Russ Smith

A French paper has released a story claiming that samples Lance gave in 1999 during his first Tour De France win have all tested positive for EPO. As is standard they take 2 samples, an A and a B, if the A tests positive, they test the B. In this case Lance's B samples tested positive.

The key is in 1999 they could NOT test for EPO no such test existed so Lance's A samples were tested for known substances, passed, and were discarded, but the B samples were retained. Apparently they're now doing some testing to try and find a more accurate method of catching drug use and used some of the old samples and surprise surprise, Lance tested positive for EPO.

Lance of course denies it and says they admit the science is bad. It's a bit deceptive what they actually said was that they had no intention of acting on the test results because they only had B samples and it would not be fair to Lance to take any action since the A samples no longer exist. It's accepted practice to have to test 2 samples to make sure no error or bias was involved, since they only have the B samples, it would be unfair to take action against Lance. In other words, they didn't say the science was bad, they said to suspend him over these tests would break their own rules.

French cycling official in charge said he's never been part of the get Lance brigade but after seeing this study he believes the results are very compelling and Lance owes us the truth.

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“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

Russ Smith

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“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

Renz

The French press has been out to get Armstrong for years and have never come up with anything other than rumor and innuendo. Excuse me if I'm a bit skeptical about their latest effort.

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Stout

No kidding. They can't possibly have an agenda going after the American that's utterly dominated their little bike race, can they?

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Lead us to the promised land, Arians.

BigDavis75

I just watched OTL and they had former teammates saying Lance was doping and reccomending that they do it too.

Russ Smith

And the American press has an agenda too because Lance is a folk hero here due to his overcoming cancer. Both sides have a bias.

That said, the tests were NOT done by French press, they were done by scientists. They declined to reveal the identity of the rider who tested positive on 6 different urine tests, those samples are recorded under a number, not a name, for confidentiality. What the French paper did, was publish copies of documents signed by TDF officials, AND Lance Armstrong himself that they say show what his number was, and his number corresponds to the number on the 6 positive tests. What Lance is really disputing here is that the number is him, and he does this for a reason, he knows confidentiality rules prevent anybody at the TDF from confirming who that number belongs to. So he is going to just claim the documents are fake or incorrect.

If people remember years ago when rumors broke of numerous US athletes testing positive at the LA Olympics and it was covered up, the US press was quick to call it nonsense. It was the exact same situation, documents were found showing numbers but not athlete names and the numbers were positive drug tests. Only under pressure did the US allow them access to the database that showed who those numbers belonged to and lo and behold many of them were US athletes. That was because international olympic and drug organizations pressed for full disclosure to them (not public to my knowledge they have not named the US athletes).

I admit to a bias here I've believed Lance was doping all along and have stated that repeatedly. But when the head of the Tour De France himself studies the information and declares it to be "credible" and demands Armstrong respond with an explanation, I think it goes past the point where we can just say media conspiracy?

Lance has no danger here, he can't be suspended there is no A sample, so it's his word against the science so he'll just continue to deny it.The only way he can get in trouble over this is if he admits it, or if some other agency investigates and decides to go and test other years like 2000 and finds more evidence of EPO in his urine. note, the same year these tests were taken Lance was found positive for a cortical steroid but was not suspended due to the small amounts present and his claim that he didn't know a cream he was using for saddle sores was present in the cream. that steroid was banned months later and has been ever since. So when they tested his sample originally, that's what they found but at amounts that at the time were legal, now no amount is legal.

FWIW the whole point of the studies they're doing is they have years of old blood samples that couldn't be tested for EPO before but can now and they want a reliable way of testing it. They intend to be able to go back 8 years, the whole problem is unless they have both A and B samples, they can't take action on their own because it's impossible for the athlete to go back and give another sample.

__________________
“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

Renz

There are so many problems and questions with this report. First of all, how did the French press get ahold of the control numbers saying they were Armstrong's? Did they bribe someone and, if so, is that person credible?

Couldn't someone have changed the control numbers with another sample or tampered with the samples? Considering how hard these guys have been trying to prove Lance was doping, I wouldn't put it past them. The reporters have admitted that they can't definitively say that the samples are even Armstrong's.

Without the A samples there is no way to confirm if the tests received a false positive or were tampered with etc., so it will just come down to Lance's word against the French press. The people who want to believe that Lance used performance enhancing drugs will continue to do so and the ones who don't won't.

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Crazy Canuck

Tour director: Armstrong fooled everyone


Associated Press
8/24/2005 9:20:04 AM
PARIS (AP) - The director of the Tour de France says it is a "proven scientific fact" that Lance Armstrong had a performance-boosting drug in his body during his 1999 Tour win, and that the seven-time champion owes fans an explanation.

In a story Wednesday, Jean-Marie Leblanc praised L'Equipe for an investigation that reported that six urine samples provided by Armstrong during the 1999 Tour tested positive for the red blood cell-booster EPO. The French sports daily accused Armstrong on Tuesday of using EPO during his first Tour win in 1999.

"For the first time - and these are no longer rumours or insinuations, these are proven scientific facts - someone has shown me that in 1999, Armstrong had a banned substance called EPO in his body," Leblanc told the paper.
"The ball is now in his camp. Why, how, by whom? He owes explanations to us and to everyone who follows the tour," Leblanc said. "What L'Equipe revealed shows me that I was fooled. We were all fooled."

Armstrong, a frequent target of L'Equipe, vehemently denied the allegations on Tuesday, calling the article "tabloid journalism."

"I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance-enhancing drugs," he said on his website.

L'Equipe reported that six urine samples provided by the cancer-surviving American during the 1999 Tour tested positive for the red blood cell-booster EPO. The drug, formally known as erythropoietin, was on the list of banned substances at the time, but there was no effective test to detect it.
The allegations surfaced six years later because EPO tests on the 1999 samples were carried out only last year - when scientists at a lab outside Paris used them for research to perfect EPO testing.

The national anti-doping laboratory in Chatenay-Malabry said it promised to hand its finding to the World Anti-Doping Agency, provided it was never used to penalize riders.

Five-time cycling champion Miguel Indurain said he couldn't understand why scientists would use samples from the 1999 Tour for their tests.

"That seems bizarre, and I don't know who would have the authorization to do it," he told L'Equipe. "I don't even know if it's legal to keep these samples."

L'Equipe's investigation was based on the second set of two samples used in doping tests. The first set were used in 1999 for analysis at the time. Without those samples, any disciplinary action against Armstrong would be impossible, French Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said.

Lamour said he was forced to have doubts about L'Equipe's report because he had not seen the originals of some of the documents that appeared in the paper.

"I do not confirm it," he told RTL radio. But he added: "If what L'Equipe says is true, I can tell you that it's a serious blow for cycling."

The International Cycling Union did not begin using a urine test for EPO until 2001, though it was banned in 1990. For years, it had been impossible to detect the drug, which builds endurance by boosting the production of oxygen-rich red blood cells.

Jacques de Ceaurriz, the head of France's anti-doping laboratory, which developed the EPO urine test, told Europe-1 radio that at least 15 urine samples from the 1999 Tour had tested positive for EPO.

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.

Leblanc suggested that in the future, urine samples could be stashed away for future testing as detection methods improve - another possible weapon in the fight against doping.

"We're so tired of doping that all means are good as long as they are morally acceptable," he told L'Equipe.

Russ Smith

Those charges have been around for years Dateline NBC(one of those shows I get them all confused) had a story years ago where several members of the US Postal team admitted to doping and said that ALL the members of the team were given shots and not told what was in the shots and Lance got them too. Several members of that team later had serious "mystery" illnesses and came out because they suspected that whatever was in the shots may have contributed to them being sick. Lance as it turns out was I believe the 3rd member of that group to come down with cancer in his late 20's or early 30's. I realize cancer is pretty common but we're talking about a group of elite athletes, in the prime of their athletic careers, and something like 3 out of 12 came down with cancer?

Lance has also associated with noted cycling coach Michele Ferrari for over 9 years, Ferrari was recently suspended for 1 year after being caught distributing EPO to athletes, and only then did Lance disassociate himself from Ferrari. Note, Ferrari had been under investigation and a shroud of controversy for even longer than Lance has. People that say oh they've been out to get him for years, well they were out to get Ferrari for years too and they DID get him because he was in fact cheating.

People also forget that Lance was one of the first prominent athletes to contact Balco labs and demand they remove his name from their website or he'd sue them. This was right after the initial reports of Balco broke, Lance was one of many athletes that had an affiliation with Balco, how big of one is not known since he wasn't one of the "target" athletes like Bonds or famous sprinters who had so much evidence against them that the media focussed on them.

I'll just say this, the defense that there's too much margin for error on tests is valid, just as is the defense that there's simply too much smoke for there not to be fire with Lance Armstrong. Even Greg LeMond came out the last time and said it was hard to believe that there was a personal vendetta to get Lance and that he too was beginning to have doubts about whether or not he'd really been clean. People immediately said LeMond was jealous because Lance replaced him as the greatest US cycler in TDF history.

As Renz said people are going to believe what they want, but to me this is just one more piece of evidence that becomes harder and harder to believe is all part of some conspiracy. He hasn't helped himself at all by repeatedly pulling out of events that announce they're going to use the new and improved drug tests that nailed everyone at the Olympics, this years TDF was the first event that used those tests that he competed in and of course he had ample time to stop using something to make sure he passed the tests.

He's an amazing athlete, an inspiration for his fight against cancer, but none of that makes him immune to scrutiny in a sport so fraught with cheating.

__________________
“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

cards 24-7-365

I tend to agree Russ, But I must admit I am a skeptic of most high level athletes being clean. I remeber reading a quote by Charlie Francis who was Ben Johnson's coach "There are two types of athletes in the olympics; there are the athletes that cheat (use performance enhancing drugs) and there are the losers." - Yeah, you have to consider the source but I tend to believe that more are cheating than not cheating.

I also remember a few years ago when a massage therapist from one of the TDF teams that got busted transporting a bunch of drugs across a border - did an expose for Sports Illustrated. In the article, he claimed to have injected athletes with drugs while hanging out the window of a car driving next to the cyclist during the race. He also claimed that all the guys on his team were trained to give themselves an IV in their hotel rooms in case they got word of an upcoming random drug test. Diluting the blood with an IV used to be the way to beat the test for EPO. Again, we have to consider the credability of the source but we also had to with Jose Canseco who so far has been correct on at least one of his claims.

Note: the used to test for EPO by testing hematocrit levels in the blood (hematocrit level measures the level of red blood cells or hemoglobin in the blood. Hemoglobin carries oxygen in the blood - obviously something that would benefit a cyclist or endurance athlete. The problem is that everyone has a different hematocrit level - therefore testing is difficult. I believe a level of 60% was considered unnatural and therfore cheating)

I agree with Russ in that Lance is getting close to being guilty by association when you consider his coach, BALCO, the sport itself being one of the most tainted, and is unnatural feat. Either way, clean or not Lance Armstrong is an incredible athlete. The drugs do not "make" you great they just make you the "greatest", but they do not teach perseverance and work ethic. I believe that he probably wasn't doing/using the same things that everyone else was already doing/using and to win 7 in a row is remarkable.

Russ Smith

The latest is a rumor that one of Lance's doctors is now saying he "may have taken EPO as part of his cancer therapy." This is of course common, chemo causes anemia in many patients and the way they treat that is with synthetic EPO. The problem is of course, Lance has steadfastly denied EVER taking EPO, so it's a bit "convenient" for this doctor to now come out. The claim is he was on Lance's "team" for a short while so he's saying he's not positive if Lance used EPO or not and if he did, he's not sure of the time frame, he doesn't remember specifics. I have to wonder if a doctor in that field could treat a patient in a sport like cycling fraught with drug rumors and not remember whether the patient was on EPO, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

But it is a "perfect" way to plant the seed of doubt, hey maybe the EPO was for cancer, without providing enough evidence to actually check. Synthetic EPO doesn't stay in the body that long so if they told us when he used EPO it would be possible to backtrack and see is it plausible for EPO used for his treatment of cancer to still be in his blood during July of 1999? So by making the statement vague, the doctor removes the possibility of his statement being verified.


If Lance got EPO for cancer he should come out and say it, he should have said that before when it was revealed he'd taken steroids for cancer and he denied it and then one of his doctors admitted it. Again nobody faults a person recovering from cancer from taking steroids, it's quite common and to be expected, but when that person denies it when he did take them, you start to wonder why? And you start to think the reason why is he doesn't want to give any information out that can be used against him later.

__________________
“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

DjaugheOld

The french have been holding onto lance's urine since 1999?

Russ Smith

They've got urine from lots of guys for lots of years. Apparently that was intentional because they knew people were using EPO, couldn't prove it, so they saved samples so they could go back later when they had better testing.

Apparently it's not just France that does this btw.

__________________
“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

coyoteshockeyfan

"Armstrong has insisted throughout his career that he has never taken drugs to enhance his performance. In his autobiography, "It's Not About the Bike," he said he was administered EPO during his chemotherapy treatment to battle cancer.

"It was the only thing that kept me alive," he wrote."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050825/...mstrong_doping

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Card Trader

I love how the same people that give Armstrong a free-ride are the first to point the finger at Barry Bonds....