As some of you may have noticed, I have been keeping up with the science of Floyd Landis's failed drug test in a rather long post here.
In the post, I mentioned that there is another test besides the Testosterone to Epitestosterone ratio (the test he already failed) that they can use to check whether the testosterone is synthetic or not. This test exploits the difference in the carbon isotopes in synthetic as opposed to natural testosterone (there is an explanation of that in the earlier post).
Anyway, it turns out my man Floyd is busted -- he failed the isotope test:
Tests performed on Floyd Landis's initial urine sample showed that some of the testosterone in Landis's body came from an external source and was not naturally produced by his own system, according to a person at the International Cycling Union with knowledge of the results.That finding contradicts what Landis has claimed in his defense since the disclosure last week that he tested positive for an elevated ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone after his decisive performance in Stage 17 of the Tour de France. Landis won that stage in the Alps and improbably climbed to third place over all after he had struggled and plunged to 11th place the day before. He went on to claim the Tour title.
During a news conference in Madrid on Friday, Landis said: "We will explain to the world why this is not a doping case, but a natural occurrence." He explained that the testosterone levels throughout his career were "natural and produced by my own organism."
But the French national antidoping laboratory in Chatenay-Malabry performed a carbon isotope ratio test on the first of Landis's two urine samples provided after Stage 17 of the Tour de France, said the person, who works in the cycling union's antidoping department. That test was done after Landis's ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone was found to be more than twice the allowed under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, the person said. The rules limit the ratio to four to one. The normal range is between one to one and two to one.
Landis"s personal doctor, Dr. Brent Kay, of Temecula, Calif., said the initial result was a false positive. He did, however, acknowledge that the test found a ratio of 11 to 1 in Landis's system. He and Landis are seeking an explanation for that high level.
As you can see, they also mention that his original T/E ratio was 11. A good argument could be made that a T/E ratio of 5ish is still within normal variation and could be a false positive. For T/E ratio of 11, a good argument can't really be made. (There is a bell curve for the natural values at the bottom of my earlier post.) Add this to the observation that the testosterone is synthetic, and I think we have ourselves testosterone user. They mention in the article that there is still some retesting to do with other samples, but I can't concieve of a way that those samples would produce differing results.
What actually still puzzles me is why he would use it? We have been have a debate in the earlier post about whether it testosterone would have been effective for helping him win the race. I tend to fall on the side of No, primarily testosterone is not as a stimulant. Also, though some people mentioned the use of testosterone to aid muscle recovery, even then the time course for the action of steroids is not overnight -- it is weeks to months. I find it difficult to believe that one injection the night before would matter.
So how do we explain this result? Here is my hypothesis, speculative as it might be:
Floyd Landis got scared. He was getting toasted eight ways from Sunday, and he decided to inject himself on a whim. He had been using testosterone before so he had access to it. (Whether or not the testosterone caused his hip injury is not clear but possible. Again read my earlier post for an explanation.) Not realizing that there was no way that it would help, he injects himself. However, because he doesn't know better, it provides that needed placebo -- that added mental edge -- that helps him come from behind to regain the lead. He doesn't know that it won't substantially improve his endurance, so he pushes it that little bit harder.
What do you think? Admittedly a trainer could have spiked his salad (oral testosterone is available) so he may never have known. But my theory is that he got scared that he would lose and did something very stupid.
Hat-tip: Give Up Blog.
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My conspiracy theory still accounts for all the data. Landis is being framed by someone with access to his samples. You heard it here first.
Perhaps you could look into who has access to the samples. Does someone witness the uh, urine dispensal? At what point are the 'A' and 'B' samples separated? What is the chain of possession? Are any sort of anti-tamper seals put on the containers?
Any possibility the beer, jack, or cortisone could contribute to the synthetic testosterone?
He's small guy, so after 2 beers and 4 shots (that's the current story, right?) maybe he was a bit wasted and didn't realize he was doping.
I don't know if you mentioned this or not, but I read that the short term effects of testosterone are more psychological than physical. Not psychological as in a psychosomatic effect, but that the testosterone alters your neuro-physiology such that you feel stronger and more aggressive.
Here's what I think happened:
Landis got whupped on the one big mountain stage and defeat was all but certain. Finishing 11th is nice but wouldn't pay the bills the way finishing 1st would.
He panicks and gripes to teammates/trainers. Someone pulled him aside and said "Psst here try this." Landis, being desperate, allowed himself to be injected (perhaps in the IV fluids he was given following his bad performance). He was assured (erroneously)that steroids take awhile to show up and since the race was just days from being over and he was not planning to race for awhile, he'd be in the clear.
I don't think it's physiologically possible to have a natural 11:1 ratio. The thyroid medication excuse is a total laugh, in my opinion. I'm a veterinarian and I can't find anything in the literature about any mammal reacting to daily thyroid meds with a massive surge in testosterone!
One question for the scientifically inclined: is there a gas chromotography type procedure that could be done to precisely identify the substance ingested? I mean, beyond natural vs. synthetic. The most commonly used testosterone injected by body builders is called Winstrol and is an equine product.
I don't think Landis would be that stupid. It's a given that the stage winner and the maillot jaune get tested after each stage. I know he's a professional athlete and all, but he is a cyclist so I can't believe he would knowlingly be that damn dumb.
On sportsillustrated.com Austin Murphy reported that a commonly used way of administering testosterone is via a patch. Dr. Fuentes who was involved in the Operation Puerto scandal was rumored to perscribe these patches to aid recovery. The way they would work is by placing one on your scrotum for six hours.
The conspiracy theorists are as pathetic as Landis' excuses at this point: 1) Landis & his Dr. Kay have CONCEDED that the testosterone test samples are, and will certainly continue to be, high; they KNEW in advance of the unusually high levels and their defense was that these admittedly high level were NATURALLY OCCURRING from Landis' "own organism"; however, sadly, 2) the carbon isotope testing reveals the presence of SYNTHETIC testosterone, so the NATURALLY OCCURRING defense falls flat on its face.
KUDOS to you for your diligent, informative & balanced look at this whole sordid affair -- it's time we pulled back the curtain & forced ourselves to look at America's & the world's sports doping pandemic.
I see your point. I forgot to invoke the Illuminati. All the best conspiracy theories invoke the Illuminati.
Jake,
nice work on some of the science behind testosterone testing. You raise some very interesting concerns regarding testosterone testing. For example, the graph you show on the distribution of T/E ratios among athletes almost certainly shows that the currenttly acceptable ratios are absurd. I count 22 athletes out of about 70, who had T/E ratios above 4! Thats nearly one third. Will your thesis committee allow you to draw conclusions like the two governing bodies have when you defend? Christ I hope not. Would you accept the results of DNA testing with that level of error?
All of this has really illuminated to me that the science behind this test is garbage and entirely outdated. Most of it done two decades ago. Another major problem is that they are ratioing T to E with abolutely no mechanistic basis. How many studies of T to E have been done in atheletes in the middle of the Tour De France after he has bonked one day, and performed astoundingly the next day? ZERO. Do you think you might find some flyers in that data set? My point being that there seems to be an acceptance of some unexplained "theory" behind this test when no real-world data has been examined critically.
Also, its pretty clear based on their complete and unquestioning acceptance of the conclusions from these data that most of the scientific types involved in testing for doping arent critical thinkers, they just run the test and blindly accept the numbers. Lets put the RAW data to critical analysis by experts in endocrinology, metabolism and GC/MS. We will find that they recomend that the current test be abonded because it is unreliable.
The French lab that performed the test should be shut down. At the very least Landis should sue them for millions for releasing results as an incomplete data set(even if he is guilty). Remember, this is the SAME lab that tried to imply that Armstrong was doping, and the evidence failed to show even a hint that this was true. Would you trust your diagnosis of cancer to these people? In fact, if you were really sick, and I mean really sick, and didnt know what was wrong; would you go to europe to get a diagnosis?
OK, so is it possible that Landis is guilty? Absolutely. But the fact is that we will never know because the scientific basis for conclusions on T/E ratios is poor at best. The isotope test may help clarify some things, but that test is also fraught with problems, and amazingly broad assumptions on carbon metabolism in plants and humans.
It is also unfortunate that Landis and his physicians and attorneys dont have the wherewithall to get some consultants involved in this that can guide them in what they say. The Landis camp is so unaware of how all of this is analyzed and what it means that they are making really silly statements.
Yes athelets dope, lots of them. Yes, the current testing schemes could potentially catch them. BUT, these tests are being done with 1985 knowledge and 1990 technology. The ability to rule out false positives and/or the ability to explain abnormal findings is pretty poor.
We see really really weird things in scientific tests, flyers and oddball results every single day. Lets have them provide the RAW data.
Providing bold conclusions without showing the actual data should always lead you to suspect something fishy.
Hey, remember the satellite picture of that tractor trailer truck that Colin Powell said (with absolute certainty) was a factory for bio-weapons?
Thanks for all your research! How badly did Landis fail the isotope test? From the info you've posted, it seems that the isotope test compares the C13/C12 ratio in the athlete's testosterone against other compounds in the same athlete. But is the rate of C13 and C12 incorporation the same for all compounds, and if not, would a sudden change in diet lead to a false positive? If the beer he drank is made from barley, which is listed as low in C13 in the info you posted, is incorporated into testosterone faster than into other compounds, this would result in a low C13/C12 ratio, which would be a false positive. Even if not actually incorporated faster into testosterone, a greater rate of synthesis of testosterone compared to the control compounds would mean comparing newly synthesized testosterone (reflecting the C13/C12 from normal foods in the new diet) against old compounds (reflecting the C13/C12 ratio from normal foods in the old diet).
What I think happened is after Floyd Landis cracked and fell out of the top ten he got scared and desperate and then the worst, he got drunk. Thus Floyd Landis is just another case what happens when drink is added to fear and desperation. It's such a common tale of woe as to need no other explanation.
I hope Floyd's innocent, and look forward to more details proving it. I don't have the scientific background to challenge the isotope test, which seems a hell of a lot more damning than a high T/E ratio.
But let's just suppose he were guilty of using something after his meltdown in Stage 16...he may reasonably not have expected to be tested on the amazing stage 17.
Strategically, what I would have expected to happen is for one of the contenders for the king of the mountains jersey - Rasmussen or Moreau, say - to do a breakaway. With neither of them being high enough in the general classification to make a difference, the peloton/other G.C. contenders would likely have let them both go (as they did in fact let Floyd and the rest of the breakaway go that day). Floyd could could have shadowed the other climber, and LET THE OTHER GUY WIN THE STAGE. He didn't get far enough to get yellow; Floyd would not have been tested on Stage 17 if he'd just made up the time, without winning the stage. They only test the yellow jersey, the stage winner, and 3 random riders.
But then everybody failed in the heat, and the difficulty of the stage.... What's Floyd gonna do? wait 5 minutes and 42 seconds for Sastre to catch up, just so he doesn't get tested? And thereby ruin his chances in the G.C. Wouldn't that make it look as if he melted down 2 days in a row (not exactly the way he'd like to make history on the Tour?).
If you assume he's guilty of taking a fast-acting testosterone patch, he may have been taking a calculated chance that it wouldn't push up his T/E ratios on a test - but it wasn't as big a chance as everyone is saying. He didn't have to win the stage to get back into contention, he just had to gain major amounts of time on his G.C. rivals.
Anyway, I hope we see some official data released (especially if they ban him from the sport!) and I hope Floyd can clear himself. But cheating in this way wouldn't have been as risky as it seems, if he didn't count on winning the stage.
I agree that the question as to why he would use exogenous testosterone for one day is a valid one. A sufficient explanation has yet to be given, there are no short term benefits to taking testosterone.
There is evidence that athletes spike in sufficient amounts of epitestosterone to "mask" the inflated ratio (T/E) that would be produced by taking exogenous testosterone. Could it be that he was taking exogenous testosterone (and epi) all along, and screwed up the night of the 16th stage, probably when he received the IV fluids? His doctor may have botched the ratio.
Time for a new doctor and maybe a few more lawyers.
While pondering this during a long ride a thought occurred that could explain the results, both chemically and physiologically, that does not sit very well at all with me. If Landis was using testosterone in the off season, thinking to increase his performance, and at or too near the same time, without thinking it all the way through, siphonned off a 'pint' (of blood)to use at a later date, then input the blood back into his system during the race, it would explain part of the great 'recovery' ( a 10% increase in oxygen/glycogen/lactic transport) and the 'sudden' appearance of the product in his system.
It was sad indeed for so much of this to be tried in the media, by leaked report and innuendo, but sadder still will be cycling and sport if Landis trully did cheat. Thanks for your research and explanations of so much of the science behind the hyperbole.
Ride on.
Landis is a cheat. He is dragging the sport through the mud in an attempt to clear his name through any means possible. You heard a range of stories and he himself saying it was naturally produced. This was before it was revealed that the test showed a synthetic compound. The motivation for doing so is clear. This was his last race at the Tour de France. His disastrous results day before the race would present the situation. Nothing to lose, since he was so far behind. But everything to gain with the chance of somehow evading the positive test or using high profile pressure and a publicity campagin to try to discredit the results. He drank an abnormal amount of liquid during that stage which is fishy in and of itself. Drinking that fluid could be a reaction to the symptoms of increased testosterone-epitest. ratio or it could be that he wanted to "relieve himself" several times in an attempt to clear his urine sample if he looked like winning. What is despicable about all this is that he clearly lied in press statements prior to the release of more detailed information about the results and that he is now on a quest to clear his name by any means possible, including the introduction of conspiracy theories.
I'm a medical doctor, triathlete and avid cycling fan and openly admit my bias of distrust towards the French. But this case seems rediculous and I can't come to any consclusion besides Floyed is getting screwed! Since the results of the A sample were made public I've attempted to search the literature regarding anabolic steroid use and it's performance enhancing effects. And I haven't turned up anything that wasn't already common knowlege - the discrete use of anabolic steroids would do nothing to enhance immediate performance. Steroids take time to work, they act by stimulating receptor molecules in muscle cells, which activate specific genes to produce proteins that aid in growth and repair of the muscle. It's very hard to believe that Floyd Landis ,his coaches, team director, etc were unaware of this fact. So the hypothesis that he got scared and injeted himself or one of his coaches got desperate and suggested it is outrageous to me. Furthermore, the only way I'd be convinced Landis used anabolic steroids is if past blood tests and subsequent ones came back positive. To my knowledge, they have not and knowing the "tight-lipped, we follow the proper protocol as outlined in the rule book" policy of the UCI - I think the public would have heard about it if they were positive. So I think we need to take this for what it is, an outlier and given the history surrounding the lab and UCI I would never rule out deliberate sabotage - especially pertaining to the synthetic steroids found.
Let me make one clarification to the above statement, maybe it is the UCI policy to only test for synthetic steroids on test results that return positive for an elevated T:E ratio, if that is the case then I think under these circumstances they need to break their own rules - which they don't seem to have a problem doing and retest the other samples for synthetic steroids if they haven't already and if they are still viable.
I would like to see the testosterone ratio levels for each day that Landis rode. It seems that if he suddenly had high ratios on the 17th stage that he would have a somwhat lower dose the next day as the testoterone catabolized. So there should be a decreasing curve not an abrupt spike and decrease to normal levels the next day. Anyone know how testosterone is catabolized over several days and what Landis' levels were on stages 16, 17, 18, 19, 20? This race is so important for athletes that duplicate independent lab sampling and testing should be done after each race to eliminate the possibility of tampering. Has a French rider ever tested positive with this lab?
Hey, I thought everyone would be interested in this. Read the article "Catchy Carbon" in the November issue of Scientific American about the accuracy of the CIR test."...if the body were able to make testosterone from an artificial compund-such as the cortisone athletes sometimes inject to reduce muscle inflammation-might the natural hormone carry a synthetic-looking finger-print, Hayes notes." Wasn't Floyd taking regular cortisone injections for his hip pain? Can't this explain the CIR test results?
I would be interested to see what you have to say now that the test results are public.
As many watching Landis comeback to win the Tour de France, I was suprised by the positive testosterone test. I have followed the stories related to the case and up until recently remained undecided as to whether Landis ingested synthetic testosterone or if there was some other reason for the high ratio (11:1).
I am not a professional athlete, however I am subject to random drug testing at work. Recently (the past 5 months) a steroid panel was added to these tests that included a testosterone ratio. I submitted to a random test a couple of weeks ago and did not test positive for any of the anabolic steroids in the test. I was shocked to say the least when my testosterone ratio came back 14.9:1! The doctor at the lab said its the highest ratio he has ever seen. I am currently being retested with a new urine sample at the same lab as well as a second lab that will run more indepth tests. I have also had blood drawn by my own doctor to be tested on my own.
I am a caucasian male, 37 years old. I work out five days a week and alternate between running (5-10 miles a workout) and weight lifting. I'm 5'11", 170 pounds. Since this affects my career, I am searching for possibilities for my result. This is the first time I've been tested and have never taken any type of steroid, or any other performance enhancing drug. If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it.
Paging Kevin Hannah -- I'd like to hear more of your story, and the subsequent developments.
Please contact me via the mail links at trust but verify.
thanks,
TBV