Was the Testosterone/Epitestosterone Ratio Contrived?

It simply boggles the mind that the AAA Majority could invalidate the Landis T/E ratios. I have a good idea what the lab was doing and I have a good idea of what the political motivation was behind contriving a "high testosterone level" or "testosterone spike" that was repeated relentlessly by the press during the year long ordeal that Floyd Landis endured in waiting for the AAA arbitrators and USADA to commence with his hearing. Fact: Floyd Landis never had a high testosterone level and he never had a testosterone spike. These facts were contrived by LNDD in order to justify IRMS testing, in the hopes of turning up a result that would initiate an Adverse Analytical Finding by USADA and the UCI. The strategy of the imaginary testosterone spike was clear, to expose Mr. Landis as a "cheat," a man who used performance enhancing substances in order to gain advantage over his competition. A second aim was to persuade a gullible public. The T/E ratio needed to be high enough as to be regarded by experts as certainly suspect 11:1. Next LNDD would "leak" the story to l'Equipe which would in turn would shock the world with a sensational scoop and headline, Tour de France winner tests positive for a high testosterone to epitestosterone ratio. Shortly after the l'Equipe story broke Pat McQuaid did confirm that a rider had tested positive during the 2006 Tour de France in an interview with a New York Times reporter. McQuaid was quoted as saying that the situation was "the worst possible scenario." Needless to say, McQuaid violated UCI disclosure policy that prohibits comments on pending doping cases until the rider has a chance to review accusatory evidence. Immediately after McQuaid's interview press wires waged a vicious attack on the credibility of Floyd Landis essentially calling him a doper and a liar. Taken by surprise by the double sucker punch of the l'Equipe article and the McQuaid interview, bewildered by the charges levied against him, without access to the evidence against him, Floyd Landis gave televised interviews where his confusion was evident. Landis noted that after the Stage 16 bonk he had drank beer and whiskey, possible contributing causes of a failed T/E ratio. News articles savaged Mr. Landis with titles like "Cycling the Excuses." Phase one of the campaign had succeeded.

Query: What possible motivation could LNDD have to resort to such unsavory practices against a honest athlete who rode such a sensational stage to salvage his Tour de France victory? The answer is probably rooted in a vendetta against another Tour champion who survived repeated assaults against his character, Lance Armstrong. Landis was to be a pawn, first of a testosterone spike manufactured by a discreditable lab and then nailed to the cross by a equally questionable carbon isotope ratio test. A deal was probably made in advance, if Landis should show determination and win the Tour, USADA and LNDD would work together to fail Mr. Landis on a dope test and then USADA would offer Mr. Landis a deal. Travis T. Tygart general counsel of USADA would make Floyd Landis an offer, if Landis would "confess" Tygart could prove that (1) Armstrong and his entourage had the method, means and opportunity to defeat doping detection methods, (2) to expose US Postal as an organization that would resort to systematic doping during the Tour de France when Armstrong reigned as Tour champion, (3) strip Armstrong as Tour champion, (4) discredit the Vrijman report.

The Vrijman investigation was a UCI response to questionable LNDD testing protocol which found positive findings of EPO present in urine samples of Lance Armstrong. Vrijman wrote a scathing report which cited intolerable problems with LNDD. (1) lack of security by LNDD which invited tampering of the samples by LNDD personnel. (2) Lack of chain-of-custody by LNDD. (3) Leaks of sample results by LNDD personnel to a tabloid paper owned by Amaury Sport Organisation, l'Equipe, in violation of WADA protocol. In conclusion Vrijman said that LNDD positive EPO samples "constituted nothing" and recommended that the UCI take no action against any rider who tested positive for EPO during the 1998 and 1999 Tour de France. Dick Pound, president of WADA called the Vrijman report "delusional." The UCI agreed with Vrijman, disregarded Pound's deranged ranting, thus no riders were punished.

The Vrijman episode sowed the seeds of bitterness between WADA and the UCI and began a turf war over who should be responsible for doping enforcement in professional cycling. The stalemate continued until the 2006 Tour de France when for inexplicable reasons Floyd Landis "bonked" on Stage 16, to be followed the next day with a media orchestrated "miracle" recovery on Stage 17. The Stage 17 recovery was no miracle, Landis rode well within his own published SRM power training limits and distanced the peloton in what most cycling experts would agree was one of the best single stage comebacks ever. However, Stage 17 would give WADA, USADA, LNDD, and the UCI an unexpected opportunity, discredit the monumental achievement with a bogus testosterone spike manufactured by LNDD to be followed up by a bogus IRMS test that would confirm the presence of synthetic testosterone in Landis' "A" and "B" samples.

After LNDD had confirmed a testosterone spike in Landis' "A" sample Tygart immediately offered Landis a deal. Help USADA to discredit Lance Armstrong, and in turn USADA would ensure that Landis would receive "the shortest suspension in history." Of course, Tygart had an ulterior motive, to become head of USADA with a stellar resume as the investigator who would succeed where all others had failed, the public destruction of Lance Armstrong as confirmed doper. Confession of past doping by newly deposed Tour "winner" Floyd Landis would be a sensational coup.

Unfortunately, much to the consternation of Tygart, WADA, USADA, and the UCI Mr. Floyd Landis declined to accept Tygart's terms and he stated that he would rather fight publicly against doping accusations made by LNDD using a WIKI defense.

In response, LNDD, WADA, and USADA launched an immediate plan of attack to counteract Mr. Landis' intention to post the Lab Document Package on the Internet for examination by GC/MS and GC/C/ IRMS experts. WADA and USADA were also worried that the public would learn of the doping enforcement code of "omerta," and of the fundamental unfairness of the doping adjudication process. An immediate vendetta by WADA and USADA was set into motion to defame Floyd Landis. The news media was treated to interviews by Dick Pound who characterized Floyd Landis as a steroid driven mad man who serviced maids along the Stage 17 course, and other defamatory statements. Tygart complained that skilled lawyers were trying to elicit sympathy for Landis by town hall meeting manipulations, commonly known as the Floyd Fairness Fund, where Floyd Landis solicited funds and pointed out flaws in LNDD's Lab Document Package to a sympathetic public. Floyd Landis at this point was winning the public relations war, people were examining LNDD's Lab Document Package, people were viewing Arnie Baker's Power Point Presentation and at one look doubters and fence sitters were convinced of Floyd Landis' innocence. Experts began to notice similarities to warnings of the Vrijman report! LNDD lab errors documented in the AAA hearing included (1) Lack of chain-of-custody.(2) The Stage 17 "B" calibration mix that Frelat injected into the IRMS was left unattended for five hours, an appalling lack of security and a invitation for sabotage.(3) Sloppy lab work. (4)Leaking of test results within minutes to the tabloid l'Equipe.(5) Destruction of hard drive mass-spectra evidence. (6)A calibration mix that lacked two metabolites including 5alphaAdiol.(7) The Stage 17 "B" calibration mix that re-processed with Masslynx tested an astonishing -3.65mils a result that would suggest that the blank contained synthetic testosterone.(8) Sample contamination, and degradation. See appendix.*(9)Numerous and persistent coding errors.(10) Untrained lab personnel,(11) Outdated software. (12)Violations of WADA International Standards for Laboratories.(13) Violations of WADA International Standards for Testing.(14) Violations of WADA technical documents. (15)Non-existant WADA required accreditation audits. (16) Mis-identification of metabolite peaks.

It is no wonder that in light of the above irregular laboratory work LNDD IRMS testing found one out of four testosterone metabolites above threshold for synthetic testosterone, 5alphaAdiol-pdiol. A very odd finding indeed when you consider that three other metabolites tested by IRMS were below the three mil threshold and this indicates no synthetic testosterone use whatsoever. Two of three metabolites that tested normal were calibrated with a calibration mix while 5alphaAdiol had no calibration what-so-ever and the -6.14mil result must be considered suspect. It is astounding that if a person wanted to commit a crime by sabotage of a lab sample and leave no trail for investigators to follow they could have not done a better job than LNDD. Missing metabolites in the calibration mix, deleted mass-spectra hard drive evidence, "overwriting" IRMS blank lab files, destruction of urine by IRMS combustion, and cover-up by LNDD administration, perfect.

Odder still was LNDD results which contrasted with the blood workups of Landis done during the Tour that showed a normal level of leuitinizing hormone, a hormone that triggers the Leydig cells to produce testosterone. Testosterone is hormone that is "bottom up" or receptor driven. The hypothalamus has a "set point" for testosterone and if exogenous testosterone is applied the receptors signal the hypothalamus to order the pituitary gland to suppress the production of leuitinizing hormone in order to maintain homeostasis. After the excess exogenous testosterone has been metabolized, the feedback loop will produce leuitinizing hormone and the Leydig cells will commence to manufacture endogenous testosterone. If Floyd Landis had been doping throughout the Tour, leutinizing hormone would have been suppressed and this would have been detected by blood screening. However, Don Catlin concluded that T/LH levels were normal. There was no exogenous testosterone present in Floyd Landis' blood samples.

Most experts at this point viewed LNDD's "single metabolite" theory with suspicion. In an attempt to salvage the situation and to prevent future legal complications Tygart did some public relations work of his own. He knew that LNDD had violated another WADA standard when personnel who worked on the "A" sample also worked on the "B" sample in an attempt to duplicate their findings. He also knew that the CAS had ruled against LNDD in the Landaluze case. So in an attempt to do an end run on Landaluze he argued before the AAA panel to allow additional IRMS tests on the "B" samples Landis gave previous and after the Stage 17 samples, all of which tested normal on the T/E screen. The Panel agreed to the additional testing although they stated that no additional AAF could be filed based on the results of the IRMS results because no IRMS tests had been performed on the "A" samples. However, at the discretion of the Panel IRMS results could be used as supportive evidence of a doping violation. It was a risky gamble by USADA derided in the press as a fishing expedition. Floyd Landis had even stronger words, USADA he said was ordering additional tests in order to destroy evidence and to render the samples useless for further testing purposes. Landis also requested from USADA that the testing be done at the WADA certified laboratory UCLA, the laboratory used by USADA for doping testing purposes. Not only did Tygart refuse the UCLA request but Dick Catlin head of the UCLA lab pulled the IRMS for maintenance, so the samples had to be shipped all the way back to Paris for testing, although Landis argued that if LNDD could not do the original testing correctly how could they be trusted to perform additional tests?

The new testing became even more bizarre, Dr. Scott Davis, Mr. Landis' representative was denied access to several tests by USADA and LNDD even though this is a clear violation of WADA protocol. In spite of the lockout by USADA and LNDD of Mr. Davis, the results of the additional testing exposed several errors made by LNDD. To summarize quickly, LNDD's additional tests reached a conclusion that violates metabolite behavior and biological logic, a fact that should have rendered the illegal "B" IRMS tests invalid by the AAA Majority. A fact that was ignored by the Majority decision. Campbell in his dissent cited the lack of scientific support of LNDD's test results and argued that Floyd Landis had proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, even though most rational scientific minded people considered LNDD's results as impossible, the lay public who were force fed a steady diet of WADA and USADA mis-information, including most of the main stream press, continue to insist that Floyd Landis tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone. Get a clue people, the T/E ratio was dismissed by the AAA Majority! I sincerely hope that the CAS panel will not be duped by the inarticulate, poorly reasoned and scientific hoax of a Majority decision that most experts in GC/MS and GC/C/IRMS have deplored as unsound.

Yes, in spite of such obvious errors by LNDD and the inescapable conclusion that the results are of the WADA world not the real world the Majority had to save face and bury Mr. Landis. It was a matter of revenge against a man who defended himself against unfair accusations. A man who exposed WADA, LNDD, and USADA for the corrupt power crazed monopoly they are. A man who exposed the garbage in garbage out testing methods of WADA accredited labs. A man who raised doubts as to the nature of the process that acts as prosecutor, judge, and jury against helpless athletes who can NEVER WIN. So, what have we learned from this charade? Never fight against the machine, if you are accused save whatever reputation (and money) you have left and surrender. Do not fight, you lose. But never agree to betray your friends. -Jon< id="SPELLING_ERROR_226" class="blsp-spelling-error">contamination was dealt with twice in the Floyd Landis case. First, it was ignored by the Anti-Doping Review Board when Howard Jacobs made a submission for dismissal of the case, even though the ADRB violated WADA TD2004 EAAS, which states that degraded samples cannot result in an AAF. Second, degradation of the sample was dismissed by the AAA Majority when Dr. Ayotte argued that although the LNDD Lab Document Package showed epitestosterone in the free portion of the sample, the free portion was "steroid free." (See AAA Majority decision paragraph 108.)