Brief article at CanadianCyclist.com yesterday, pointed out by a Portland-based pal:

Anti-doping Tests Flawed According to Study

The current issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism contains a study by a Swedish team that concludes current standard anti-doping tests for steriods will not catch many athletes that used the banned substances, and will provide false positives for as many as 14% of those tested.

Anti-doping tests look for synthetic testosterone by measuring the ratio of testsoterone to epitestosterone in urine. If the ratio exceeds four to one (4:1) then it is considered an indication of doping (extra testosterone has been administered through steriod use). It was this particular test that led to Floyd Landis being stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title, when his ratio was found to be as high as 11:1.

The study, conducted at the Karolinska Institute, showed that people vary genetically in their ability to secrete the testosterone enyzme, and therefore may not show excess ratios, despite having used steriods. Over two-thirds of people from an East Asian background showed the gene variant which would allow them to pass an anti-doping test despite using steriods.

Further, the study found a gene that can lower the level of epitestosterone in urine, leading to higher ratios and false positive results. The study says that these mistakes can be cleared by further testing.

WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) is reviewing the results of this study, and may have to revise or augment current testing procedures.

Now … I’m not an endocrinologist, so much of what was in the published article (linked below) is beyond me, but what I got from it is that depending on this particular genetic marker, up to 40% of people without the two main alleles for this particular gene NEVER tested above the 4:1 testosterone/epitestosterone level, and the highest level reached was only 5.3:1 in the two weeks following a testosterone injection.

On the other hand, subjects with both alleles for this gene had baseline T/E ratios above the 4:1 limit, and could generate false-positives in up to 9% of test subjects in standard doping tests.

So what does this mean?

Well, in Floyd Landis’ case, if he has both genetic markers, then it’s very possible that his initial ratio of 11:1 was a true false positive. But then there’s the results of the CIR test, which did show that some of the testosterone in his system was exogenous. However, there are still enough questions about the methods of the Châtenay-Malabry lab to cast doubt on the results of that particular test.

On the other hand, riders without the particular genetic markers, could microdose with exogenous testosterone and never get caught because their T/E ratios never exceed the limits.

It is extremely important is that WADA/USADA/IOC/UCI/etc look more closely at the protocols and a) unify/standardize them across the various labs, and b) seek the truth (and justice), rather than the automatic presumption of guilt and subsequent legal battles which cast a bad light on the sport as a whole … even if this means genetic testing as part of the so-called medical passport program.

Further reading:

1. Doping by mutant athletes undetected
2. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (March 11, 2008 issue)

Make your own judgments.

… to skip this year’s Olympics in Beijing.

Beijing pollution risky for endurance athletes

BEIJING (Reuters) - Endurance events at the Beijing Olympics could pose a health risk if they are staged on heavily polluted days, the International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday, although it was prepared to reschedule such events.

Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the IOC coordination commission, said there was a small chance of athletes suffering some damage to their health if they took part in events lasting longer than an hour, such as the marathon and cycling road races.

Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world and, despite a 120 billion yuan ($17.12 billion) clean-up over the last decade, air quality remains a concern for many athletes coming to the Olympics, already a lightning rod for rights protests worldwide.

We all know that not only is this an election year, but it’s an Olympic year, with the 2008 Olympic Games being held in Beijing this upcoming August.

With the recent crackdown by the Chinese government in Tibet, along with their ongoing support of the Sudanese government (which is contributing to the problems in Darfur), there have been a number of calls for an Olympic boycott.

I, for one, don’t think a full-scale boycott is the way. Then I ran across this article:

Calls Mount for Olympic Ceremony Boycott

PARIS (AP) - Moves to punish China over its handling of violence in Tibet gained momentum Tuesday, with a novel suggestion for a mini-boycott of the Beijing Olympics by VIPs at the opening ceremony.

Such a protest by world leaders would be a huge slap in the face for China’s Communist leadership.

Can you imagine the embarrassment felt if all the various world leaders opted not to attend the opening ceremonies, as they are currently expected to do? Can you imagine the further embarrassment felt if the world’s athletes opted not to attend as well?

Elsewhere in the article, it states:

Such an opening ceremony boycott presumably would not include the athletes, who under Olympic rules are forbidden from making any kind of protest at events or venues - including the opening ceremony. It’s not mandatory that every athlete participate in the opening ceremony.

I think that all athletes, especially the American ones, should skip the opening ceremony … not in protest, but because it’s not mandatory. And while protesting is banned at events and venues, I hope that there are some athletes who are courageous enough to stand up to the IOC, to their national Olympic committees, and to the Chinese and express their opinions on live international television, as did Tommie Smith and John Carlos 40 years ago in Mexico City, even though it meant their expulsion from the Games.

There are rules which are meant to be followed (i.e., those ensuring the fairness of the competition), and their are rules which should be broken at almost every opportunity (i.e., those meant to suppress free expression and dissent, because they might prove an embarrassment).

Landis to appeal split decision ruling : Bike Biz

The three-man panel appointed by the US Anti Doping Authority to sit on the Floyd Landis hearing handed down a 2 to 1 decision against Landis on September 20th.

Both the majority decision and the dissent are available from the USADA website. Click on 2007. The majority decision is an 84-page PDF. The dissent is 26 pages.

The dissent by attorney Christopher Cambell, who has a long record of finding against athletes in doping hearings, was scathing of the anti-doping hearing procedures and severely critical of the Parisian drug-testing lab at the centre of the Landis case. The other two panel members were also critical of the French lab, throwing out the original screening tests, but deeming other results to be above board.

Regardless of whether or not Landis is actually guilty of doping, the fact remains that the system is fucked up, and the athletes are the ones getting screwed. Unless and until WADA and the IOC start holding their laboratories to the same high standards that a court would (at least, an American court, since I’m not as familiar with the justice systems in other nations), then there will always be questions.

Had this case been tried in a criminal court in the United States, it is very likely that Landis would have been found not guilty because there is certainly a reasonable doubt based on the inconsistencies in the lab reports. In a civil court, where preponderence of the evidence is the standard, the outcome is less clear, but on balance, if I were a juror, I would still find for Landis.

This doesn’t mean I think he is innocent; there is a vast difference between not guilty and innocent, but as Blackstone’s Formulation states, “it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”

If a guilty Landis ultimately manages to win his case, and forces change so that riders like Jason Sager and Bart Gillespie don’t have to deal with the bullshit they endured within the past couple of years, then it’s worth it.

Unfortunately, USADA and WADA seem to prefer Bismarck’s Complement, which states that “it is better that ten innocent men suffer, than that one guilty man escape.”

An open email to WADA and USADA:

Jean-François Lamour, Vice President of WADA recently stated on the WADA website:

“In 1987, a counter-analysis completely exonerated me and annulled the results of the A-sample that were performed by the Macolin laboratory in Switzerland. A laboratory that, following several similar errors harming other athletes, had its accreditation withdrawn by the International Olympic Committee several weeks later.”

If athletes were able to have their count-analyses done at a different lab than the one that performed the initial analysis in the 1980s, why is that option not available to athletes now?

The LNDD in Châtenay-Malabry is obviously not following protocols by allowing results of tests to be leaked to the French national press before any counter-analyses can be performed, and yet athletes have no recourse.

Yet the Vice President of WADA was exonerated by having his samples tested elsewhere.

Shouldn’t the goal of USADA and WADA be to seek the truth in doping cases? Shouldn’t the goal of USADA and WADA to be fair to their athletes?

Why is Jason Sager still banned, when THREE other athletes who committed the same infraction were either a) not banned at all, in the case of Bart Gillespie, or b) had their suspensions overturned, in the cases of Cale Redpath and Alice Pennington?

Why the double-standard?