What is the difference between Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong? Floyd Landis recently went from American bicycling’s new hero to just another cheat in the blink of an eye after his Tour de France win a few weeks ago. I have written constantly on this site about Lance Armstrong ever since he won his last Tour de France last year. In it, I stated that his drug woes would not end with his retirement, and I was right.
Floyd Landis has recently been back pedaling for his explanations on why his “A” urine sample had so much testosterone in it. He admits that what he said was a mistake, and that his lawyers should have kept their mouths shut. He was not thinking clearly and did not do much to defend himself because he was still exhausted from the 3 week race. That is all reasonable, but he does still have those two failed urine tests; his “B” sample also came back with too much testosterone. Floyd Landis is determined that he is going to find an explanation for why his test came back positive when he did not take any testosterone during the race and did not cheat. I have my theory, which I will expand upon below.
The question on my mind is, how is Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong any different? Both men need to defend doping charges, both men have been the spot light of the cycling world (if for different lengths of time), and both men have almost no chance of proving that they are innocent to the people that control the paychecks and the race results.
There is one very distinctive difference between the two, and one that I think people should bare in mind. Lance Armstrong has never failed a legal drug test, despite being tested more than any other athlete in history. The only time he has been known to take any sort of illegal (according to competitive cycling) performance enhancing drugs was when he was going through chemotherapy and was not competing, and needed to take those drugs to stay alive from the treatment. Even with almost 200 drug tests otherwise, Lance Armstrong still only has one tainted sample that was illegally obtained and may or may not have been doctored just to try to ruin his name. His name was cleared of that accusation earlier this year.
Floyd Landis, on the other hand, has failed a legal drug test. The sample was controlled, both samples were positive, and while the results make little to no sense they are probably fairly accurate that something funky was going on. Granted, the results should not have been made public until both samples were tested and it was known that he had cheated, but even grand jury testimonies get leaked sometimes.
And for a little bonus, here is my theory on why Floyd Landis tested positive for testosterone. This is my own theory, and I really do not know anything about this, it is just a guess and not even an educated one at that. It is an untested hypothesis with no controls. It does not have anything to do with lack of sleep or whiskey in any way.
My theory is that Floyd Landis was not taking testosterone during the Tour de France. It would not make any sense to take it; as a one-off procedure, it does no good whatsoever. It is the cumulative effects during training where you see any “benefits” (if you can call them that). He was also tested many times during the race, and never tested positive during any of those. It was only after his comeback stage at the end of the Tour that he had too much testosterone in his system. My theory is that he did in fact cheat, but that it was months ago when he was taking it. After he blew up in stage 16, I think his trainers injected some of his own red blood cells (or something to that effect) into him to get him back on his feet, and I think that the sample he “put in the bank” however many months ago was tainted and that is why he came back positive for too much testosterone. Not because he actually meant to take any.
That is just a theory. He could also have been sabotaged when people were trying to get him back on his feet. Maybe somebody slipped him something. I do not know what kind of security he had or how much he trusts his trainers, but it is possible. My first idea I think is more likely though.
That’s a very interesting theory. Quite frankly, it is not one I would have thought of. I don’t see why anyone would want to be an athlete and cheat. If you can’t do it by yourself, why do it?
The only thing that keeps nagging at me about Lance is that so many guys he used to ride with keep popping positive…
The Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago took a critical look at the drug accusations against Armstrong. The focus was on sworn testimony from his friends in a civil case that they never expected to be made public, so they were more likely to be candid and ‘honest.’ It certainly cast more doubt on his proclamations of innocence but remained inconclusive. Essentially, he dealt with some shady characters but no one know the extent of those dealings.
Yeah, I’ve read about that. The problems that I see from those “friends” is that they had a falling out with Armstrong before they started bad mouthing him, and everything that they have said about him where there were other witnesses besides the two of them (and Armstrong) has been refuted. I tend to believe a handful of doctors over a couple of vindictive folk. I could be wrong, but a leak from somebody saying that they may have done something (such as in Barry Bonds case) is much more convincing to me than somebody saying something about somebody else.
Then again, I also believed Rafael Palmeiro until he failed his drug test. But, he did fail his drug test, and should Lance Armstrong ever actually fail a test or somehow be proven that he is a doper, I do not foresee myself deciding arbitrarily that he is guilty.
The problem with cycling right now is that so many people are popping positive, no matter where they ride from. I doubt that you could find many guys that have never ridden with somebody who tested positive.