Short Takes

Racing To The Bottom

…it ain’t such a long drop …
From the diamonds in the sidewalk to the dirt in the gutter

John Prine, “Bruised Orange”

Floyd Landis is, to put it mildly, not happy with Greg LeMond. As reported on TBV, Landis had this to say about talking to LeMond:

I did, as I used to do for some people, call GL privately to discuss some comments that he made about me and my situation. I used to believe that a private call was the best way to deal with public slander. I have subsequently learned that the phone call will become public and the contents thereof misconstrued into whatever fits the agenda. What Greg actualy divulged to me is what he does not want to talk about. I did not call for advice, I called to give him a chance to plead his case as to why he was speaking when he had never spoken to me nor met me in the past and in no way could be portrayed as knowing me personally. Unfortunately, the facts that he divulged to me in the hour which he spoke and gave no opportunity for me to do the same, would damage his character severely and I would rather not do what has been done to me. However, if he ever opens his mouth again and the word Floyd comes out, I will tell you all some things that you will wish you didn’t know and unfortunately I will have entered the race to the bottom which is now in progress. For the record, I don’t know Greg, and have no more respect for Greg than I have for people who go through life blaming others for all of their problems. You are not a victim of others Greg, you are a pathetic human who believes that if others didn’t cheat (not sure about you) you would be the President and all the peasants would bow to your command. Join reality with the rest of us who win some and lose some and keep on smiling.

For what it’s worth, Floyd, don’t stoop to Greg’s level. He’s a faded has-been craving the spotlight by saying outrageous things about people and things he doesn’t know. Over the years, he’s shown his true colors. And given what he’s said recently about his retirement from the sport, LeMond either doesn’t remember the story he put out in 1994 about why he had to quit the sport, or he’s been lying about his reasons for retiring. Either way, it aint pretty, and LeMond loses more credibility (if that’s possible) with every wild-haired statement he makes.

Take the high road and don’t look back. As Satchel Paige said, you don’t know what might be gaining on you.

Campaigning For A Seat At The Table?

Given the attention he’s been drawing to himself, and his statements to WADA, I’m wondering: Is Greg LeMond campaigning for a seat at WADA’s table? Might he be interested in Dick Pound’s job? Just a (scary) thought.

WADA’s Most Productive Lab?

Looking through WADA’s 2005 Lab Stats report, I discovered something interesting: in many respects, the most productive lab in the world for adverse analytical findings is none other than LNDD.

They don’t get the most (that would by UCLA, with 538 AAFs, 1.35% adverse out of almost 40,000 tests), or the highest percentage (that would be Warsaw, with 6.60% adverse of almost 1700 tests, or 112 AAFs), but they come a close second in both categories (491 AAFs, 5.30% adverse out of almost 9300 tests). So, in Rant’s book, that makes them the overall winner of the 2005 WADDY, the prize given to the most “productive” anti-doping lab.

There are many questions about what this data might mean, such as:

• Is LNDD really that much better than other labs at catching cheaters, or are their results due to sloppy lab procedures?
• How many of the AAFs reported by LNDD were Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs)?
• Percentage-wise, how does the number of TUEs at LNDD compare to other labs?
• How many of the AAFs were subsequently shown to be false positive results?
• How many samples showed AAFs for more than one banned substance? Page 13 of the report shows 525 AAFs at LNDD, but page 3 shows 491. Which is correct?
• How many of the TUEs that LNDD knew about didn’t get reported as AAFs because they were not found during testing? Figure that as a percentage of all tests and you’ve got a good approximation for their rate of false negatives.
• How does their rate of false negatives compare to other labs?
• What were the types of sports covered, and how did the AAFs for each sport stack up against the overall averages for each sport?
• Are the sports they’re testing at LNDD more prone to adverse findings (i.e. are they testing participants in billiards, baseball/softball, sumo or golf)?

Unfortunately, there are no real answers in the report. There are very few breakdowns of the data, with the exception of types of substances found. Among the more amusing are cannabanoids. I’m not sure what performance enhancement you’d get from being stoned, other than general feeling of relaxation and maybe a burst of creativity if you’re an artist or musician. I suppose it would be good for replenishing the glycogen stores after a hard ride, once the munchies kick in.

So the report doesn’t explain much of anything of any great import. But perhaps the lab’s status within the anti-doping lab hierarchy explains why Dick Pound and his ilk have been defending LNDD so vociferously.

Unfinished Business: Just How Real Are Those Documents (Or Their Contents)?

A hacker or whistleblower (to avoid constantly calling this person either, I’m going to give the person the name “Le Rongeur” — The Rodent) found his/her way into the deepest, darkest recesses of LNDD’s computer system, rustled up some embarrassing documents and sent out a number of letters to journalists and to other anti-doping labs.

But just how real were those documents or the contents of those documents, and what would the motivations be for someone to send out forged documents. Perhaps someone with access to the originals will make them available for public viewing. Arnie Baker showed images of the documents in his Slide Show 2.1. LNDD claim the documents are forgeries. Interestingly, they didn’t claim the information in them was false, just that it had been taken out of context.

Clearly, LNDD makes the forgery claim to cast doubt about the documents themselves. It would be interesting to see Le Rongeur’s documents to verify whether they are the crude forgeries LNDD alleges, or whether they are authentic in appearance.

And it would be interesting to find out from Le Rongeur just how he came by the information contained within those documents. Did he mock up LNDD documents to show what they could have looked like, or were these entire documents he found and forwarded? Would he like to let the world know why he sent the documents out, and what he hoped to accomplish by doing so?

So, M. Le Rongeur can you be persuaded to come (at least partly) out of the shadows, show us the documents and tell the world what you meant to accomplish?