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August 25, 2005
Lanced by the Critics; But I'm His Biggest Fan
Posted by Nick
I've been getting a ton of interesting feedback on the discussion about Lance and PE-drugs. I see Lance will be on Larry King tonight to defend himself so we'll hear more from him. But I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions about something I wrote. Given some of the criticism, you would think I had claimed I saw needles sticking out of Lance's butt on the l'Alp D'Huez.
Lance won six Tours under the tighter testing regime. The question of this first Tour is opened by this report. Fine. No one will ever truly know his guilt or innocence. Ever. But the same goes for Raffy Palmeiro, who still says he never knowingly took any banned substance and hardly anyone believes him anymore.
And this gets at the larger point. To think more clearly about these issues, I think it's helpful to imagine that Lance is guilty. His guilt, if he is guilty, does nothing to diminish his greatness in my view. I am a maniacal Lance fan. It's in part because of this that I feel so strongly it helps to assume he's guilty. Because doing so helps demonstrate the preposterousness of how we currently view PE-drugs.
It's plainly evident that lots of PE-drugs can be used by athletes under doctor supervision safely and effectively without jeopardizing their health. We can't wish away that fact. Lance used EPO under doctor's orders for chemo. The skiing giant Herman Maier claims that he has training techniques that mimic the effect of EPO, without taking EPO. Given these facts, maybe we should rethink how we view PE-drugs: not all PE-drugs are alike.
The problem for athletes, as I've pointed out in earlier posts, is the prisoner's dilemma. Under the current state of affairs, no athlete can be perfectly sure other athletes aren't taking banned drugs, so even if they don't want to, they might be tempted to take drugs. In my view, there's only one way around this, and that's for the athletes to take control of matters. The athletes are in the best position to decide what's OK to take and what's not OK. As such, the athletes should determine which PE-drugs and substances are OK to use and which PE-drugs aren't. Once that list is determined, insist on rigorous random testing. One violation means banishment... for life.
The virtue of this approach is two-fold: the potential for greater honesty and effectiveness. It's more honest in the sense that it appreciates some substances are safe to use under doctor's supervision and some aren't. It holds greater potential for effectiveness in that athletes become the arbiters of what's OK to take, and then they have no choice but to be comfortable with a strict enforcement regime since they've made the detemination of what's OK and what's not.
My problem with the current state of affairs is that it screws Lance. Since the current state of affairs is so out of synch with a realistic cost-benefit analysis, no one will ever enjoy the presumption of innocence. So I'd prefer we imagine he's guilty, change how we think about PE-drugs, and make sensible changes to PE-drug policy.
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Nick Schulz is the Editor of Tech Central Station and has worked in media circles and the ideas industry as a writer, editor, television producer and policy analyst. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The National Post of Canada, The Baltimore Sun, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times, National Review, Reason, Policy Review, and several other publications. He is also, it should be said, a rabid sports fan whose fandom is inversely proportional to his overall athletic ability.
1. Dave on August 25, 2005 01:00 PM writes...
Just a few thoughts:
1. I refuse to consider the possibility that any of this is true until L'Equipe reveals to whom the other 9 positives belong. Rumor has it it's a French rider whose reputation they are protecting. If the fact that they only outed Armstrong doesn't make this a witch hunt, then you just don't believe in witches.
2. Various news outlets have reported that the positives were recorded on July 3,4,13,14,16, and 18. What I'd like to know is: How many times - total - was Lance tested, and what were the *qualitative* test results? For instance, it would be very difficult for him to test positive let's say, at 79% isoform, on the 16th, be clean (if he was tested) on the 17th, and then test at (again let's say) 78% on the 18th, unless something is either a) wrong with the test or b)the samples were tampered.
3. Procrit - the legal-in-the-US form of EPO for anemic patients - has an onset of action of two weeks, meaning it takes two weeks for it to increase the oxygen vector (IE, raise the hematocrit and/or hemoglobin). It disappears from the body in 3 days. If he was positive on July 18th, then allegedly he had to have taken it on the 15th July. Had he been doping, he would have to have known it wouldn't have exerted its effects until the Tour was over. Does this make ANY sense at all? Even if it raised his HCT/HGB in a week, the 18th would have corresponded to a performance increase only on the final ride into Paris at the earliest - again, any sense at all?
4. Did they test hematocrits in 1999? If so, was his high? IIRC, this was the only way they could have tested for blood doping before the EPO test, and IIRC, they did it in 1999. How do his crits from 1999 compare to the rest of his Tours?
5. In regards to the lab in France: if the test is as accurate as they say it is, then why did they need to do this (WADA illegal, BTW) testing in the first place?
If the L'Equipe story does anything, it just raises more questions. But before we question Lance, we need to question the paper and the lab. Then we need to know about those other 9 samples. Then chain of custody. Then, and only then, will I doubt Lance.
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