I pretty much quit caffeine several years ago. Two nights ago, I had three glasses of iced tea at the local Drinking Liberally meeting, and at 4am I was still wide awake, prowling basic cable. ("Buenas dias, Sra. Cleaver. ¿Donde estan Wally y la Beav?") So this morning, after cycling downtown for a meeting, I'm having an iced (non-caffeinated) green tea, in the desperate hope of getting my sleep schedule more or less back on the rails again.
The point is, there's an obvious argument to be made that I don't <air quote>get</air quote> the whole concept of performance-enhancing drugs. That being said, it's with much more disappointment than surprise that I report that Floyd Landis's back-up urine sample also popped (as they say in the biz) for testosterone.
Floyd Landis was fired by his team and the Tour de France no longer considered him its champion Saturday after his second doping sample tested positive for higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone.
The samples contained synthetic testosterone, indicating that it came from an outside source. […]
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said Landis no longer was considered champion, but the decision to strip him of his title rests with the International Cycling Union.
"It goes without saying that for us Floyd Landis is no longer the winner of the 2006 Tour de France," Prudhomme told the AP in a telephone interview. "Our determination is even stronger now to fight against doping and to defend this magnificent sport."
Prudhomme said runner-up Oscar Pereiro of Spain would be the likely new winner.
"We can't imagine a different outcome," Prudhomme said.
If stripped of the title, Landis would become the first winner in the 103-year history of cycling's premier race to lose his Tour crown over doping allegations.
UCI lawyer Philippe Verbiest said Landis would officially remain Tour champion pending the U.S. disciplinary process, which involves a series of steps […]
This whole thing leaves me sad and puzzled. Again (witness The Caffeine Incident, above), I'm not expert on the ins and outs of cheating on drugs in sports but it seems to me that, if you participate in a sport that has a list of banned substances, either you wouldn't use them--or at least you'd take steps to evade/outwit the tests for them. Taking testosterone, winning the Tour, and then simply peeing into their bottle sounds about as sensible as stopping in the middle of a bank robbery to pull your mask off in front of the security camera and yell "Hi Mom!"
This is scant comfort, since it amounts to the following classic categorical syllogism: (1) Only an idiot would cheat without covering his tracks. (2) Landis is not an idiot and did not cover his tracks. (3) Therefore Landis must not have cheated. Logically flawless, but pragmatically unconvincing.
And of course there's the interesting side-angle of the French racing authorities who (like the suitors in The Odyssey who wanted to seduce Penelope but settled for bedding her handmaidens instead) tried for seven years to get Lance Armstrong but have to make do instead with getting his fellow countryman Landis.
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