This will suck if it turns out to be true. Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
It's hard to give credit to anything published by this tabloid, as they have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims against him all along. If they'd had any intention of doing anything other than smearing his reputation they would have passed the evidence on to a more reputable news organization...
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Separately, the lab said it could not confirm that the positive results were Armstrong's. It noted that the samples were anonymous, bearing only a six-digit number to identify the rider, and could not be matched with the name of any one cyclist.
However, L'Equipe said it was able to make the match.
On one side of a page Tuesday, it showed what it claimed were the results of EPO tests from anonymous riders used for lab research. On the other, it showed Armstrong's medical certificates, signed by doctors and riders after doping tests - and bearing the same identifying number printed on the results.
L'Equipe is owned by the Amaury Group whose subsidiary, Amaury Sport Organization, organizes the Tour de France and other sporting events. The paper often questioned Armstrong's clean record and frequently took jabs at him - portraying him as too arrogant, too corporate and too good to be real.
"Never to such an extent, probably, has the departure of a champion been welcomed with such widespread relief," the paper griped the day after Armstrong won his seventh straight Tour win and retired from cycling.
I think these results are fishy - defintely not a smoking gun. I don't believe it yet, and considering the source, plan on giving Armstrong the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Yeah, I'm not willing to believe it either.
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
quote:Originally posted by TheHumanTarget: It's hard to give credit to anything published by this tabloid, as they have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims against him all along. If they'd had any intention of doing anything other than smearing his reputation they would have passed the evidence on to a more reputable news organization...
I heard it on NPR this morning... are they trying to smear his reputation too? Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
The allegations sound a bit tenous to me. The magazine accusing him of it has hated him from the beginning. And why would he do it on the first tour, and on no others after that?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Testing 6-year-old anonymous samples? It looks like a witch-hunt.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
Epo is actually a medication given to people if chemo has made them anemic. How long after his chemo was this sample? I suppose quite a long time. Anyway, given how extensive his cancer was if his red cells were low I wouldn't call it cheating to take epo, necessarily.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
EPO is an extremely unstable drug which requires conjugating it with a protein solution then freezing it at minus80degreesCelsius/minus112degreesFahrenheit to keep it from self-destructing in long-term storage. I very much doubt that the lab mixed the urine samples with the proper proteins, or that they kept the samples frozen at minus80degreesC/minus112degreesF. I entertain some doubt that even protein-buffered EPO would be able to survive in a hardfrozen bi-ammonia solution (ie urine) for any significant period of time.
In other words, I'd be investigating the finances of the technicians involved for evidence of bribes paid by L'Equipe to manufacture the slander to sell papers.
[ August 24, 2005, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
maui babe, did NPR make allegations, or merely report that a French tabloid had?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Wow, I don't know why anyone would take either the director or the tabloid seriously.
quote:Separately, the lab said it could not confirm that the positive results were Armstrong's. It noted that the samples were anonymous, bearing only a six-digit number to identify the rider, and could not be matched with the name of any one cyclist.
However, L'Equipe said it was able to make the match.
The Director said that this was conclusive proof, and the rag said it knows better about lab results than the lab who made them.
Definitely nothing BUT a witch-hunt.
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
Maui Babe, your sarcasm is misplaced.
NPR didn't do anything other than pass on the story by L'Equipe. No additional investigation has occurred.
Oh...and Posted by bunbun (Member # 6814) on :
These rumors have been circulating for a while--I think the last time they were also initiated by L'Equipe. Aspectre also raises an interesting point.
My big concern would be the chain of custody on the samples. After six years, it's the lab's word as to who had access to them and how well they were stored.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
My question is how do they tell the difference between the drug and erythropoetin manufactured by the body?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I know Lance took Pro-Crit when he was getting treatment. Seems to me if anyone is entitled to take such a drug, he was.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
Exactly. That is the purpose of the drug.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Great! Another fine piece of French fiction. I'll shelve that one right beside "How I Won the Great War" by Charles de Gaulle.
Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :
My first thought when I read the about the report in today's paper was, "Great the French tabloids are at it again." My second thought was, "A former cancer patient taking something to boost his red blood counts? What a terrible crime if true!"
Does anyone else wonder how the French newspaper would have found a matching number on a report that just happened to have Armstrong's name on it when all they would have had originally would be the number unless they were already prepared to accuse Armstrong before they found out it was him?
For seven years Lance Armstrong was the most tested athlete in sports and not once was he tested positive. I'm ready to give him the benefit of the doubt and then some until someone shows me something really credible.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I know Lance took Pro-Crit when he was getting treatment. Seems to me if anyone is entitled to take such a drug, he was.
That use was approved by the UCI. It was fully acknowledged and legal.
Chances that EPO he was given while under chemo therapy were still in his system nearly two years later during the 1999 TDF are infinitesimal. For treatment of the critically ill, the biggest problems with Pro-Crit and Epogen is that the effects are too short lived. They must be administered weekly or bi-weekly. The newer erythropoetin type drugs have been developed specifically to address this problem. If Lance had EPO in his urine in 1999, it wasn't from his cancer therapy.
As a side note, if L'Equippe was able to identify Lance from the information published in nature it was a serious breech of ethics. In research involving human subject, all samples must be de-identified so that it is impossible to trace the result back to a particular individual. Numbers used in the study should never have been the same as numbers found on forms that contained the subjects name.
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
Hmmm, aspectre, I'm no biochemist, but I was under the impression that all biological samples are stored in a -80 freezer when not in use for a period of longer than a few minutes (and for that period they're kept on ice. In fact, you have to be careful not to hold the sample for more than a few seconds, and even then only with your fingertips. Standard procedures and all). I'm pretty sure a -80 freezer is standard fare for all biological labs.
And, for that matter, the storage solution is one to approximate physiological conditions. Wait, don't tell me, the site where you looked this up said .2% BSA, .1 M sodium chloride, .1 M salt buffer of their choice. The urine samples are probably pretty stable, even given the extra acid. Of course, they couldn't be refrozen, but that's not what we're talking about here.
I could be wrong about the stability of EPO, but accusing them of accepting bribes? Please.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Makes more sense than Lance being found guilty of doping based on this "evidence", though...
Then again, Occam's razor isn't that useful of a tool... Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:That use was approved by the UCI. It was fully acknowledged and legal.
Yep. I know about the pro-crit because I worked the Ortho booth at ASCO two years in a row, and I saw that video about a million times.
I know the effects are short-lived, but would it be possible something could stick around that would screw up a test? I know nothing about biochem, but if they were using an indirect test, a similar-acting substance might register a false positive.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Normally I'm on the side of the testers. But so many things stink of an anti-US bias in cycling right now. Basically we brash Americans are coming in and beating them at their own game. How dare we? I (contrary to my normal stance in these instances) believe Tyler is still innocent too.
AJ
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I LOVE how they aplauded his retirement, it really showed how pathetic they are and how much they resent him.
If we had a race here and an American paper, even a rag like that one, published those types of stories about a French rider, or our spectators tries to know a French rider off his bike during a race, how would THEY react? Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:GENEVA -- Cycling's governing body said Friday it had received no evidence of doping by Lance Armstrong and criticized world doping authorities and a French sports newspaper for making allegations against the seven-time Tour de France champion.
"The UCI has not to date received any official information or document" from anti-doping authorities or the laboratory reportedly involved in the testing of urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France, the cycling federation said.
Allegations that EPO was found in Armstrong's 1999 urine samples were first reported by the French sports daily L'Equipe last month.
Armstrong has angrily denied the charges, saying he was the victim of a "witch hunt." He questioned the validity of testing samples frozen six years ago, and how the samples were handled.
UCI said it was still gathering information and had asked the World Anti-Doping Agency and the French laboratory for more background. It also wanted to know who commissioned the research and who agreed to make it public.
"How could this be done without the riders' consent?" the UCI said.
It also asked WADA to say if it allowed the results to be disseminated, which UCI says is a "breach of WADA's anti-doping code."
"We have substantial concerns about the impact of this matter on the integrity of the overall drug testing regime of the Olympic movement, and in particular the questions it raises over the trustworthiness of some of the sports and political authorities active in the anti-doping fight," the UCI said.
UCI president Hein Verbruggen has asked for harsh sanctions against dopers and suggested Armstrong should face sanctions if here were shown to be guilty.
He also told Friday's Le Figaro that Armstrong had proposed before the Tour that all of his urine samples be kept for tests over the next 10 years.
UCI said it was still "awaiting plausible answers" to its requests to WADA and the laboratory.
it goes on to slam pretty much everyone involved in the disclosure.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Lance has said that thanks to this he is now considering coming ouot of retirement for next years tour.
How cool would THAT be? Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Magnificent.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Not so cool. Let him stay retired.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I think it would be VERY cool...he said that this crap has pissed him off, and that it has woken up his competitive fire.
These alligations are all just hype and excuses, and he might come back and make them eat it. Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
He already made them "eat it" for the last six tours (assuming that he didn't make them "eat it" on the first). It's not like he has anything to prove.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
1) LanceArmstrong had been undergoing constant medical testing at a University of Texas physiology lab since he was first selected for the team, including some tissue and many many blood and urine tests. So the University of Texas would have had to be deeply involved in illegal doping, or Armstrong would have had to be clean.
2) Now, out of all the 1999 Tour de France athletes' urine samples selected at random, what are the odds that most of them would have been Armstrong's? Or that all of Armstrong's samples would have been destroyed in real testing? A urine sample contains genetic material from the donor. The only reason that the laboratory could have had for destroying all six samples in "testing" would have been to prevent Armstrong from being able to immediately prove that the charges were false.
3) If Armstrong's 1999 performance were in any way enhanced by drugs, he shouldn't have won the next sixTours in which there was drug testing.
When a lab's "results" are statisticly absurd, and in direct contradiction of independent (UofT) monitoring and of future performances, the problem is in the lab, not in the person being "tested".
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