" rider, on the ninth stage of the race when the six riders who had previously worn it tested positive for EPO, elevated levels of testosterone, and blood-packing.
Click HERE for the rest of the story