Today, I was woken up super early by my phone with numerous text notifications about Tom Danielson being positive for synthetic testosterone. For me, I just rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. It isn’t anything that I didn’t already know. Well, I didn’t know that he was going to be so stupid to be caught doping, especially with synthetic testosterone, when it is so hard to get caught, but it wasn’t a surprise at all, that he was, and is, currently doping.
This is one of his tweets from last night. “Especially after everything I have gone through the last years.” He is saying that it makes “absolutely no sense” that he would take drugs currently, even though he took drugs to get into the Pro ranks of the sport and was only “caught” after he was subpoenaed to testify concerning Lance. And even then, it wasn’t public until his team director, Jonathan Vaughters “leaked” it so brilliantly.
I already wrote a pretty long post on my views of Tommy D. Here is the link. It pretty much summed up my experiences with him over his “career”.
Anyway, addressing his tweet. My question is why wouldn’t you “take anything”, especially after what you have gone through. You’ve been racing on drugs your whole career and have never turned up a positive doping control, so what would be the reason that you wouldn’t dope? The reason is the small, minute chance that you might get caught. And that happened. Dang. Bad luck.
So, your choices are you dope and feel great, kick ass racing bikes, or you are a piece of shit athlete and you can’t compete and you have to watch from the outside. You made that choice years ago, I can’t see any reason you would stop.
Tom is so eloquent with his tweets. This maybe explains one reason he dopes. But, like most of these guys, he is being super greedy and really doesn’t love the sport. He loves himself and wants the easy money, fame and such. If he truly loved the sport, he would quietly disappear into the history books, with a couple of asterisks next to his name.
But, Tom won’t quietly disappear. He is going to go down kicking and screaming. Because if his B sample turns up positive, (and it will, it’s synthetic testosterone) then he is going to be facing a lifetime ban, so there is no downside to proclaiming innocence until it really becomes a moot point. Then Tom becomes minute, so small as to verge on insignificant. We’ll all forget him, or, maybe NBC Sports will hire him to do commentary.
It is interesting, to me, what Jonathan Vaughters is going to say, or do the next few days, weeks, months.
From the Cyclingnews article on Tom today –
In February, Vaughters told Cyclingnews, “It’s true we ask for that [scrutiny] and still in ten years we’ve not had a rider dope on our team. Ever. We’ve lived up to that. That was the initial promise. If that ever is broken then Doug and I are out.”
So far, Jonathan’s response is – “Tom Danielson notified Slipstream Sports that he was informed by USADA that he has returned an adverse analytical A sample using carbon isotope testing. In accordance with Slipstream Sports’ zero tolerance anti-doping policy, he has been suspended from competition, effective immediately. He awaits the results his B sample. Slipstream respects and will adhere to the process of the anti-doping authorities and will not comment further.”
So, Tom is going to be suspended for competition? And Slipstream “will not comment further”. It is funny, Jonathan usually has a ton to say on these subjects. Guess he is at loss for words in this situation.
Okay, I’m done with this for today. I have better things to do, like feeding the hummingbirds.
I’m sure he will still be welcomed back at Levis’ Granfondo this year. He is such a crowd pleaser.
I love this so fucking much.
Tom D, one of very many, very many in WT.
Let’s hope he takes Vaughters down with him when he goes kicking and screaming!
He’s going positive on the B sample. Do we know who opened the case? UCI? USAC?
The stupid/crazy thing about Testosterone positives is the T:E ratio is set ridiculously high, 4:1 when the vast majority of humanity is well below 2:1. That means the most likely scenario would be a poorly timed administration of exogenous test. Nike/Salazar using Androgel on his son so his athlete is sure to never test positive is the latest public example of the abuse. But, that also means the cycling federation picked that failed test out of a likely high number of failed tests. (See Seppelt’s IAAF story that was published over the weekend.)
Less likely is the test for exogenous Test was run first. It’s a very expensive test, so the cycling federation would be doing a Floyd Landis to him.
You can’t rule out the sample being swapped because we know it happens at the IAAF.
As always with cycling and anti-doping, very little of it makes any sense.
How sad.
It’s a great day for clean cyclists! Go USADA!
Everyone says the “testing is expensive,” but never actually give an amount. Has this just become a rhetoric? If not, what’s a ballpark number?
He could always take up running or soccer, at the highest level……
Oh wait…
Am i missing something? I thought once you use synthetic testosterone your body shuts down your own production and then you will forever require the “therapy”?
Don’t gloat too much
http://d3epuodzu3wuis.cloudfront.net/Hincapie,+George+Affidavit.pdf
Even if his “B” sample did somehow come back negative, what was left of his credibility is now zero.
He was given a 2nd chance, he blew it… Time to go away forever Tommy D.
Zero, your comment is basically incoherent.
I cant wait for the Tom Danielson gran fondo to appear. Another chance to ride with the legends of doping. Awesome.
Yeah! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Man, it’s a good thing we race so clean in the U-S-A!
The Tommy D Gran Fondo is already on the calendar. The price is $399., but you get a 15% discount if you provide some innovative supplements to help needy racing cyclists keep up. The Fondo will provide coolers and thermoses for aforementioned supplements if requests are done in a timely manner.
Let’s ride!
Riders typically use the testosterone during their most intensive training blocks, usually weeks before the “big” event. Not to say that they won’t use it during the event too, but to do so means a far greater risk of getting caught in a test. The testosterone molecule metabolizes rather quickly, so you either have to catch it soon after it’s been taken, or…
Weeks before the event, the rider is not only doing intensive training blocks back at home, but also decides to er, um… “make a deposit at the bank”. The blood bank. If the rider still has testosterone in his system when banking blood, it stays with the blood (and is not metabolized). But if introduced at a later date (like in the middle of a bike race) in the middle of a bag of blood), it would be as if they just took it.
Landis still (to this day) maintains he was not taking testosterone during the TDF when he was caught. But Landis has talked much about his (and others’) use of transfusions during the race.
I think TD was banking blood and screwed up on his QA process. Floyd too.
I feel bad about being happy that this guy got caught.
But only a little bit bad.
And very very happy.
I would be happier if he was caught years and years ago before he made this money and kept clean riders from having more chances.
But still, I’m so happy he’s busted.
Krakatoa-Yeah, Lance told me he thought that Floyd screwed up the rest day blood transfusion and used blood that he withdrew when he was taking testosterone, for training, earlier in the season. Same with Contador. Kind of surprised me that they can’t get this right. It isn’t brain surgery.
Makes me curious as to whether Phil G left or got cut from Garmin. Getting cut because there are ‘better’ riders is unfortunate. Leaving perhaps because he didn’t agree with some of the methods that Garmin was using (purely speculation), makes me like him even more!
Just so everybody knows, I would NEVER do that shit.
This guy is a total POS. His first wife stood by him silently and didn’t rat him out for the early career drug usage, despite him cheating on her with a groupie. Then the groupie became the wife, had kids with Dopey D and guess what happened? He hooked up (quite publicly) with a fame seeking trophy girl at the Tour of Utah while his wife and kids watched.
This guy takes the easy way out as a pattern.
Total Douche,
Did you have to have a multi-million dollar house in Durango?
Did you have to beat those hillclimb records nationwide by minutes?
Did you have to stab Lance in the back, like Hincapie et al, after he turned you into a chico rico?
No, no & ahh, no
Now you can get a job in the industry and get appearance fees from your charade like the rest and save 30-40hrs a week riding which you STILL had to do. Was always a pleasure winning a pro race, while winning small amateur events was guilt-invoking……
Like has already been said, the synthetic testosterone test isn’t cheap to administer. It’s not even a “routine” test, as it’s so expensive. The dopers who “play the odds” know this. And despite the doper’s amateur-but-uniquely-advanced knowledge of hematology, etc., I seriously doubt they’re running their bank deposits through any kind of tests. Danielson probably got overconfident and sloppy. Doper / gamblers can’t really ever quit until they get caught. And TD had never been caught before.
Dave – Your point? Do you think there is some reason to gloat? I don’t get it.
Depends how much / often the abuse is happening. Some have abused their endocrine systems to the point of killing their own natural testosterone production (thus requiring the artificial, always). I wonder if Testosterone is a common TUE these days. Hmm.
Then again, it could have been that fifth of Jack Daniels that Danielson downed the night before 😉
Either TD failed a ridiculously simple-to-pass test, or they are giving him the Floyd Landis treatment.
Any better?
This whole episode makes me think that what I thought about the last two TDF’s might indeed be true….it seemed to me both Nibali in 2014 and Sky team in 2015 showed up at the TDF ”top off”…got early leads and then hung on. Maybe that is the new paradigm….
Thanks Steve, your first posting a few years ago told us enough we needed to know – if we didnt already know of course, but inside info from the US is always great – about Tommy. That combined with his statement in the Armstrong saga told us all we need to know about this fella: a born liar.
Stating he loves cycling, well, I think I know and old American who does love cycling and he doesnt like beind BS’d.
Look it up. The UCI publishes the cost of their anti-doping program and the contributions from teams and riders.
Inrng has summarized it nicely. http://inrng.com/2015/07/uci-annual-report-and-accounts
The sample was collected on July 9, which is more than 3 weeks prior to the start of the Tour of Utah. Seems like a good time for a training block.
When I ran the QC Criterium, in 2013 USADA was charging $600 per rider for a standard urine sample test.
Steve,
You’ve been extremely critical of Lance in the past. Are you now on speaking terms with him?
Krakatoa,
Androgel is cheap, readily available, and easy to administer.
Maybe these guys are so dumb they are dosing with exogenous Testosterone of some kind, then within a couple of hours, withdrawing the blood. It is crazy any way you look at it.
Regarding Landis, the voluminous records show his sample was tested and retested until the score the UCI wanted appeared.
Otherwise, spot on.
You’re gloating
B
M
C
O
C
H
?
Lots of questions there
Uncle Chainwhip,
I’m very interested to hear some more about this back stabbing among cheats and liars.
Please, post at length on this topic.
here here!
Thanks Dutch! You’re right, I don’t like being bs’ed.
I know that Androgel is cheap. Testing one’s own blood is not. As far as Landis’ blood, I thought they tested and re-tested, proving the adverse ratio was clearly out-of-norm, and only afterward did they “go deep” and test for the synthetic variety. They proved both (in both the A and B samples). I don’t think the UCI “wanted” anyone to test positive, but if there was anyone that McQuaid would not lose sleep in crushing, Landis was that guy. He pushed them really hard on the Mercury salary reserve fiasco (IE, when Pat, Hein & friends embezzled the loot)
Why don’t they start giving lifetime bans for a first offense? They have a B test of the sample to confirm the positive result. I still think there would be dopers but at least we would not have to keep hearing about them after they were caught.
Wow. Really? Have you ever heard his voice? It’s like Cadel Evans breathed in helium right after getting kicked in the nuts. Chicks dig it. Who knew?
So it was’t the core exercises that made him so fast? Maybe I can get a refund.
Zero,
Let me clarify, i like money.
If Lance turned me into a millionaire, i would have NEVER ratted him out.
Guess you just can’t trust many people & i have some strange integrity.
Some of my best moments in racing were besting doped riders, it was like a double win!
Continue into the sunset…..
So now we know that the ” Deep Test ” , the one that is NOT USED at Le Tour , costs $600 or so !
We now have 3 Le Tour , where the Racers have ALL been wearing Polished Halos ! Of course , if the Org. CHOOSES to NOT TEST correctly , ALL the racers will think they are walking on water ?
WHEN are the UCI going to START doing THEIR JOB PROPERLY ?
Not too late for the UCI/ASO to OUT those that they are PROTECTING ?
Guess it is time to start enjoying World Farsical Wrestling once again ?
Skippy, Are you related to Zero? Good God man, shape up!
Is this *really* Dave LeDuc commenting about doping?
REALLY????
I see that VeloNews has quietly shit-canned their “TD +” story from yesterday.
TD was a spoiled brat when he came up racing the MTB in New England. He has a sense of entitlement and I’ll be glad when the hammer drops on him for good and he is done with the sport.
The URL still works, but try finding it on VN dot com!
Remember this…
https://twitter.com/kalan_beisel/status/502560055737466880?nav=true
Goodbye Tommy Dooshbag!!
I hope Tommy D will be at Levi’s G-Fondo! Doper 3 ways go all night!!! Giddy up:)
Krakatoa….hmmmm….Is Floyd your first name? or Tyler?
As far as you know.
Brent Brookwalter falls into the same catagory as TD (although not as high profile) this kid was a pimple on the face of the Michigan Scene, given the local michigan talent he should have never made it to the highest levels in cycling without a little help;)
Or less of him if he was unwilling to speak up.
Or less of him if he was unwilling to speak up about it.
They don’t have the money to test for everything (all the time). And unfortunately, the UCI still doesn’t want to actually “catch” cheats. They almost always pre-announce what they’ll be testing for, allowing the dopers to adapt and change.
High price of $149 here: https://www.directlabs.com/Resources/MensHealth/Testosterone/tabid/2057/language/en-US/Default.aspx
How much is the blood draw? Not sure. Let’s say $500 for all of it.
A guy like TD isn’t going to miss $500. Apparently he is too lazy to dope well.
Rare event when you get to see Karma come back and bitch slap someone who desperately deserves it. I bet Kalan Beisel is feeling as smug as a bug in a rug right about now. LOVE IT!!!
FU td!!!
steve, reading some of your replies, you seem to know pretty much about doping.. how to not get caught…
Steve,
So much Tommy Ds story parallels numerous (I mean I lost count) riders I knew racing in New England. One common thread, other than the meteoric rise in a matter of months? Arizona, Tucson to be specific. Tucson must have been the drug Mecca of the U.S. I’m so sick of the doping shit. Maybe if more of us doped we could have leveled the playing field…or maybe we would all have lose our souls. It seems that most of the guys who doped still came out ahead.
Steve, fyi – It’s a moot point, not a mute point. And also, fuck Tom! Next time, & w all due respects.
Yawn…..
Well said, Levi.
Hey Cycling Fans and Mr. Tilford! Chris Froome here (from an undisclosed location- a pub in West Ken!) I’m fresh off a post tour topper administered by Sir Brailsford himself- he skin-popped some home brewed and then I burned 3 hours on the ergometer whilst Dr. Langsbury did lactic acid tests every 12 minutes! Gotta stay ahead of that traitorous piker Richie Porte. After widely misreported that I’m resting to the press, in actuality I’m into the altitude tent for a training block this week.
That stupid caveman (you’re right about that Mr. Tilford!) Tommy D should have never been nicked using Super-T! At Team Sky /British Cycling we rock technology, science, slick bling and we are too smart to get caught by some “expensive” test! By releasing limited power training numbers to prove our situation we will never be outed. But I guess we still could get caught because these guys are getting pretty close… Oh Well…If we do the cycling industry will just use me and MTB Quebec to try to infiltrate Africa (and maybe Canada?) and keep moving the big top.
But the f’d up thing is he’ll keep “Tom D’s Gran Fondo” going so he can “give back to the sport” like Leipheimer.
Charging whom? You? Wow.
you have to be an athlete to play soccer, try again
True that. Nice work if you can get it though.
I know what Danielson’s deal is, but can anyone shed any light on what is up with this Mike Crum fellow?
ESP – I agree completely. Seems like Tucson Arizona is the United States version of Tenerife. Maybe it is because of its proximity to Mexico? Remember, Rick Crawford, Tom’s “coach” at Fort Lewis, admitted driving across the border to Mexico to buy EPO for his riders. His riders, as he stated, were only Levi and Kirk Obee. Bet there are lots of other names to add to that list.
If you asked me, Chris Froome story sounds awfully like Tom D..
Couldn’t win any competition for the longest period of time and then suddenly starting to bust everybody’s ass.
Tommy D, the Ricardo Ricco of American cycling.
Och? BMC?
Based on your experience, what percentage of pro peleton do you think are racing without drugs in Europe and US this year? 100%, 75 %, less?
mike-yeah, I’ve read a lot about drug usage in sports. and from all my research i’ve done, the absolute best way to not get caught is to not dope. it’s pretty simple.
There is a bright side: assuming he is banned for life, he won’t end up on Garmin’s staff. We have enough X-dopers as staff, we certainly don’t need anymore.
He seemed to do pretty well in college, winning national championship after national championship on the mtn and road.
So what’s your assertion, there? Doping in high school and college? Sounds farfetched.
Just when I bought that Tommy D. “Core Training Book” they were selling at Life Time Fitness. Maybe the second edition will have an updated chapter on Test.
well – Farfetched? Were you racing against him back then? He won the Collegiate National MTB Championships, after he had gotten beaten pretty handily before. After that, he went on and won Mt. Washington Hillclimb, setting a course record, besting Tyler Hamilton’s time and setting a new course record. And Tyler is on record as taking drugs during this time. So, you think that he was too young to dope, or that he was naturally so good that he could beat the time of Tyler, who also won the Olympic Gold medal in Time Trial, normally aspirated? Is that your assertion?
I raced with Tom at fort Lewis in the early 2000’s. The first big clue that he was a doper was his break through performance at the Gila the launched him into the spotlight, followed by a trip to the hospital for a blood infection. Those in the know said the blood infection came from a needle. He’s been doping for a very long time. No body ever talks about the fact that Tom pinned doping on Lance. Tom was doping long before the discovery days. The truth never really came out about these guys. He went from a fast collegiate my biker to the best roadie in the country in literally a year and a half. We all knew what was going on
Yeah, I first raced him in TN when we were 19. Then I went to a rival college and we raced a bit more collegiality for a couple of years in the south east.
I’m simply stating that when he came to college he was already pretty well established (he went to a cycling school on a cycling scholarship) and had already been racing nationally as a junior.
Where it goes from there, I’m obviously clueless. But it seems a bit odd to simply say he was a bit of a nobody in Michigan when he was out west racing junior x and all and already successfully transitioning to the road in big regional races at 19.
I will, of course, defer to your knowledge and experience, but wow. It’s a bit much to contemplate. He had a BMC teammate for a while that also raced extensively in the SE at that time and blew threw the amateur ranks before going to BMC and Europe and I’ve never heard an ill word from or of either of them.
Crum, or is it Scrum? Well, regardless of what your name actually is, you should have been a cum stain on a bed spread of a hotel room that was rented out by the hour. However, your daddy only had a Hamilton when your mommy’s going rate was a Jackson. Well, your mommy was jonesing something fierce, so she said, “Close enough.” Now, your daddy had never had a piece without paying full price so he considered this to be – true love.
And that’s the story of Mike Scrum Crum that should have been some dried cum.
ESP:
Really? Names? Maybe it was just a month of training in warm weather that produced results.
Have you seen the girlfriend? I’d be taking synthetic T also.
Testosterone; EPO; cocaine; pixie blood — these guys can inject bleach for all I care. I think Tommy-D is a bigger douche for leaving his wife and kids than for any performance enhancement. I’m off to ride some trails. In the meantime:
Im glad you noticed that too. Seems like if you want to go pro and dont care how, you move to Tuscon or go train with someone that lives there. We call it the Tucson diet. Apparently if you want to go pro and do care how you do it you move to Boulder.
So, cost of testing is prohibitive? Make one off the conditions for return to racing after 1st doping sanction this: rider or team must pay for X number of out-of-competition tests per year, and that there are no restrictions on hrs of day when test can be administered – 24hr/day, 7 days/wk, 365 day/yr. Once you have demonstrated you are a cheat, burden of proof that you don’t shifts more to you.
I think the ability to apply a lifetime ban for use of IV doping (stuff you can’t “accidentally” ingest) is not unreasonable, accompanied by raising the standard of proof to something akin to criminal standard – “beyond a reasonable doubt” .
T/E ratio was changed to 2:1 I believe years ago.
Years ago, I made the “big time” and was in the Redlands Stage Race…the big race ‘real pros’ came to town to race in.
Chris Horner, Nathan O’Neil & some rookie named Tom Danielson waxed everyone, every day. My pal was at the summit of the ‘mountain top’ finish of Oak Glen. Not being a rider, he was out there to cheer me on and try out his new video camera…on the drive home he couldn’t stop laughing about how far ahead these three were, and how they were actually arguing about who would win. Made me think of Gwiss…anyway, later when he showed me the video they were chatting…like it was nothing. They blew everyone away….like it was a training ride. I was completely demoralized watching the video and then learning I lost 15 minutes on a 10k climb to these guys.
We know about O’Neil’s transgressions, he may have been chased out of Europe so he came here; we have strong speculation about Horner and now this…10+ years later. Fags.
My teammates and I trained our asses off, we were good, we were ready….but not for those ‘super-charged’ tools who turned the race into a farce. It was the “Saturn Show” and looking back I’m embarrassed I took so much time and effort out of my life and away from my family only to be smacked down by a bunch of frauds…..stoopid sport!
dl….Just another doping shitbag with a big mouth.
Wow.
Another butt-pimple on the cheek of USA cycling. Booya td. Thanks for keeping it real all this time man.
A great example for our junior riders.
I hope you enjoy the scrutiny.
Our Buddy D. Leduc is reputed to have traveled often to Mexico for “vacations”
Chris Horner is pathetic! His reaction to TD’s demise was …well….nothing. The media are bullshit…”Go-go”(sounds like a kid’s refrain to his mom about having to go potty) is gutless. How about some Real Talk to Real Adults….Everybody is just worried about their pockets…nobody with balls. This is all there is to it?Pandering to the lowest common denominator. At least Armstrong had some balls…these pussies are shit for brains.
The “synthetic” T test is not cheap. No way TD was self-testing his bags for that aspect.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Well stated krakatoa.
VN is the “Voice of the UCI” and has been for a long, long time.
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You lost 16:09, actually. But thems was the “rope-a-dope” years. Even Tilly here lost 4:36!
And hey, wow, “future boss” Jonathan Vaughters came in 11 seconds ahead of Danielson even! No doping going on there, nope!
From the Velonews coverage of the day:
“Needless to say, it was a day for the climbers, as Canadian Genevieve Jeanson (RONA-Esker) confirmed her position as the premiere climber in North American women’s racing, riding away from her closest GC contenders in the final kilometers and winning the stage by nearly three minutes.
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2003/04/news/road/jeanson-untouchable-saturn-men-in-control-as-redlands-hits-the-hills_3696#bYpraXcsWvz4fIf5.99“
Hmm…
And why is it that Danielson gets to keep his Mt Washington record (when Tyler Hamilton is scrubbed from the books)?
Tommy D should be well prepared for Leadville.