I believe Floyd Landis.
Let me clarify that. I believe Floyd Landis when he says his drugs test that showed on improper ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is not a doping case. I believe Landis when he says he did not dope and I rarely ever believe any professional athlete when they attempt to maintain some sort of innocence.
There are a lot of reasons for my belief in Landis. And yes, part of it has to do with the fact that Landis and I were raised in the same part of the world. Oh yeah, our backgrounds are very, very different. Landis comes from the country in which the people are almost reactionary in their conservatism – and then there is that whole Mennonite thing. As a kid, that type of belief or philosophy never was a blip on my radar. Living in Lancaster, I encountered Mennonites and Amish people enough to know who and what they were, but nothing beyond cursory introductions. That world never intersected with mine.
That’s because I come from Lancaster Township in a little area adjacent to the campus of Franklin & Marshall and Wheatland, President James Buchanan’s home. My neighborhood was about as urbane as Lancaster got and my neighbors were professors, doctors, lawyers and financial people – not a lot of diversity there. However, my high school, J.P. McCaskey, was a Benetton advertisement come to life. White kids made up less than 50 percent of the student body, while African-Americans, Puerto Ricans and Vietnamese kids encompassed at least 51 percent of the school’s population.
Needless to say, my McCaskey was quite a bit different than Landis’s Conestoga Valley. And frankly, I could never imagine any better high school in the world than McCaskey or a better place to grow up than roaming James Buchanan’s Wheatland or the quad at F&M. Thankfully, I left the Philadelphia area to return to my old ‘hood.
On the other hand, I’m sure Landis feels the same way about where he grew up. Imagine all of those endless miles though that perfect landscape on those forgotten country roads… what could be better than that for a budding cyclist? Yes, Landis clashed his conservative parents and fled to California in order to make his dreams come true, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a great athlete came from such a place as Lancaster County.
That tangent aside, knowing what I do about where Landis comes from makes it hard for me to believe that he took any performance-enhancing aid. It’s impossible, really. No, Lancaster Countians are not the worldliest or most sophisticated people one will ever meet. In fact, in some sense the stifling conservatism that chokes the region and limits its potential to be a really great place to live and visit can be classified as a social disease.
But the people from Lancaster County have a strong sense of fairness, right and wrong, and inert intelligence (common sense). People in Lancaster County do not reward or celebrate bad behavior.
That’s where Floyd Landis comes from.
It just doesn’t make sense. Floyd had passed 20 previous drug test until Stage 17 and then all of a sudden he flunks one? Really? And that point-of-view is not just coming from me, but from Dr. Gary Wadler of the World Anti-Doping Association. In an interview with ESPN, Wadler said:
It's certainly not one of the first-line drugs one thinks of for racing. Steroids can increase strength and improve recovery time and prevent the breakdown of muscle, maybe make him more assertive and aggressive. All of those could have some positive attribute. But most steroids are given in cycles [6-12 weeks] and in context of working out in a gym with weights. It makes no sense to me why an athlete would take testosterone the day of a race when it doesn't work that way. It doesn't make sense in terms of the pharmacology of the drug, and it really doesn't have the attributes that would be attractive to a cyclist -- particularly one running the risk of violating anti-doping regulations.
Everybody knew the spotlight was on cycling. For eight years, the world has been watching cycling particularly closely. It would be the ultimate form of denial, or the ultimate sense of invincibility, to think you're going to evade that. And when the pharmacology of the drug doesn't really, in my judgment, seem like a drug of particular note to a cyclist, it doesn't really compute.
Charles Yesalis, the renowned excercise and sports science professor from Penn State, agrees with Wadler, saying in interviews that he doesn't understand why Landis would dope.
"The use of testosterone makes zero sense," Yesalis said in an interview. "If he wanted a boost in his performance it makes no sense to use it.
"Testosterone is a training drug. You don’t use it during the event."
At the same time, as an endurance athlete with 12 marathons under his belt who is currently logging 100-plus miles weekly in preparation for another marathon in mid-November (sportswriters should be involved in sports, right?), I know what hard training does to the human body. Obviously, I’m nowhere near Landis elite level – no one is – but running and biking are similar in many regards. One of those is that hard running and hard biking alter a person’s body chemistry.
My epitestosterone levels are on the low side. That’s just the way it is when a person runs 15 miles a day for an average. My guess is that if I were to take the same drug test Landis took after his Stage 17 victory last week in the Tour de France, my testosterone to epitestosterone ratio would not be 1:1 as it’s supposed to be for a normal, everyday person.
And I have never touched any performance-enhancing drugs in my life. I don’t even know what a steroid or any of that garbage looks like and I would have no idea how to use or inject it. If caffeine, Ibuprofen, Clif Bars and banana, strawberry and blueberry smoothies are performance enhancing, I’ll fail every test.
So it’s not surprising that Landis’s ratio was 4:1 or 5:1 or even 6:1. As explained by AP medical writer Lindsey Tanner, it isn’t far fetched. The testosterone to epitestosterone test really seems to be bad science – no matter what Draconian zealot Dick Pound says.
The point is I find it hard to believe that Floyd’s testosterone levels were high. They actually were probably lower than average. It’s just that pesky epitestosterone was probably much lower.
This is a very, very important distinction, because the test Landis took is generally used to detect doping. From The New York Times:
The key is to look at the pattern of Landis’s tests and see if his testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio is consistent or whether it varied, said John McKinlay, the senior vice president and chief scientist at the New England Research Institutes.
"You don’t get variations in human beings," he said. "If there is a spike that coincides with that day when he did fantastically well, that answers the question."
Unless, of course, alcohol raised his testosterone level. Or unless the test was in error. Or unless the B sample shows a normal ratio, in which case he would be cleared.
But the test will not detect a specific drug used or if the shots of Jack Daniels that the Wall Street Journal reported Landis indulged in after his nightmare Stage 16 collapse caused the epitestosterone levels to dip so much.
But if it is higher than a normal realm, well, Floyd has some 'splaining to do.
I also believe Landis when he says he is not optimistic about the "B" samples exonerating him. It’s hard to believe that Floyd’s nightmare will end any time soon.
Good reading on the Floyd Landis case
Austin Murphy talks to Landis for SI
Austin Murphy offers his opinion of the case
Outside magazine interview with Landis before the Tour de France
I'm not familar with too many of the biking publications other than VeloNews and some of the triathlon magazines, so if anyone has any links to decent stories regarding this case, please e-mail them to me. The thoughtfulness is much appreciated.
