Dopes

For those who have fallen off the planet this week - USA Cycling and the USADA announced today that Joey D'Antoni tested positive for EPO at the February World Cup Qualifier in Ft. Lauderdale, and the WADA announced that Tyler Hamilton had tested positive for blood doping at the Vuelta, while a non-negative test of his A-sample at the olympic Games was unable to be confirmed due to mishandling of the sample by the IOC's lab.

In his own defense, D'Antoni states:

...D'Antoni questioned the validity of Adham Sbeih's positive test for EPO last year, and described himself as "mildly shocked" at the conditions of the lab where he saw his B sample being tested. "It was was disorganized - I saw employees mistakenly throwing trash into a plastic bag containing samples. It became clear that like many scientific experiments, the procedure was lengthy, complicated, and with plenty of opportunity for error. We were unable to stay for the entire procedure because USADA and the lab do not release their procedures ahead of time, so I was left to trust that the lab technician did the test correctly."

In Tyler's defense, his wife Haven writes the latest "Tyler's Tunes":

Tyler is devastated to be accused of being dishonest. After all the years of hard work he has devoted to his racing career, he feels as though he is being stabbed in the back. He is angry. If we have to drain our bank accounts to get to the bottom of this we will. And when Tyler can speak freely about all of this, he will.

There are a number of questions that have to be answered regarding the situation Tyler now faces in light of the charges against him. We will do everything in our power to address them. Tyler's family, friends, supporters, team and sponsors deserve answers as much as he does. We'll get there. The peaks and valleys ahead will not derail us from clearing Tyler's name.

Now, I don't know how much credence to give this. I've heard stories about labs being unorganized, using ill-trained personnel, and we all know about the mistakes made by the IOC's lab at Athens for the freaking Olympics. Even the FBI's own lab was brought under sharp scruitiny several years ago, resulting in the release of convicted criminals due to the lab's sloppy handling procedures. As I've detailed in several extensive posts on the new Daily Peloton message board, the handling of the samples is at least as important as the performance of the test in providing both a good test result (good as in correct, not good as in negative), and in providing faith in the testing chain of evidence to the athlete being tested. In addition, I've also detailed that grave doubts exist about the accuracy and error rate of the new blood doping test being used by WADA and its goverened bodies. Given this, how can an athlete have any faith in the system or the organization administering the testing?

The message that all the world's governing bodies have to take to heart is this:

1) The test methodology must be scientifically verifiable, and before use in competition, proven at an acceptable error rate.
2) The chain of custody and control of samples must be totally secure and inviolable - and demonstrated by collection of empirical evidence to be so.
3) The procedures for both the testing and the sample control must be controlled by procedures that are published and open to scrutiny, with error rates both calculated and proven out by empirical data.
4) The processing of the samples, especially the B-sample in the event of a positive test, must be open to the athlete and/or her representatives.

There are some who object that knowledge of the testing procedures and parameters will enable athletes to cheat, to "game the system," and to a certain extent this is true. It will, however, cost large amounts of money and time, and there will still be the risk of being caught. However, as test methods become more technological, they will also become harder to beat. But in my mind, the current system is horrribly flawed, due to inconsistencies that I have discussed in other posts. These flaws, in my opinion, actually increase the likelihood of cheating, as athletes see no other way to compete and win than to resort to also "gaming the system." Any athletes that somehow slip through the cracks will be few and far between. The openness and trust in such a system will, however, allow cycling to become a cleaner sport.