Le Scandal Uncovered Part 2
August 7th 2006 23:00
Bonjour tout le monde!
Well, overnight Floyd Landis appeared on “Good Morning America” to say he did not take any banned substance and plans to fight the allegations against him. Unfortunately for Landis, there seems to be so much evidence stacking up against him: the unbelievable ride in Stage 17 of the Tour, the fact that synthetic testosterone was found in his blood and that his testosterone ratio was so far above the allowed level. (For information on this evidence, check out yesterday’s post here)
But today, I’m going to show you more discussion, which could partly explain elevated testosterone levels. Since Landis has been so adamant that he did not take any banned substance, is it possible that a combination of factors during the Tour led to his elevated level?
Let’s see shall we…
Floyd Landis in the Tour of California (this picture was taken by Michael David Murray and is licensed under the Creative Commons 2.0 Agreement and can be found at wikipedia.org)
Over the past week, there has been some debate over the actual validity of the tests themselves and whether an elevated testosterone level can actually prove that doping has occurred.
There is also some evidence to support Landis’ claim that his high testosterone levels are in fact natural. He has a condition called Hypothyroidism (a condition caused by the insufficient production of the thyroid hormone), which lowers a man’s level of SHBG (for us girls, that stands for Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin). This may allow testosterone to accumulate in the body, and create an unusually high ratio. Unfortunately, this explanation has been all but ruled out because none of Landis’ previous tests during the entire 2006 season or the Tour itself indicated higher than normal levels.
But can you believe there is another legitimate explanation? Alcohol consumption can also raise the amount of testosterone in the body. Apparently after Landis’ poor performance in Stage 16, he went out on the town. According to reports, Landis had “2 beers and at least 4 shots of Jack Daniels” (the interview can be found by clicking here). It has shown that alcohol can increase testosterone ratios by about 40% in men. But, this explanation has also been discredited because an increase of 40%, if Landis had the maximum allowed ratio of 4.1, would only put the ratio up to 5.74: a figure nowhere near the 11.1 found in his system.
So the mystery continues. Did he do it or didn’t he do it?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
Check out this site tomorrow for Part 3 of the series
À demain
Melinda
P.S for a report on the evidence click here for a report from the NY Times
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