- Jun 16, 2009
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One of the more interesting parts of "From lance to Landis" (for me) was the fact that Armstrong's testicular cancer should have shown up as a positive control for testosterone over the many months where the disease was developing.
This has happened many times in other sports - footballer Alan Stubbs was told after a control something along the lines of "we have bad news or worse news: either you have used testosterone, or you have testicular cancer".
This early diagnosis meant he was treated immediately before the disease spread and was playing again after a few months.
Lance would have been tested repeatedly the year he suffered cancer (he was trained by Ferrari and was therefore getting good results) but no alarm was raised.
Possible implications of this are:
1 The UCI did not act upon the information resulting from the tests
2 Testosterone use was so widespread that the UCI was not following up on suspicious test results
3 Some kind of masking agent / urine substitution method was being used
4 Someone in the labs / UCI was being paid off.
Following on from this - It seems feasible to imagine that with the trend set by other sports, the UCI might be considered liable for not spotting LA's cancer via the abnormal testosterone results. I would imagine that he would have a right to be angry with them, and certainly consider legal action. This possibility must have crossed the minds of the UCI elite.
However, LA was remarkably relaxed about the UCI's possible negligence, which seems strange considering what an angry and resentful person he appears to be and how much venom he spat at Cofidis and any team that wouldn't sign him during his convalescence. Why? Was this a sign of own responsibility?
- Did the doctors tell him that his cancer had been caused / aggravated by steroid use?
- Were his samples being manipulated? Masking agent? Someone elses urine? (USPS did this in 2000 with the notorious clear samples after a 6hr mountain stage in hot weather)
- was there some sort of corruption?
Another strange (and massively speculative) theory of mine is that there might have been some sort of deal struck along the lines of "I won't sue you if you ......... in the future when I return"......
This is a crazy theory but would'n't seem out of place seeing the leniency of the UCI after the obvious backdated TUE in 99.
This has happened many times in other sports - footballer Alan Stubbs was told after a control something along the lines of "we have bad news or worse news: either you have used testosterone, or you have testicular cancer".
This early diagnosis meant he was treated immediately before the disease spread and was playing again after a few months.
Lance would have been tested repeatedly the year he suffered cancer (he was trained by Ferrari and was therefore getting good results) but no alarm was raised.
Possible implications of this are:
1 The UCI did not act upon the information resulting from the tests
2 Testosterone use was so widespread that the UCI was not following up on suspicious test results
3 Some kind of masking agent / urine substitution method was being used
4 Someone in the labs / UCI was being paid off.
Following on from this - It seems feasible to imagine that with the trend set by other sports, the UCI might be considered liable for not spotting LA's cancer via the abnormal testosterone results. I would imagine that he would have a right to be angry with them, and certainly consider legal action. This possibility must have crossed the minds of the UCI elite.
However, LA was remarkably relaxed about the UCI's possible negligence, which seems strange considering what an angry and resentful person he appears to be and how much venom he spat at Cofidis and any team that wouldn't sign him during his convalescence. Why? Was this a sign of own responsibility?
- Did the doctors tell him that his cancer had been caused / aggravated by steroid use?
- Were his samples being manipulated? Masking agent? Someone elses urine? (USPS did this in 2000 with the notorious clear samples after a 6hr mountain stage in hot weather)
- was there some sort of corruption?
Another strange (and massively speculative) theory of mine is that there might have been some sort of deal struck along the lines of "I won't sue you if you ......... in the future when I return"......
This is a crazy theory but would'n't seem out of place seeing the leniency of the UCI after the obvious backdated TUE in 99.