tyler hamilton

bobke said:

Tyler is like 5 foot 6 inches or seven, 140 pounds, and could kick any of your asses on a bike any day of the week-on a climb, in a time trial, or in a road race-- with or without EPO, blood transfusions etc. Think about it next time you try to write some coy, witty and sarcastic post in self-congratulatory masturbation. Oh yeah, he could kick your asses on a pair of skiis downhill or slalom as well.

Tyler is innocent and you are jealous whining never-could-have-beens.

I have no doubt that what you have written here is true bobke (and meandmybike about the whinning too although I always thought David Millar was the biggest whinner in cycling but perhaps he's got some stiff competition).
Like many people, I was impressed when he completed the 2003 TdF with a broken collarbone. But come on bobke, even such a big Tyler fan as yourself has got to admit that the chimera thing is just plain ridiculous. No one can seriously believe in it.

alibat said:

I have no doubt that what you have written here is true bobke (and meandmybike about the whinning too although I always thought David Millar was the biggest whinner in cycling but perhaps he's got some stiff competition).
Like many people, I was impressed when he completed the 2003 TdF with a broken collarbone. But come on bobke, even such a big Tyler fan as yourself has got too admit that the chimera thing is just plain ridiculus. No one can seriously believe in it.

either bobke IS Tyler, or he is tugboat writing from wherever dogs go when they die.

barnstorm said:

either bobke IS Tyler, or he is tugboat writing from wherever dogs go when they die.

No, no, no! Tyler speaks English and loves dogs therefore must be innocent.
If you don't believe that, then you are jealous and also love terrorists. There can be no other explanation.
All that circumstantial evidence (Prentice Steffen's accusations, his consistently dodgey blood results, his "perfect" haematocrit in competition, the fact that he rode for 3 very dodgey teams doping-wise etc) must have come from a non-English speaker ie doper who was jealous and a terrorist.

bobke said:

Tyler is innocent and you are jealous whining never-could-have-beens.

So thus we can assume from your criticism of Dave Zabriskie that you are able to kick his ass anytime.

Obviously you only believe in criticising riders that you personally can beat.

patch70 said:

So thus we can assume from your criticism of Dave Zabriskie that you are able to kick his ass anytime.

Obviously you only believe in criticising riders that you personally can beat.

Where did I criticise D Zabriskie? If I have forgotten please remind me.

Ignorance knows no bounds.
Tyler and his lawyers were not trying to prove that HE was a chimera. They were simply offering ideas and proof of possible conditions that could have resulted in a true false positive. Since no one has done any tests in the general population or in athletes regarding the incidence of false positives then none of us know the likelihood.

As to the stimulation index, I have read the article, I know the science, unlike most of you and I have one simple question.

If you, as Tyler, were doping, and kept getting warnings as to irregularities in your blood tests, and you and your team were warned about the stim index, retic counts hematocrit etc etc, if you WERE doping, dont you think you could do a sneakier job? and hide it or stop it or something.

No, Tyler kept on racing and only stopped the TdF because he crashed out...

Folks, you have to admit something is weird here.
Why risk everything when you have been warned?

Oh yeah, what was his hematocrit and stim index when he kicked Armstrong's ass in Liege Bastogne Liege 2003 and in the Mont Ventoux ITT 2004? Please tell me why THOSE results werent published?

Not to hijack the thread, but can't we at least talk a bit about the proven fact that Lance Armstrong used EPO? Just for fun, you know, because it might be interesting.

Now, if you want to respond and say that's B.S., they didn't follow protocol, there were not "B" samples or whatever, don't bother. That's a question of whether he could have/should have been disciplined, not a question of whether he did it. You'll notice that even Lance never says the test is wrong, just that it didn't follow protocol. The real question is, as always -- did you do it? Guess what, all the facts available to the world say "Yes" (with a few exclamation marks for emphasis).

Maybe this is too old for anyone to care about, it's been killed already, maybe it should be a new thread, but as long as a Tyler thread is still alive and kicking, we should throw this out for discussion too.

hombredesubaru said:

Where did I criticise D Zabriskie? If I have forgotten please remind me.

Ignorance knows no bounds.
Tyler and his lawyers were not trying to prove that HE was a chimera. They were simply offering ideas and proof of possible conditions that could have resulted in a true false positive. Since no one has done any tests in the general population or in athletes regarding the incidence of false positives then none of us know the likelihood.

As to the stimulation index, I have read the article, I know the science, unlike most of you and I have one simple question.

If you, as Tyler, were doping, and kept getting warnings as to irregularities in your blood tests, and you and your team were warned about the stim index, retic counts hematocrit etc etc, if you WERE doping, dont you think you could do a sneakier job? and hide it or stop it or something.

No, Tyler kept on racing and only stopped the TdF because he crashed out...

Folks, you have to admit something is weird here.
Why risk everything when you have been warned?

Oh yeah, what was his hematocrit and stim index when he kicked Armstrong's ass in Liege Bastogne Liege 2003 and in the Mont Ventoux ITT 2004? Please tell me why THOSE results werent published?

As crazy as the chimera defense sounds, and I dont believe in it, never discount the possibility that it has some percentage of validity. Science is the most powerful knowledge there is. 20 years ago, DNA was not possible. NOw, they identify hair strains, and recover DNA from a sweaty palm print. If Armstrong had his same cancer diagnosis in 91 instead of 96, he wouldn't be here to talk about it, because his treatment wasn't even being considered a possibility back then. So would I be surprised to find out that the chimera defense has some validity? Yes. Would I be shocked by it? No, because anything is possible.

The lines that come to mind that I can think of comes from Men In Black, when Tommy Lee is talking with Will SMith on the park bench about enterting the unit, and his quote is "1500 years ago, everyone knew the Earth was the center of the universe, 500 years ago everyone knew the Earth was flat...." As we all know now, these are both wrong.

I don't believe this chimera defense, but I won't completely rule out of it being a possibility, because anything is possible.

hombredesubaru said:

As to the stimulation index, I have read the article, I know the science...

In your experience of this science (I am not a scientist or doctor) isn't a stimulation index 0.1 beneath the cut off a bit fishy?

hombredesubaru said:

If you, as Tyler, were doping, and kept getting warnings as to irregularities in your blood tests, and you and your team were warned about the stim index, retic counts hematocrit etc etc, if you WERE doping, dont you think you could do a sneakier job? and hide it or stop it or something.

Well, you would think so. But then I doubt he was transfusing blood on his own. Perhaps the doctor messed up? Or the person doing the transfusing wasn't a doctor (maybe a soigneur)? Then there was the issue of Phonak's centrifuge(?) that they used to monitor hematocrit giving different readings to the UCI's machine. How do they measure reticulocytes and haemaglobin? Could those behind Tyler's blood transfusions have been monitoring these markers and arrived at a different index? Then of course there's the theory that Hamilton and Perez were transfusing their own blood and a mix up lead to them getting the other guy's red stuff. I've not read anywhere whether they shared the same blood group or not.

hombredesubaru said:

Folks, you have to admit something is weird here.
Why risk everything when you have been warned?

It's very weird. But not unheard of. Many athletes fail dope tests for drugs that are known to be easily detected.

hombredesubaru said:

Oh yeah, what was his hematocrit and stim index when he kicked Armstrong's ass in Liege Bastogne Liege 2003 and in the Mont Ventoux ITT 2004? Please tell me why THOSE results werent published?

Maybe for the same reason that the police don't arrest every drug trafficker they come across. Sometimes it's worth leaving them loose to find out how far the chain extends.

Doped or not, Hamilton was a hard [censored] (he certainly had my admiration). Far more credible than the Lance 'miracle'. But since his ban I can no longer take his 'courage' at face value.

Iktome said:

Not to hijack the thread, but can't we at least talk a bit about the proven fact that Lance Armstrong used EPO? Just for fun, you know, because it might be interesting.

Now, if you want to respond and say that's B.S., they didn't follow protocol, there were not "B" samples or whatever, don't bother. That's a question of whether he could have/should have been disciplined, not a question of whether he did it. You'll notice that even Lance never says the test is wrong, just that it didn't follow protocol. The real question is, as always -- did you do it? Guess what, all the facts available to the world say "Yes" (with a few exclamation marks for emphasis).

Maybe this is too old for anyone to care about, it's been killed already, maybe it should be a new thread, but as long as a Tyler thread is still alive and kicking, we should throw this out for discussion too.

Actually, DON'T hijack this thread with this Lance EPO take. While I have no objections to discussions about whether Lance doped or not and don't think it's necessarily to old of a topic for discussion, I am completely over people hijacking other interesting threads to spout off about it. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a thread about a non-Lance topic that ends up with posts about Lance's clear guilt as the greatest cheat of all time. He might be, just start a thread with that as the topic so I know what I will be spending my time reading.

hombredesubaru said:

Where did I criticise D Zabriskie? If I have forgotten please remind me.

Ignorance knows no bounds.
Tyler and his lawyers were not trying to prove that HE was a chimera. They were simply offering ideas and proof of possible conditions that could have resulted in a true false positive. Since no one has done any tests in the general population or in athletes regarding the incidence of false positives then none of us know the likelihood.

As to the stimulation index, I have read the article, I know the science, unlike most of you and I have one simple question.

If you, as Tyler, were doping, and kept getting warnings as to irregularities in your blood tests, and you and your team were warned about the stim index, retic counts hematocrit etc etc, if you WERE doping, dont you think you could do a sneakier job? and hide it or stop it or something.

No, Tyler kept on racing and only stopped the TdF because he crashed out...

Folks, you have to admit something is weird here.
Why risk everything when you have been warned?

Oh yeah, what was his hematocrit and stim index when he kicked Armstrong's ass in Liege Bastogne Liege 2003 and in the Mont Ventoux ITT 2004? Please tell me why THOSE results werent published?

Hombre. I really want to believe Tyler didn't do at and part of me still does and that's why I keep reading and waiting to see what happens at his appeal. But, the only thing that bothers me more than guys that I like doping is guys that I like doping, swearing it's not true, and stringing us all along with ridiculous denials. I truly hope there is some other explanation because I tend to agree with you about something being weird. Why on earth would he keep cheating when he has been warned that his tests are screwy? That is inviting yourself to be caught. Tyler is the kind of guy you just want to get behind, other than that dog thing of course. Grinding his teeth down in the Giro, winning the Olympics, riding the Tour with a broken collar bone, destroying Lance on Mt. Ventoux. He really is the most balanced TDF challenger to come along in that he can rival anyone in the world in TTs and, when he is on, can climb with the best. I hope he is innocent and can prove it but the data seem very much against him and his arguments seem very thin at this point.... sadly

barnstorm said:

Actually, DON'T hijack this thread with this Lance EPO take thread with that as the topic so I know what I will be spending my time reading....

Fair enough. The point wastn't to ensure a Lance-centric world; rather, I just thought I'd suggest that we consider the entire range of potential guilt if we're going to skewer Tyler. A lot of people are more than happy to go after Tyler without considering whether anyone else has similar problems.

But if that needs another thread, no problem.

hombredesubaru said:

Where did I criticise D Zabriskie? If I have forgotten please remind me.

Are you and bobke the same person? Because the statement about DZ was following a quote from him/her.

Re Tyler, he may not have been fully in control of the situation but rather following orders (along with Santi Perez). The team medical staff may have been saying "don't worry, everythings in order, we have your hct just under 50% whenever they test".

Perhaps the transition from consistently dodgey Stimulation Index to positive for autologous transfusion was due to a medical stuff up in that TH and SP got each other's blood rather than their own. Either way, the high hct, low retic count was very dodgey.

Also - the autologous test has been used in pregnant women for a long time and does not give a lot of positive results. Pregnant women are far more likely to display chimerism than men. The autologous transfusion test probably isn't sensitive enough to detect chimerism so PCR is required to do that.

(In simple terms, the FACS-style autologous transfusion test finds the apple in the bunch of oranges whereas PCR finds the needle in the haystack.)

Also very suspicious is the fact that TH has tested negative by the autologous transfusion test since he's stopped competing.

patch70 said:

Are you and bobke the same person? Because the statement about DZ was following a quote from him/her.

Re Tyler, he may not have been fully in control of the situation but rather following orders (along with Santi Perez). The team medical staff may have been saying "don't worry, everythings in order, we have your hct just under 50% whenever they test".

Perhaps the transition from consistently dodgey Stimulation Index to positive for autologous transfusion was due to a medical stuff up in that TH and SP got each other's blood rather than their own. Either way, the high hct, low retic count was very dodgey.

Also - the autologous test has been used in pregnant women for a long time and does not give a lot of positive results. Pregnant women are far more likely to display chimerism than men. The autologous transfusion test probably isn't sensitive enough to detect chimerism so PCR is required to do that.

(In simple terms, the FACS-style autologous transfusion test finds the apple in the bunch of oranges whereas PCR finds the needle in the haystack.)

Also very suspicious is the fact that TH has tested negative by the autologous transfusion test since he's stopped competing.

I also suspect TH and SP got each others blood. I still have not seen answers to the following questions though. Unless its all bull, when you watch the crime shows on TV it seems that they should be able to determine that there are 2 DNAs present in his blood sample. Also if you were to test him (TH) regularly over a long enough period you should see the second markers go away gradually over time, unless he is able to keep it in check with exactly the right transfusions timed just right. The answers to these questions cut both ways. On the one hand they could show he is guilty, and on the other they could show him innocent. It seems unusual that this kind of secondary or follow-up testing wouldn't be part of his defence, and if it is available but not part of his defense then that doesn't look good for him.

Whatever the outcome of this last appeal, I hope we get more answers than we have now. I suspect both TH and Roberto will go to their respective graves still claiming that they are not guilty no matter what happens.

davidbod said:

I also suspect TH and SP got each others blood. I still have not seen answers to the following questions though. Unless its all bull, when you watch the crime shows on TV it seems that they should be able to determine that there are 2 DNAs present in his blood sample. Also if you were to test him (TH) regularly over a long enough period you should see the second markers go away gradually over time, unless he is able to keep it in check with exactly the right transfusions timed just right. The answers to these questions cut both ways. On the one hand they could show he is guilty, and on the other they could show him innocent. It seems unusual that this kind of secondary or follow-up testing wouldn't be part of his defence, and if it is available but not part of his defense then that doesn't look good for him.

Whatever the outcome of this last appeal, I hope we get more answers than we have now. I suspect both TH and Roberto will go to their respective graves still claiming that they are not guilty no matter what happens.

Along these same lines, a prisoner in Virginia was executed for raping and killing his friends wife, convicted in the 1980s and executed in 1992. Liberal whining lawyers insisted he was innocent and put to death wrongly, pleaded for use of RETROACTIVE DNA testing from body fluids found on the victim to do state of the art 2006 DNA testing to prove post mortem this guys innocence.

The guy always insisted he was innocent right up to his death.
Over and over again, causing many including his lawyers to involve humdreds of folks in petitions etc etc.

Bottom line, they did the tests this week.
He was guilty. Virtually 99.9999% sure by DNA testing.

Two thoughts: the current doping tests are no where near that accurate.
But guilty people do sometimes insist they are innocent.
Whatever.
But Jeam Marie and L'Equipe will take this as a precedent no doubt for their asking for retro testing.
FREE TYLER

bobke said:

Along these same lines, a prisoner in Virginia was executed for raping and killing his friends wife, convicted in the 1980s and executed in 1992. Liberal whining lawyers insisted he was innocent and put to death wrongly, pleaded for use of RETROACTIVE DNA testing from body fluids found on the victim to do state of the art 2006 DNA testing to prove post mortem this guys innocence.

The guy always insisted he was innocent right up to his death.
Over and over again, causing many including his lawyers to involve humdreds of folks in petitions etc etc.

Bottom line, they did the tests this week.
He was guilty. Virtually 99.9999% sure by DNA testing.

Two thoughts: the current doping tests are no where near that accurate.
But guilty people do sometimes insist they are innocent.
Whatever.
But Jeam Marie and L'Equipe will take this as a precedent no doubt for their asking for retro testing.
FREE TYLER

I guess its kind of like Macbeth. Once you've gone so far its easier just to continue to purpetuate the lie than face up to the truth.

bobke said:

Along these same lines, a prisoner in Virginia was executed for raping and killing his friends wife, convicted in the 1980s and executed in 1992. Liberal whining lawyers insisted he was innocent and put to death wrongly, pleaded for use of RETROACTIVE DNA testing from body fluids found on the victim to do state of the art 2006 DNA testing to prove post mortem this guys innocence.

The guy always insisted he was innocent right up to his death.
Over and over again, causing many including his lawyers to involve humdreds of folks in petitions etc etc.

Bottom line, they did the tests this week.
He was guilty. Virtually 99.9999% sure by DNA testing.

Two thoughts: the current doping tests are no where near that accurate.
But guilty people do sometimes insist they are innocent.
Whatever.
But Jeam Marie and L'Equipe will take this as a precedent no doubt for their asking for retro testing.
FREE TYLER

I think Hamilton isn't helped by the fact that, when confronted with the evidence, he offered an initial explantion about having undergone an operation
as the cause for his positive result.
Then he changed his defence to that of his chimera theory

When that chimera defence was presented it did not convince the panel that it (the chimera defence) could mitigate the positive result.

I think Hamilton is on very thin ice.

Perez (his team mate who was also caught) accepted his fate.
Hamilton should do the same.

patch70 said:

Are you and bobke the same person? Because the statement about DZ was following a quote from him/her.

Re Tyler, he may not have been fully in control of the situation but rather following orders (along with Santi Perez). The team medical staff may have been saying "don't worry, everythings in order, we have your hct just under 50% whenever they test".

I guess this possibility helps a bit in reconciling how hard it is to see Tyler being so brazen. I am beginning to believe that just about everyone out there is doing their own blood. At that point, a mixup seems really easy to buy. Dumb mistake but easy to believe.

Perhaps the transition from consistently dodgey Stimulation Index to positive for autologous transfusion was due to a medical stuff up in that TH and SP got each other's blood rather than their own. Either way, the high hct, low retic count was very dodgey.

Also - the autologous test has been used in pregnant women for a long time and does not give a lot of positive results. Pregnant women are far more likely to display chimerism than men. The autologous transfusion test probably isn't sensitive enough to detect chimerism so PCR is required to do that.

(In simple terms, the FACS-style autologous transfusion test finds the apple in the bunch of oranges whereas PCR finds the needle in the haystack.)

Also very suspicious is the fact that TH has tested negative by the autologous transfusion test since he's stopped competing.

This last bit is what really screws Tyler's chimera defense. I read that he tested (forgive the informal science language here because I read it a while ago and am not a scientist... this is the gist of what I remember) strongly regarding a transfusion at the Vuelta, tested moderately a month or two later, and normal a month or two after that. Since red cells live around 120 days, this looks EXACTLY what a transfusion should look like. Sorry Tyler, that's not helping your case.

barnstorm said:

This last bit is what really screws Tyler's chimera defense. I read that he tested (forgive the informal science language here because I read it a while ago and am not a scientist... this is the gist of what I remember) strongly regarding a transfusion at the Vuelta, tested moderately a month or two later, and normal a month or two after that. Since red cells live around 120 days, this looks EXACTLY what a transfusion should look like. Sorry Tyler, that's not helping your case.

Well I think I read the tests different but whatever.
But here is th weird part.
The part that looked like transfused "different" blood in the Olympics was DIFFERENT than the transfused "different" blood antigens in the Vuelta tests. Weird huh?

bobke said:

Well I think I read the tests different but whatever.
But here is th weird part.
The part that looked like transfused "different" blood in the Olympics was DIFFERENT than the transfused "different" blood antigens in the Vuelta tests. Weird huh?

Not really. If he had blood transfused from a different source, that would be expected. The later transfusion may have been a small amount or it may have been with blood that had been stored for longer so that the transfused cells were dying earlier than "fresh" red cells would.

patch70 said:

Not really. If he had blood transfused from a different source, that would be expected. The later transfusion may have been a small amount or it may have been with blood that had been stored for longer so that the transfused cells were dying earlier than "fresh" red cells would.

You are wrong as usual.
FREE TYLER!!!!!!!!!!!!