Marchand's B Sample test postponed

Interesting!! Does time affect the sample? Just curious.

It is commonly believed to have assisted Lagat and Jones.

Interesting, someone on the other thread said this:

EPO Insider: The EPO test is easy to beat. You just don't have the B sample tested until the very last day you can wait once notified and it will have a negative result due to the sample deteriorating. This is what Lagat did and also Marion Jones when she tested postitive for epo.

On the other hand, properly stored samples have been retested many months later with positive results.

Of the top of my head, there was the 1999 Tour de France samples - retested years later and several positives found and then there was the retests for CERA from the samples taken at the 2008 Olympics - slightly different from regular epo, but most likely plenty of other cases if you search for them.

I think the main reason to delay a test is so the lawyer can search for loopholes, maybe some procedure not documented properly where someone didn't dot an i or cross a t.

In the meanwhile you don't want news of a positive B sample coming out while you are looking for loopholes so that you can apply to have both samples declared invalid.

This has the added advantage for the lawyer, that each delaying action allows him to find more ways to increase the size of the fee.

The testing is suspended indefinitely so a witness can be present? Listen, if a legal representative wants a witness to be present at the B sample testing, then that witness should have the burden of getting there within a certain timeframe. What if the witness claims they can't make it for another 2 or 3 weeks? Come on, play hardball with the suspected drug cheats instead of allowing them to manipulate the system.

what has this girl accomplished to merit the attention she is getting here?

Well for one, she is a cheat, cheats are basically stealing money from runners who work hard to reach their goals.

Even if she was a mid packer she deserves to be fined and banned immediately

Sure sign of cheating

long sox wrote:Of the top of my head, there was the 1999 Tour de France samples - retested years later and several positives found and then there was the retests for CERA from the samples taken at the 2008 Olympics - slightly different from regular epo, but most likely plenty of other cases if you search for them.

There are different forms of EPO you can take, many of which are much harder to detect since they started coming out with tests. Any EPO in 1999 was not the same as you're seeing today.

suspend them for life wrote:

Interesting, someone on the other thread said this:

EPO Insider: The EPO test is easy to beat. You just don't have the B sample tested until the very last day you can wait once notified and it will have a negative result due to the sample deteriorating. This is what Lagat did and also Marion Jones when she tested postitive for epo.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3701371&page=2

Simply, patently false. Lagat was exonerated because his samples were badly mishandled. For one, the protocol specified that they were to be kept on ice. They weren't. The were left in a car, where temps. reached 100 degrees F. They were useless and never should have been used in any test.

'The were left in a car, where temps. reached 100 degrees F'

I'm off to sit in the car all day, I will soon be setting all types of records

letsc wrote:

Well for one, she is a cheat

No, she's a SUSPECT. She becomes a cheat when the B sample comes back positive. There is a rate of false positives and in many areas of medicine it is a lot higher than you might think.

If this happened to you after some local road race and you knew you hadn't taken anything, you'd sure as hell seek out some qualified scientist to be your witness and (since most of them have day-jobs in labs or academia somewhere) it might take 2-3 weeks to arrange their presence. They never said it had been postponed for years.

herr.doctor wrote:

It is commonly believed to have assisted Lagat....

Bullshit, Lagat's "A" sample was left for a long time in very hot conditions and almost certainly was degraded and damaged. The "B" sample was properly cared for, refrigerated etc. If you think that the time matters much look at the supposed positive of Armstrong's 1999 sample in about 2005 -- that is a longer interval by two orders of magnitude (although I will say that I do not remember how long it was between the test and the testing of either sample).

Bullshit, Lagat's "A" sample was left for a long time in very hot conditions and almost certainly was degraded and damaged.

That would cause a false negative, not a false positive.

why can't her name be rachel instead of "racheal?" how pompus!

Is IS commonly believed to have assisted Lagat. Feel free to dispute that it is not. I said nothing about "time matters", I stated what is a common opinion in this part of the world.Reading is fundamental.Hope you are not representative of the quality of education in Wisconsin.

26mi235 wrote:

herr.doctor wrote:

It is commonly believed to have assisted Lagat....

Bullshit, Lagat's "A" sample was left for a long time in very hot conditions and almost certainly was degraded and damaged. The "B" sample was properly cared for, refrigerated etc. If you think that the time matters much look at the supposed positive of Armstrong's 1999 sample in about 2005 -- that is a longer interval by two orders of magnitude (although I will say that I do not remember how long it was between the test and the testing of either sample).

You people should really stick to talking about things you have some sort of knowledge of. Why does the internet make people think they know everything?

Look, I have served as an expert witness for an EPO doping test. It paid for part of my wedding. So read and learn:

1) Delaying the test won't do a darn thing to the test. As long as the urine is being stored properly frozen, it is not deteriorating unless the delay takes YEARS. The Lagat issue came about because of what happened BEFORE it was frozen, not after.

2) Degradation can cause a false negative OR a false positive. The antibody used in detection is not specific to recombinat EPO protein, but to all EPO. It is the position of the bands on the gel which determine if it is natural EPO or doped EPO. Degradation could cause bands to disappear (false negative) or move locations. If they move to a location where one would expect a band for doped EPO, it will result in a false-positive.

spaniel wrote:

Degradation can cause a false negative OR a false positive. The antibody used in detection is not specific to recombinat EPO protein, but to all EPO. It is the position of the bands on the gel which determine if it is natural EPO or doped EPO. Degradation could cause bands to disappear (false negative) or move locations. If they move to a location where one would expect a band for doped EPO, it will result in a false-positive.

While you may be technically correct, the likelihood of a false positive from degradation is very remote (it's very unlikely that degradation would result in such a precise mass shift).

Furthermore, if a size shift is the diagnostic for EPO doping, what an easy way to beat the test: make a recombinant EPO that runs at the same size as natural EPO.