The famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was known for his saying that “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
So why do we find it so hard to believe that Tour de France champion Floyd Landis cheated by using PEDs (performance enhancing drugs)?
This week The New York Times reported that tests on Landis' "A" sample show some of the testosterone in his system was synthetic, putting his defense into question. The report cited a person at the UCI with knowledge of the result.
And what is Landis' defense for the high testosterone levels in his blood? That he had a shot of whisky the night before the test which caused the elevated levels of testosterone.
I have to admit that I find it exceptionally entertaining when the pros get caught with their hand in the PED cookie jar.
They come up with the most creative excuses. It is usually something like they took some new meds or food supplement that without warning recently switched the main ingredient from vitamin C to EPO.
So how will Landis explain the synthetic testosterone in his sample should the reports prove to be true? Perhaps he has a distant cousin who has a testosterone factory in France. And while on a brief factory tour before the next stage of the race he inadvertently managed to sit on a loaded syringe in the factory’s new public testing room.
I’m guessing here but I have a more improbable, but I think more truthful explanation. I think that almost every professional cyclist who shows some promise has the following closed-door come-to-God conversation:
Team Doctor: “So Floyd you are having a really great year and you could be the next tour champ. But both you and I know that you really can’t complete at the highest levels with getting on the program. I like to call it the “Lance” program, but don’t mention it to him as he’ll deny it all the way to the bank.”
Floyd: “I’m listening”
Team Doctor: “Floyd are you aware that the only way the drug testing agencies figured out that Barry Bonds had some…shall we say extra help…in hitting all those homeruns was that somebody anonymously sent them a syringe loaded with a new designer steroid that was virtually unknown and untraceable until they got it in the mail?”
Floyd : “So what’s your point?”
Team Doctor: “My point young man is that we are so far ahead with the newest chemistry that it is all but undetectable unless you actually have a sample.”
Floyd: “I’m still listening”
Team Doctor: “Floyd you and I both know that in this sport unless you get a little modern pharmaceutical help you’ll most likely spend your entire career helping others wear yellow. Or you could get on the Lance program and go from zero to hero. What’s the word Floyd?”
I fear we’ll all soon know that the answer to that question.
So why do we find it so hard to believe that our sports heroes would pop a pill or two for the chance making millions and being held up as the newest superman? Would you cheat given the chance for millions of dollars? Throughout history countless people have done much more for much much less.
On my recent trip to Germany I asked one of my German friends why there was no local coverage of the former T-Mobile team leader Jan Ulrich during the tour. He turned to me and said with a somewhat disgusted look on his face that Ulrich had disgraced the sport and his country. He than slammed down his beer glass as if to suggest with a formal finality …what else is there to say.
What else indeed?
Do we refuse to believe that some pros would cheat because we are naïve, or is it because we have embraced the motto that winning is indeed everything and that fair play does not matter?
To this day Tyler Hamilton, another former team leader of Floyd's Phonak Cycling Team, maintains that he did not cheat. Yet the reason he was banned from professional cycling for two years was because they found somebody else’s DNA in his blood.
When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. And the truth in this case can easily be that somebody screwed up big time when they gave him an doping IV of the wrong blood. Or perhaps he injected himself with somebody else’s blood when he accidentally sat on syringe at the new public sampling room while visiting Floyds distant cousins’s new doping and testosterone factory.
The other day a local radio talk show host asked the question; does it really matter if Landis used testosterone to boost his performance? I guess if you have never trained and competed seriously in any sport this is a great question to ask.
But if you have ever put your heart and sole into a sport…
If you have ever spent countless hours training and racing…
If you have ever scraped yourself from the ground and spent weeks in recovery after a seriously accident while training or racing….
If you have ever forgone spending time with your family and friends to ride in the rain and come home soaked just go out again for your evening ride…
If you have ever done any of these things only to see the glory, fame and the money go to the guy who keeps sticking mysterious suppositories up his butt during races you’ll understand why it matters, and why Germany has turned its back on Jan Ulrich.