**** Breaking News: Hamilton Tested Positive? ***

antoineg

For crying out loud, how is a discussion of two doping positives by Tyler Hamilton a "slur on [his] character and reputation" ??? Who has taken potshots at him, slurred him, called him names, cast aspersions on his life and character?

I mean come on, get off your high horse. Please take yourself up on your New Year's Resolution a few months early, please!

He's HAD AN "A" SAMPLE DOPING POSITIVE. TWO OF THEM. Hate to use caps but some of you have a very hard time looking past your biases.

And Kate, you know what, beating wives, taking the Lord's name in vain and what-have-you, not to mention Josephine the Palmolive Lady, have nothing to do with Tyler and only serve to underline the fact that you like to diffuse, confuse, distort, and minimize the issue at hand.

antoineg

Belive me I've been on Beastt too. He and Kate, if not the same person, at least went to the same school on this issue (doping).

antoineg

You'd be surprised. I invite anyone to look at your (admittedly long) history of posts on these forums to see your consistent, clear bias against any intelligent discussion of doping or dopers. And dopes too, but that's a different story (sometimes)

Your posts on this thread: http://www.cyclingforums.com/showth...69&page=2&pp=15 are particularly ironic, given our present circumstances.

gntlmn

Let's say that he indeed proves that he received blood for surgery and that it was within the time frame to expect a positive resultant blood doping test for each of these two separate tests. Can we then conclude that he doped? No! Can we then conclude that he did not dope? No!

I would hate to see the door left open for a rider to have surgery in order to have a cover for blood doping. So there has to be some kind of consequence even if we learn that he did have surgery, and even if his results were entirely because of that surgery and not doping.

The fact that the Olympics result only now is disclosed is rather puzzling. I wonder if they felt that the Olympics test was not very reliable by itself without having a subsequent positive to substantiate the first. If that's the case, I would find both results questionable. I'd like to hear an official reason as to why the Olympics result took so long to be disclosed.

Brunswick_kate

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes...the unauthorized use of jocularity on a cycling message board.

In deference to your easily offended sensibilities, I'll endeavour to keep the levity to a minimum in the future.

By the way, thanks for the compliment. I had no idea you were such a fan of my pronouncements and commentary that you've paid such rapt attention to my every utterance. Gives me goosebumps, it does.

Cheers!

PS: when you're going to quote me, is it too much to ask you to use it in context? Thanks again.

__________________
Insanity has its price -- Please have exact change.

antoineg

Hmmm...it was in context. The immediate earlier poster had written, in regards to TH's win in the Olympic time trial:

...obviously in jest, and sarcastically. To which you replied:

I said it was ironic because we now DO have a scandal surrounding Tyler Hamilton.

Brunswick_kate

Yes. Thank you. I acknowledge that. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Most kind of you.

__________________
Insanity has its price -- Please have exact change.

antoineg

gntlmn, I really hope that it turns out favorable for TH, and I suppose this is one way. What I have read so far leads me to the initial, perhaps incorrect, understanding that transfused blood cells (as in surgery) don't last for more than 60 days on average, and perhaps 120 days as an absolute maximum. Some of that data has been posted on these forums.

Combined with the previous lack of any information on any Hamilton surgery in the last few months (at least that I can find) makes this an unlikely possibility, in my analysis at least. Does anyone know of, or can find, any info on any Hamilton surgery since, say, May 1?

Entirely agree. I find it hard to believe that cyclists would undergo the knife merely in order to get a "free pass" for subsequent blood doping, but I suppose the cynic in me thinks anything is possible

My initial thought was that it was due to (a) the newness of the test, and (b) the fact that there are only 2 accredited labs in the world that do this test. (c) might be the fact that the first "gotcha" is probably always the most sensitive, PR-wise, and they (as another poster suggested) wanted to "cover their ass" before going public.

It would not surprise me if the results of the IOC test were given to the Vuelta testing people, merely in order to try and get valid data to corroborate the first result. Didn't the information about THG get fed to WADA for the Track and Field world championships last year, so they could purposely test for it? Something along those lines.

sportzgurl

I seem to remember at the Olympics the two Greek sprinters faking (or so called faking) a car crash to try and get eveyone away from the real truth. Could Tyler be faking the surgery? Probably not. But there is always an excuse.

gntlmn

I don't know about the Track and Field WC's. It seems that if the Olympics people told the Vuelta people that a rider has tested positive for doping, we are not confident about the result without corroboration, let us know if you get a positive, that that would be a somewhat impartial way to go. But if they identify the rider by name beforehand, I wouldn't feel as good about the result. It seems like that would introduce bias somehow. It's too much like groupthink--everyone looks to what the other says and then just copies it without arriving at independent conclusions. I would feel most confident about independent conclusions. Like for example, the Vuelta people disclose doping, and then the Olympics people say that they have come to the same conclusion. They would be able to show evidence of this conclusion already, not to us of course but to testers who know what they're doing. And actually, this may have been what happened.

gntlmn

With as many crashes as he has, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that he needs surgeries now and again. I doubt that he's going to run to a reporter and scream up and down that he went under the knife. I wouldn't be surprised either way--that he did or that he didn't. He sure gets in a lot of crashes on the bike.

Wasn't that crash after the results became public? I vaguely recall that they tumbled badly--from medals to dishonor to car crash, all in one day.

sportzgurl

Yeah he sure has bad luck with crashes. And i wouldn't be surprised if he has had surgery without making it public either. I think the sprinters missed their tests and so faked the crash. Then it came out that they had missed others. But i might be wrong! Oh well, who cares about them anyway. It just seems to me that when ever somebody comes under investigation for doping, there is some reason for it. More often than not that reason is the truth but im sure some professional sportspeople get away with it.

Also I would have thought that if Tyler did have this surgery he would have told or had to tell the UCI that he had had the transfusion. To avoid the situation he is in right now.

gntlmn

I wasn't aware of that faked crash. Hmmm. That's really spin control if I ever heard it. heh heh

You're exactly right about telling UCI about the transfusion. That should have been what he did. Maybe he did, but I doubt it. Otherwise, one of them would have gone public.

The point you made about prior notification is one of those things that everyone doesn't think of when news comes out like this. That's why I like to wait a while to reach a definite conclusion one way or the other. One person says one thing, and then someone else says something else that gets us a little closer to understanding what really happened.

If Tyler gets a two year ban, he's probably finished in cycling.

antoineg

That's why you would think that in this press conference earlier today, TH would have come out with very specific information to rebut the allegations -- if he had undergone surgery within the last few months, he would say "I went in to hospital X on such and such a date for a surgery to cure malady Y, and received 2 pints (or whatever) of blood in a transfusion. Go check the records."

At this point, being very forthcoming about such a scenario would only to be to his advantage, since he's unfortunately fighting a PR war, and the testing of the "B" samples will proceed no matter what he says. The lack of specificity in his response -- other than "I'm 100% innocent" -- disturbs me a little bit. He has nothing to lose by being specific, if truth is on his side.