Trust But Verify Blog

We here at the Dougloid Papers have been following the alleged doping ruckus around Floyd Landis with great interest, partly because we're great fans of the Tour and of Floyd's stellar performance in that race and because we've seen what can happen when people rush to judgment in the absence of conclusive factual information. We're also fans of justice and plain speaking here and we shall update this story periodically.

At this stage of the game, we really don't know what the facts are, who's in possession of them, or what the eventual outcome will be. We're still enmeshed in the realm of speculation, information leaks from "anonymous sources", and a continuing tirade from horse's ass del maximo Dick Pound.

All we know is that we don't know much at this point. The record's far from clear, but the only credible hypothesis that I can come up with is mistake or sabotage-although some have suggested that Floyd could have been blood doping and got the wrong pint-an outside possibility. Else, why was this the only 'positive' (whatever that means) sample taken from Floyd Landis during the entire race, before or after? This in itself tends to rule out the "wrong pint" theory.

In the world of athletes, testosterone is a long term tool for building muscle mass-not something that is used for a quick pick me up. So it doesn't make sense from that standpoint. And, truth be told, testosterone does not go away overnight as if by magic.

There's an interesting blog linked above that we shall keep an eye on for status updates.

One thing's for sure-the anti doping witch hunters are eating a lot of crow since yesterday's announcement that the doping allegations against sprinter Marion Jones turned out to be a crock of shit-there are a lot of red faces.

We have opined before that Floyd Landis got Floyd Landis across the finish line. The absolute worst that one can say if all the allegations are true is that Floyd did a classic Icarus thang and flew too near the sun. Yet people are acting as if he's the second coming of Satan.

That's one thing about the 'sport fan' mentality that's always bothered us-it's a great forum for ripping up and bashing people that are your betters in every way, without fear of retribution. People who would get winded pulling on their pants or ordering from the driveup at McDonalds can get all righteous and angry over a guy who rode his damned bicycle 2,000 plus miles in the blazing heat of summer as only the French know how to do summer. As they did over Marion Jones until yesterday.

Another interesting question is why the world insists on giving any credence to Dick Pound, head of the world anti doping agency Brain Police. He's been described as a hypocritical, blustering thug windbag and he's only gotten worse since the Washington Post weighed in back in 2004.

Good thing he spends most of his time up in Canada, we've got more than enough of our own morons here to go around.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61120-2004Aug12.html