More Short Takes

Much going on in the world of cycling over the weekend, along with a couple of interesting articles in today’s New York Times.

Them’s The Brakes/Breaks

Floyd Landis competed in this weekend’s Mohican 100, the second stop of the eight race National Ultra Endurance race series. Well, he competed in about the first 10 percent of the race, anyway. Landis was beset with problems before and during the race. On the way, his bike fell off the car transporting it to the race, leaving it unrideable. Somehow, he managed to borrow a white Gary Fisher dual suspension bike and show up at the start. About 10 miles into the race, he crashed out, suffering a smashed helmet and bruised ribs. Bike racing is a humbling sport, my coach used to say back in the day. Some days you’re flying, and some days things go horribly wrong. The next stop in the series is in two week’s time, at the Lumberjack 100 near Traverse City, Michigan. (Note: TBV has pictures and info here and here. I haven’t seen any articles yet in other places about how Landis fared on Saturday.)

Even With One Week’s Notice, Astana Pulls Out The Win

One question I’ll try to ask Johan Bruyneel when he makes an appearance in Milwaukee on the 19th will be, “With such short notice, and no training focused on the Giro d’Italia, how is it Alberto Contador was able to pull out the win?” In case you haven’t heard, Contador finished the Giro today, winning his second Grand Tour in a row. Granted, the circumstances under which “baby Contador” (as racejunkie call him) won the first Tour are, shall we say, controversial. This win, however, was not tainted by a Rasmussen-esque episode, where the almost certain winner was booted from the race less than a week before it finished.

CyclingNews.com already has an article profiling Contador and his victory. From their article:

Comparisons were immediately drawn to his Tour de France win, a win that really put the name “Contador” in the media’s eye. He rated the Tour de France harder given the training that he had put into it beforehand.

“Because the Tour had many months of preparation – I gave it all – here it’s been the opposite – without preparation, just day to day.” However, he pointed out that the 2008 Giro d’Italia was indeed difficult. “The result was not less difficult – both have been very difficult. The only thing that in this Giro I arrived more tired. I couldn’t give more – I don’t know why, if it was my allergies or my lack of preparation.”

As cycling fans are already aware, Team Astana is not on the list of teams being allowed to compete in events organized by the Amaury Sports Organization, owners of (among other races) the Tour de France. While the reason for the exclusion is most likely related to previous incarnations of the team, Contador is pretty sanguine in his feelings about not being able to defend his 2007 Tour de France title. As CyclingNews.com also notes:

Team Astana, due to problems related to the previous incarnation of the team, was not invited to race the 2008 Tour de France. The decision left Contador, who followed Team Manager Johan Bruyneel from Discovery Channel to Astana over the winter, unable defend his maillot jaune.

“It’s a decision that I don’t agree with, but I respect. The team is totally different; the team didn’t have time to prepare for the Giro yet was able to gain the victory. They have made their decision… we’ll just forget about the Tour this year.”

One has to wonder: Given Team Astana’s performance up to now, will there be any pressure on the ASO to find a way of including them in the 2008 Tour? Or will they stick to their decision to exclude them from ASO events. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Meanwhile, I’m making a list of possible questions to ask at Bruyneel’s appearance.

Not The Usual Topic, But …

There’s an interesting editorial by Clark Hoyt, The New York Times’ “public editor,” discussing a recent Op-Ed piece. The subject matter of the original piece has nothing to do with cycling (instead, it has to do with politics and religion), but in the article, Hoyt raises an important question about opinion pieces that can also be extended to other parts of a newspaper. You’ll get a sense for it from the article’s headline: Entitled to Their Opinions, Yes. But Their Facts?

In the article, Hoyt observes that we’re all entitled to our own opinions. But he asks the question, what is the responsibility of the Op-Ed page to check the “facts” presented in support of a writer’s opinion. Here’s what he says:

The Times Op-Ed page, quite properly, is home to a lot of provocative opinions. But all are supposed to be grounded on the bedrock of fact. Op-Ed writers are entitled to emphasize facts that support their arguments and minimize others that don’t. But they are not entitled to get the facts wrong or to so mangle them that they present a false picture.

Did Luttwak cross the line from fair argument to falsehood? Did Times editors fail to adequately check his facts before publishing his article? Did The Times owe readers a contrasting point of view?

At this point, I should tell you the author of the original piece that Hoyt discusses was writing about Barack Obama and how Islamic law might apply to Obama’s choice of religious beliefs. Hoyt continues:

I interviewed five Islamic scholars, at five American universities, recommended by a variety of sources as experts in the field. All of them said that Luttwak’s interpretation of Islamic law was wrong.

David Shipley, the editor of the Op-Ed page, said Luttwak’s article was vetted by editors who consulted the Koran, associated text, newspaper articles and authoritative histories of Islam. No scholars of Islam were consulted because “we do not customarily call experts to invite them to weigh in on the work of our contributors,” he said.

That’s a pity in this case, because it might have sparked a discussion about whether Luttwak’s categorical language was misleading, at best.

I’ll leave the rest of the article for you to read. Hoyt’s conclusion speaks volumes.

When writers purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they are arguably wrong, I think The Times cannot label it opinion and let it go at that.

Perhaps this should be taken a step further, and applied to articles in the features sections and news sections of the paper, too. Many news and features articles seek to take complex subjects and distill them into easily understood stories for the paper’s readers. While each writer/reporter has to determine what the important parts of a story are, they need to be cognizant of the fact that people will for opinions based on what they write. So, they should strive for as complete and balanced a story as possible — space permitting.

In today’s Times they also published a section called Play, which covers sports and recreation. Among the articles is Who Has The Horse Tranquilizers? by Juliet Macur about doping vis-a-vis the upcoming Olympics. While she gets part of two items in her article correct, she left out some important information. First, about testosterone testing, she speaks about a study done at the Karolinska Institute, saying:

Then there are certain male athletes who may be able to take testosterone and not worry about testing positive: a recent doping study showed that two-thirds of Asian men and 10 percent of Caucasians are missing a gene function that converts testosterone into a form that dissolves in urine. These athletes could use the steroid and still test clean.

While it does answer the subheading for this particular section (How they might get away with it), it leaves out the other half of the story. There are also athletes who may, through bad luck in the genetic lottery, test positive without having used testosterone. Worse, they will be branded cheaters without having ever been cheating. These folks most definitely won’t be among those who  “get away with it.”

And, the athletes who might “get away with it” may well not know that they have the genetic variation that allows them to do so. (Of course, if you’re a male competitor of Asian descent, the odds on that sound pretty good.) That doesn’t mean people won’t try to beat the system, but I rather doubt that anyone’s used gene doping to beat this kind of rap — yet.

And that leads to the other thing she misses the mark on.

WHAT THEY’LL TRY NEXT

By the 2012 Olympics, drug testers will likely have a new problem on their hands: some athletes will have moved beyond drugs. They will be gene doping, or altering themselves genetically. “This is infinitely more complicated,” Wadler says. By transferring synthetic genes into human cells, athletes could stimulate muscle growth, increase metabolism or boost endurance. Those transferred genes would blend seamlessly into the athlete’s DNA. Some experts say that the future is already here, and that athletes are probably gene doping for Beijing. “This is very much on our radar screen,” Wadler says. So far, the only sure way to detect gene doping is by taking a biopsy of the affected muscle tissue — not a practical solution. Which is just the kind of test that cheaters love.

No doubt, out there somewhere is a scientist or pseudo-scientist trying to devise a way of gene doping athletes. Certainly, there are treatments in various stages of design and development that could be used in ways not originally intended (like genetic treatments for muscle-wasting diseases). What she’s left out is one very important point: So far, there is no safe, reliable way to perform these genetic modifications. As recently as last year, a gene therapy study had to be halted after a participant died following the treatment.

Genetic doping right now is like playing Russian roulette. You can spin the barrel (or in this case, stick yourself with the needle), but will it be safe, or will it lead to your demise? Right now, it’s very risky. Sure, there are people who are willing to take such risks, but the rewards are far from certain, either.

Gene therapy has promising potential, mostly unrealized potential. Gene doping will be more of a concern when gene therapy techniques are much safer and proven to be effective. At that point, it will be much more feasible, and more likely to be done. Could there be people out there attempting gene doping? Sure, absolutely. Is it nigh on impossible to catch them right now? Probably. Is the doping effective? Not so clear. Is it a good idea to be trying to find tests to catch such cheating right now? You bet. But at this point, gene doping is more a theoretical possibility than an established fact.

One thing to note: In articles dating back ten years or more, you can find the usual suspects claiming that gene doping will be arriving at the next Olympics. Someday, no doubt, that will be true. Will it be here this year? Color me skeptical. Will it be here in 2012? Well, technology does advance very quickly at times. But I have my doubts that gene therapy will be quite that far along four years hence.

Juliet Macur’s story falls down on both points. Which is a shame, because Times’ readers (and the readers of all news media) deserve better.