The more you look at the Floyd Landis case, the murkier it seems.
The facts that have been made public simply don’t add up. They provide no clear-cut explanation for why the 2006 Tour de France champion apparently was found positive for testosterone, a banned performance-enhancer, on only one of the eight doping controls Landis said he underwent during the race.
The U.S. cyclist’s public relations blitz after his “A” sample positive test was announced Thursday–CNN’s “Larry King Live,” NPR’s “All Things Considered,” ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” two teleconferences with U.S. media and a news conference in Spain–did nothing to clear up the situation.
Both Landis and Brent Kay, the orthopedist who has treated the cyclist’s bad hip, offered a few theories but no detailed information to support the cyclist’s denial of having used testosterone, a hormone that builds strength and can aid in recovery from injury or exertion.
“Athletes have been very successful in duping journalists for 50 years, and Landis could be doing a Gomer Pyle routine, for all I know,” said Penn State professor Charles Yesalis, an expert on performance-enhancing drugs.
“But a one-time use of testosterone would have been completely inappropriate for an athlete who wants a short-term boost. So you start brainstorming to think why he might have tested positive.”
This is what we know:
Landis had an elevated testosterone/epitestosterone level after the July 20 stage in which he improbably rallied from a huge time deficit to get back in contention for a title he won three days later.
Sources have told the Tribune that Landis’ “A” sample level was 11-1, confirming what was first reported by a German TV network. Any ratio above 4-1 is considered evidence of having supplemented the body’s natural testosterone with external testosterone.
An elevated T/E ratio leads most of the top anti-doping laboratories, including the Paris lab handling Landis’ analysis, to seek a second test based on carbon isotope ratio (CIR) that is said to provide definitive proof the testosterone taken was external. A French newspaper said the Paris lab did perform the CIR test and it showed evidence of external testosterone.
Analysis of Landis’ “B” sample–all samples are divided into two parts–will take place soon, probably this week. If it does not confirm the “A” result, Landis will be cleared of any wrongdoing. Relatively few cases, mostly involving EPO, produce conflicting “A” and “B” results. “I expect the `B’ sample to come back positive,” Landis said.
Landis said he has a higher T/E ratio than the average of 1-1 for men, but he did not specify what his usual ratio is.
Seeing red flags
“I believe you can’t win the Tour de France without drugs,” Yesalis said. “But there are a lot of red flags in the Landis case. You can’t forget that the French lab involved in the testing has been mired in controversy or rule out someone might have set him up.”
Unless he was framed by tampering with his urine sample, external testosterone in his sample would constitute a doping offense. Intentional or not, athletes are held responsible for the presence of banned drugs in their bodies.
A naturally elevated T/E ratio could be grounds for dismissal of the case. Studies have shown men to have variations in T/E levels from one test to another of up to 30 percent, according to Christiane Ayotte, director of the Montreal anti-doping lab. That means an athlete with a baseline T/E level of 4-1 could come up as high as 5.2-1 and still have a chance to be cleared unless the CIR test shows evidence of external testosterone.
“Elevated values are confirmed in triplicate for accuracy and the [carbon isotope] test is done,” Ayotte wrote in an e-mail.
Ayotte said an elevated ratio alone might suggest evidence of doping.
“It is not impossible to think athletes are having access to `human’ testosterone and, consequently, a `negative’ [carbon isotope] result for a clearly abnormal profile will not prevent reporting of a [positive] finding,” Ayotte wrote. “We had one such case two years ago.”
The nagging question still is why Landis’ T/E level would have gone over the allowable just once, especially given that experts like Yesalis and New York University medical school professor Gary Wadler think an athlete would have been highly unlikely to use testosterone for a quick boost. Its effectiveness is greatest with long-term application.
“If you wanted to cheat, there are so many other options which are more effective and wouldn’t have gotten you caught,” Yesalis said.
Possible explanation
One potentially plausible explanation offered by those familiar with doping practices is Landis, despite his professions of innocence, was using testosterone over the long term but either masking it or diluting it to avoid detection. That reasoning holds that the positive owed to making a mistake with the doping program one day.
Such mistakes are not uncommon. Several Dutch cyclists who died in the late 1980s are believed to have taken too much of the oxygen booster EPO, thickening their blood so deadly clots occurred.
“At this level of sport, an athlete has medical handlers and staff looking after things,” Yesalis said. “Is it possible one of them made an error or Landis broke the protocol they laid out? Yes. Is it likely? No.”
If the “B” test supports the “A” and there is no evidence of tampering, Landis may decide to question the reliability of the tests. However he challenges the result, Landis must do it under European rules of jurisprudence, where the burden of proof is on the accused.
Because most of the media commenting or writing about the case are so unfamiliar with doping and doping control, there is a tremendous amount of misinformation being disseminated and, perhaps, some rush to judgment.
“When you look at what we’ve done to Floyd, it’s almost like when we rounded up the Japanese-Americans and put them in concentration camps in World War II,” Kay said. “It’s almost this medieval witch hunt right now.”
“I’m not looking for sympathy,” Landis said.
Just answers. Like the rest of us.
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phersh@tribune.com
