Tour De France 2009

[Brutul Tarew Marr]

Originally Posted by Warrian

Do tell us the control differences between baseball/football and cycling. Which one is more strict and why? You seem to know what you're talking about.

I love football, but come on, do you really think 260 lb guys can run that fast naturally? The NFL doesn't even test during the off season. You can take all the roids you want, put on a bunch of muscle, and as long as you're clean by the time the season starts, you have nothing to worry about. Even during the season it's just a few random tests. In cycling, if you win a stage on any day in a major race, you're getting tested. Plus there are daily random tests and random tests during the off season as well. If you're not available for a random test during the off season, it's the same as a positive test. The two year suspension has been mentioned. In the NFL it's what, 3 or 4 games? No comparison, it's so easy to roid up in football there's no particular reason not to, at least in the off season.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about doping. I guarantee Lance was going all out on that prologue and I guarantee he wasn't happy with the result. He does care about the prologue, and this is the first time he hasn't either won or been within about 10 seconds of the winner. This one was even more important than usual because it was going to set the tone for who is gonna be the man for the rest of the tour on Astana. LA didn't make a very good case for himself coming in behind 3 of his teammates. I think he will ride for Contador if he doesn't think he has a chance to win, but he would rather ride for himself. That said, it's just the prologue, and there is still a lot of racing to do. If nothing else, he has proven that he can still be among the best in an elite field, but he hasn't shown that he has a chance of beating Contador yet.

Cancellara is a stud.

[arkk123]

Originally Posted by Laek

Its hard to find out how people are tested in baseball and football and I won't pretend I know anything about it. For pro cycling people are randomly tested at their hotels in the morning( alot of the times the testers show up before they are even awake) and the winner and other randomly selected people are tested right after the end of the race. Test and samples are held onto for a long time so that they know what the normal blood cell and hormone levels are for each rider. There is also no Union of lawyers on the side of the cyclist. And finally the governments are spending time and money to catch people and charge them in court.

Oh and testing positive in cycling gets you kicked off your team and suspended for 2 years. The MLB has a 10 day suspension. Bud Selig stated this was their zero-tolerance program. According to a USA Today article I googled on steroid testing from 2005 the MLB said that 5% of test results in 2003 were positive yet no one was kicked out of the sport.

Then don't speak on shit you know nothing about. Google failed you, first offense is 50 days. Blood cells have nothing to do with steroid testing as well. Stop trying to sound smart, you sound like an asshole.

Marion Jones passed somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 drug tests in her career, and that is IOC testing. The tests are easy to beat. They always have been and always will be. It doesn't matter the sport, event, olympics, whatever. Athletes don't just do it in the offseason, that would do them no good. They are "performance enhancing drugs", why do people believe they use the shit at a time they don't need their performance enhanced. Drugs will never be taken out of sports, its a constant in nearly all of them.

The playing field is level, it just isn't the playing field that everyone thinks it is.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by Laek

Its hard to find out how people are tested in baseball and football and I won't pretend I know anything about it. For pro cycling people are randomly tested at their hotels in the morning( alot of the times the testers show up before they are even awake) and the winner and other randomly selected people are tested right after the end of the race. Test and samples are held onto for a long time so that they know what the normal blood cell and hormone levels are for each rider.

That isn't entirely accurate. Two samples are taken from each cyclist. The first sample (The A sample) is used to perform the initial test for the various banned substances. The second sample (The B sample) is *ONLY* used if the A sample comes back positive on any test. If the A sample is negative, the B sample is destroyed. It is against rules to use the B sample for anything beyond confirmation of the A sample. Both the A and B samples are marked only with an identification number, not a name. This prevents the lab from knowing which cyclist is being tested.

[Laek]

Here is an example of how in cycling they hold onto samples for years and keep track of different hormone and blood levels. They went back to a 2007 piss test to catch the guy.

Dekker Caught Under Biological Passport Programme | Cyclingnews.com

As for the internet tough guy, I apologize, obviously the MLB rules have changed. What I still don't know is how often baseball and football players are tested.

I never said blood cell counts had anything to do with steroids. Cyclist and other endurance sport athletes mainly use different types or methods of doping to increase how much oxygen their blood can use. One of those drugs, EPO, was made so well that they are just finally coming up with test that can detect it.

For off season use why wouldn't a football player use steroids to pack on as much muscle as possible in the off season and then try to maintain his gain without drugs during the season?

[arkk123]

Originally Posted by Laek

Here is an example of how in cycling they hold onto samples for years and keep track of different hormone and blood levels. They went back to a 2007 piss test to catch the guy.

Dekker Caught Under Biological Passport Programme | Cyclingnews.com

As for the internet tough guy, I apologize, obviously the MLB rules have changed. What I still don't know is how often baseball and football players are tested.

I never said blood cell counts had anything to do with steroids. Cyclist and other endurance sport athletes mainly use different types or methods of doping to increase how much oxygen their blood can use. One of those drugs, EPO, was made so well that they are just finally coming up with test that can detect it.

For off season use why wouldn't a football player use steroids to pack on as much muscle as possible in the off season and then try to maintain his gain without drugs during the season?

My mind didn't even go there when I saw the blood cell thing, my bad. But blood doping was never harder to detect than anything else and it still isn't. What I am trying to say is that every one of the tests is easy to beat. It doesn't matter what it is. To quote Victor Conte, it is "like taking candy from a baby".

Playing football isn't about muscle mass. If it was bodybuilders would be millionaires(read: football players). Once the amount of mass on someones body reaches levels unattainable naturally, it requires the same drugs to maintain that size. Bodybuilders make their living on looking like freaks, but whenever a picture surfaces of them signing autographs at a show and they are noticeably "off", you realize exactly how powerful the drugs are in the hands of someone with good genetics. You can't just eat more and hold the muscle, it doesn't work like that. Additionally, the increased recovery time, increased rbc count, decreased joint pain with some drugs, increased aggression, so on and so on are all beneficial to any athlete.

[Grooverider]

If you want an insight into what drugs do, just read this article:

Drug Test | Outside Online

It's absolutely fascinating. A regular older amateur athlete spends 10,000 dollars on PEDs from a specialist md and writes about his results. They are quite astounding.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by Laek

Here is an example of how in cycling they hold onto samples for years and keep track of different hormone and blood levels. They went back to a 2007 piss test to catch the guy.

Dekker Caught Under Biological Passport Programme | Cyclingnews.com

Very interesting. I looked it up and that appears to be a new program. It's a damn good idea IMO. I hope it catches a huge number of people and they get expelled permanently from cycling.

I will stand by my previous statement. The A and B samples taken during races are processed as I stated.

[Dworkk]

Mark Cavendish has won his second straight stage The Guy is simply amazing on sprints. It appears that the peleton got split near end and LA was in front gorup there by gaining some time and moved into 3rd over all. Not that it really matters this early but it does put him into a good position for next week when they start hitting some of mountain stages.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by Dworkk

Mark Cavendish has won his second straight stage The Guy is simply amazing on sprints. It appears that the peleton got split near end and LA was in front gorup there by gaining some time and moved into 3rd over all. Not that it really matters this early but it does put him into a good position for next week when they start hitting some of mountain stages.

I can't wait to see tomorrow's team time trial. It's going to be an excellent stage. Plus, with the first major climbing stage coming up on July 10 I think the team time trial may play a fairly big role.

[Araxen]

Always awesome to see a break succeed.

[Arbuste]

Originally Posted by Daerath

Have you ever watched the Tour before? Armstrong doesn't give a shit about stage 1. He never did. No tour winner ever gives a shit about the first week. It doesn't mean shit.

Actually, he kinda does give a shit. He won at least two of those "stage 1" time trials previously. I was merely saying that a 10th place shows he is in great shape.

[Sheaf]

Originally Posted by Daerath

Have you ever watched the Tour before? Armstrong doesn't give a shit about stage 1. He never did. No tour winner ever gives a shit about the first week. It doesn't mean shit.

Wow, complete fail. Every second matters in the Tour and nobody knows that better than Lance. The fact that he won two prologues and placed very well in the rest showed how much he cared about it.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by Sheaf

Wow, complete fail. Every second matters in the Tour and nobody knows that better than Lance. The fact that he won two prologues and placed very well in the rest showed how much he cared about it.

Not really. Lance *always* won the tour because of the mountain stages. All he had to do in the initial stages was not crash and not come in after the first part of the peloton. Obviously he wants the time bonus from being 1st - 3rd on a stage, but not enough that he would kill himself to get it if it was early in a race or if the stage win wasn't symbolic or part of his overall race strategy.

[Sheaf]

Originally Posted by Daerath

Not really. Lance *always* won the tour because of the mountain stages. All he had to do in the initial stages was not crash and not come in after the first part of the peloton. Obviously he wants the time bonus from being 1st - 3rd on a stage, but not enough that he would kill himself to get it if it was early in a race or if the stage win wasn't symbolic or part of his overall race strategy.

Wow, you really don't understand the Tour, do you? It was extremely important for Lance to get an early advantage over riders like Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. It put them in a position of having to attack Lance, placing the burden on them rather than him. Jan Ullrich was a fantastic follower, but was terrible at attacking and it was Lance's main tactic against him. Cadel Evans has the same problem as Jan and it lost him the 2008 Tour.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by Sheaf

Wow, you really don't understand the Tour, do you? It was extremely important for Lance to get an early advantage over riders like Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. It put them in a position of having to attack Lance, placing the burden on them rather than him. Jan Ullrich was a fantastic follower, but was terrible at attacking and it was Lance's main tactic against him. Cadel Evans has the same problem as Jan and it lost him the 2008 Tour.

None of which is refuted by what I said, and other than time trials early on, my statement that he doesn't really care about the initial stages is still valid.