Floyd Annoyed

I wrote a few columns about Floyd Landis, but none since the controversy surfaced that Landis may have used testosterone. Of all sports, cycling polices doping (or enhancement of ability by drugs) the heaviest. Throughout Lance's epic seven Tours, he was dogged by controversy. Surely, he must be using performance enhancing drugs. How else could someone recover from cancer to win seven times in a row? Yet, for all the testing that was done, no one ever found him guilty.

It was thought, for sure, with the controversy to start the tour, that Landis must be fine, because they just booted out a bunch of other bicyclists, including top contenders Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso.

When the news first broke, Landis's mother was asked her opinion. Depending on which article you read, she was either cautiously supportive, or ready to hang her son if he was found guilty. It goes to show you that when such reports are passed on, few seem to verify the context in which the comments were said. Such reports, out of necessity, edit interviews for a few key phrases, sometimes just one or two.

There are two issues at hand. First, did Landis use testosterone? This turns out to be rather interesting, since different people have differing levels of testosterone. How can you tell if someone has been using it unnaturally? It turns out, in most people, that the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is about constant, lying somewhere between 1 and 2. It was said Landis had a ratio of nearly 6.

The other test that can be done is to measure isotopes. Apparently, naturally produced testosterones have a certain kind of isotopes, and artificially produced ones have a different kind. It was reported that there was likely some isotopes of the artificial testosterone sort.

The other question, which is more relevant is, why wasn't this detected earlier in the race (Landis himself claims he just has high levels of testosterone)? And even if we here to take huge doses of it at a critical moment, would it even have anywhere near the desired effect? Those are important issues to answer. To accuse someone of doping is one thing, but it should fall within the realm of what is practially effective.

The next test, which for some reason has yet to be conducted or publicly announced, is not scheduled to be released to the public until tomorrow, more than a week after this news broke.

Should Landis be found guilty, his title would be stripped, and he'd be unable to compete for two years.

It's difficult to assess what's happening. Are these the kinds of charges similar to those that have dogged baseball? Or are they from folks that are nitpicking about drugs even in situations where it makes no sense that it would produce a competitive advantage.

As with reports of this nature (e.g., the Duke rape "trial"), there is often a lack of insight into what's going on. "Facts" are reported, but no deeper insight is dug into (at least, not as much as one would like). For example, how might one use testosterone to advantage in a bike race? Expert opinions and analysis are left aside, while the information is reported by both ends.