Latest L. Armstrong controversy

Originally posted by gull80 Not exactly. Anabolic steroids are restricted drugs, and their use is regulated by the DEA. Any physician inappropriately prescribing these drugs can be prosecuted and lose his or her license to practice medicine. Administration of epo, hgh, etc. strictly for purposes of performance enhancement is unethical and would trigger an investigation by the state medical board (and subsequent loss of license). I'd venture to say that the vast majority of physicians would never consider doing something like this strictly on ethical grounds ("do no harm"). In western Illinois and eastern Iowa, there are stores called Farm King. In each store there are very large cases that hold animal drugs. Antibiotics, steroids all sorts of things. They are relatively easy to get. The stores also sell farm & animal equipment. Once in college, my friend, his girlfriend (who I went to high school with), and I were shopping at one of the Farm Kings. In one section,they have horse whips, buggy supplies and harnesses. Pete & I put on harnesses while Anita acted as if she were whipping us to get us to push her in the shopping cart. We were having a great time. We were taken to the door by the store manager and told to never return to the store. many years later, I was raising money for a museum in Galesburg. The owner of the stores gave a very large donation. I wanted so badly to tell him of my past adventure in his wonderful store. My point though is thta steroids are very easy to get. I would guess that in any gym right now there are at least 3 people juiced.

Has anyone heard about the Floyd Landis controversey. First Lance, now Floyd. msn.foxsports.com/.../5822020

Frank, Thanks for the link to the story. I followed the Tour very closely and was inspired by Landis's performance. This news is extremely upsetting to me if true. It makes one very cynical.

You would think that with the high visibility and all of recent weeks and past years events you'd just about have to be a moron to think you could somehow, someway squeak by undetected, wouldn't you? I mean c'mon! You'd have to know you are going to be tested and detected especially if you win a stage or the event outright. Even coming in the top twenty or something probably runs significant risk of having to step into the trailer or whatever to produce a sample. Hopefully the second vial is clean. We'll see.

Matt, I think what you are missing is he tested positive for testosterone (or at least an illegal testerone to epitestosterone ratio), not steroids. edit: ok, I'm dumb. Testosterone is a steroid, but I didn't think it was used in the same way other anabolic steroids are, but I'm probably wrong about this.

Kirk,yes it is. It is the original anabolic steroid. Since it is naturally occuring it can be harder to check as you can only go by quatitative analyses. Perhaps only one test was high because the others were borderline and this day he was a little more dehydrated and his blood and urine more concentrated.Or maybe it's lab error and he'll be exonerated.

I am also puzzled by the reports and would like to hear more details before I know what I'm thinking. The part that caught my attention is that his steroid level tested high, considered beyond the norm for naturally occuring hormones, after Stage 17. Huh? Only Stage 17? That does not sound consistent with my understanding of how steroids are used to cheat effectively. If you are going to get the benefit of steroids, you use them while you are training for competition, and taper off (so you don't get caught) as the race approaches. You clearly get no benefit by staying off them, and then suddenly downing a whole bunch right in the middle of a competition. If my understanding is correct (medical types, please feel free to chime in), why in the world would he pop, but only in one test in the middle of the race? If he was on them, he ought to be showing steroid levels that are roughly consistent at every test over the course of the race. If we have one result that substantially differs from all his other drug tests, in a substance that confers no significant benefit if taken once on the day of the competition, I have to wonder about the validity of the test. So, I'm holding my judgment. However, if on the heels of cycling's well established history of drug cheating, if on the heels of large chunks of the pre-race favorites getting tossed out of the race because of credible evidence they were drug cheats, we now have verified info the winner of this year's tour was a drug cheat, I have a very hard time taking professional cycling seriously as a sport I'd care to follow. Matt

Testosterone is used during the training phase of CHEATING to increase muscle mass and help with recovery over a long period of time. It is of almost no practical use during the race phase. What he needed to help with his recovery after bonking during the 16th(?) stage was a nice infusion of his own predonated blood. Human growth hormone maybe, but no way would a dose of testosterone help him to recover overnight. Thus this seems VERY fishy. He knows he will be tested and he was tested previously when he held the yellow jersey earlier in the race. Conspiricy against the Americans?

Perhaps someone showed him the Amanda Beard pictorial- I know my testosterone level went way up...

I've heard a couple conflicting things now. On the one hand, I've heard that testosterone is used to aid recovery, on the other I've heard taking a single does of testosterone wouldn't help at all. So which is correct? At this point I really don't know what to think. I know a couple things: one, Landis is still innocent until we learn more. The other thing I know is that dopers always have an excuse.