Urine trouble

Poor Floyd Landis. The 2006 Tour de France winner who launched a superhuman comeback in one of the Tour's toughest mountain stages is likely to lose his yellow winner's jersey -- and his reputation.\nAllegedly, Landis was a bit too superhuman that day. Results from two urine tests confirmed that Landis' testosterone levels were abnormally elevated.\nHis Swiss team Phonak immediately fired him for "violating the team's internal Code of Ethics." And in the eyes of the Tour de France director, Landis is no longer considered champion. However, the International Cycling Union will wait for an inevitable and lengthy process of appeals before it officially determines whether it will strip Landis of the title. Landis stands to be the first rider ever to lose the Tour de France for doping. He would also receive a two-year ban from the sport.\nIn the last two weeks since the first positive urine sample, Landis has claimed that the testosterone levels were caused by cortisone injections, thyroid medication and even drinking beer and whiskey the night before his miraculous comeback. (Apparently whiskey really will put hair on your chest, if it makes testosterone levels skyrocket!) After this weekend's \nannouncement, he's settled on the claim that it's a "natural" condition.\nNatural? Let me throw some science at you. The drug-testing lab looks for the testosterone/epitestosterone level in a rider's urine. The maximum allowable limit is a 4-1 ratio. Landis' results had an 11-1 ratio. Doesn't sound like a natural condition to me. Furthermore, the head of the French anti-doping council announced that synthetic testosterone was detected in Landis' urine sample. My zoology degree taught me enough to know that our bodies don't "naturally" produce synthetic hormones.\nYet, in true American sportsman style, Landis continues to proclaim his innocence emphatically. "I have never taken any banned substance, including testosterone. I was the strongest man in the Tour de France and that is why I am the champion," he announced. He vows to fight the supposedly false allegations with the same tenacity and intensity with which he trains and races. And so the denials and appeals will continue. And I speculate that even with a determination of guilt, Landis would continue to deny wrongdoing.\nThis cycle of incessant denial is troubling.\nThe baseball doping scandal in recent years and a new doping scandal for U.S. track and field star Justin Gatlin last week have produced waves of denials from athletes for whom we have conclusive evidence of their use of performance enhancers. A common denial: "I never knowingly used those substances."\nThe cycle of public denial extends well beyond the sporting world: Mel "I'm-not-anti-Semitic" Gibson. Kenneth "there-are-no-accounting-issues-at-Enron" Lay. President George "Mission-Accomplished/We're-turning-a-corner-in-Iraq" W. Bush. (If space permitted, I could fill several pages with his denials.)\nI realize reputations and images are on the line. I know it's easy to rationalize things until we truly believe our innocence. But a little accountability would be refreshing now and then. A little humility and truth is certainly a better option than incessant denial.