Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Lance Armstrong...

EPO was banned, but there was no test for it for a while. And blood doping was banned, but, again, there was no good way to test for it until recently.

Doping in cycling is as prevalent as weed at Woodstock. I could care less if he did or didn't do it.

Guilty until proven innocent.

As if I am some sort of ignorant soul who mindlessly follows an emotional need to feel validated by agreeing to what others think and say?

I state my position based on what I have read and heard from a number of sources, including reading the reports and statements of the governing bodies.

Not because I have a dog in this fight, but because I love to learn and that involves learning about everything I can.

Ed

Armstrong actually tested positive twice for PEDs. Due to his money, connections, fame and a complicit UCI, he was able to make the charges "go away". Did you know he was making sizable "donations" to the UCI, supposedly to fund the anti-doping effort? Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse.

Nah...just another example of puss's getting their way.

Really caught twice URL please.

I believe the two positives Southerntier8 is referring to were the positive for glucocorticosteroids from the prologue of the 1999 Tour de France and the positive for EPO from the 2001 Tour de Suisse. Both are discussed in USADA's Reasoned Decision and documented (somewhere) in their 1000 pages of evidence (look under the "Appendices and Supporting Material" tab).

The Reasoned Decision also documents how Armstrong and other riders set up a sort of Early Warning System to alert them that drug testers were on their way, the techniques riders used to fool the tests, and how they sometimes hid from the testers, going as far as feigning illness, dropping out of a race and sneaking out of town before the tester could find them because they knew they were too doped to skirt the test.

Pharmstrong also had three abnormal T/E ratio test results before his cancer diagnosis, one each in 1993, 1994 & 1996. And then he had six positives for EPO from the 1999 Tour de France, all detected more or less by accident some years later. Which by my count comes to 11.

As for the six EPO positives, there was no direct test for EPO in 1999, and only a half-assed indirect test. Later, when the French Anti-Doping Laboratory (LNDD) came up with a direct test, they requested that WADA provide them some random samples to use in their research. So in 2004, WADA sent anonymous samples from the 1999 Tour de France, identified to the LNDD only by a serial number.

Twelve of the anonymous samples tested positive for EPO. And that would have been an end of it, the donors of those samples would have remained unknown, except some reporters from the French L'Equipe sports newspaper knew that meant some riders in the '99 TdF had got away with doping. So they investigated and ferreted out the names of the riders represented by those twelve serial numbers. And they found that six of them belonged to Lance Armstrong.

L'Equipe published the details in a 2005 story titled "Le mensonge Armstrong,", "The Armstrong Lie." The reaction from the American press was that it was just the French and sour grapes. The Lance-Bots said it couldn't be true because CancerJesus walks on water and poops marigolds. WADA, OTOH, said the tests were kosher and the results unequivocal but the UCI said it wasn't actionable because there was no follow-up testing of the "B sample" (which wasn't to be expected, under the circumstances).

But USADA wasn't targeting the 1999 TdF, they were investigating serial doping. So they accepted LNDD's 2004 test information, even without the customary "B sample" confirmation, not as primary proof of doping but as evidence in support of sworn testimony from seven teammates and staffers involved in Lance's 1999 Tour de France effort. People who had first-hand knowledge of his doping practices.

Those six urine samples still exist. USADA formally requested a retest but WADA, who is maintaining them, said that since they no longer are anonymous, retesting depended on the permission of the donor. And even though these tests would have exonerated Lance (if he was truly clean) and put all the rumors to bed, Armstrong refuses to allow the retests.

Curious behavior for an innocent man.

It bears noting that the UCI regulations prohibit the practice of doping, not just getting caught doping. That's a distinction Lance and his Fan-Bots would rather you'd forget. They're getting incredible mileage out of this "never tested positive" lie, even though it isn't true, and wouldn't be exculpatory even if it were. And the USADA's burden of proof is �to the comfortable satisfaction of the hearing body bearing in mind the seriousness of the allegation which is made,� not beyond all doubt.

Further, USADA regulations stipulate that evidence �may be established by any reliable means,� which can include indirect evidence. For instance, Jan Ullrich never failed a doping control but investigators found bags of blood with his name written on them (not even in his handwriting) in the clinic refrigerator of one Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes during "Operation Puerto" investigations. The UCI concluded from this that Ullrich was doping, and they suspended him for two years, based on indirect evidence, and despite his never having failed a doping control.

When you were 14, and you walked in the house smelling of cigarettes, that was all the proof your parents needed. They didn't have to catch you with a smoldering butt between your fingers, they knew from the signs that they'd "caught" you smoking. Same principle.

Italian police investigating the business of one Dr. Michele Ferrari found several electronic fund transfers to his account originating from Lance Armstrong. These payments, totaling more than $1 million USD, were routed to him via the Swiss banking system and Lance undoubtedly believed they were untraceable. He was wrong. Again.

Dr. Ferrari's only business is sports doping so there is no doubt what Pharmstrong's million dollars bought from him. Based on the "Ullrich Protocol," I dare say the USADA commissioners would have been "comfortably satisfied" that Lance was doped to the gills solely on the basis of his payments to Ferrari, let alone from the sworn testimony from the more than two dozen eye witnesses.

Since the first publication to publicly sound the alarm to Lance's doping was L'Equipe, I thought this cover (from 20 Oct) was highly appropriate:



If you're looking for documentation that the UCI took bribes to cover up Pharmstrong's positives, that's not going to happen. Yet. That's actually the ideal outcome of all this, not that CancerJesus gets burned to the ground, but that all the collusion and corruption of the Pharmstrong/Verbruggen era comes to light. Absent that, if they don't root out all the putrescence, it's all just going to happen all over again.

It is only a surprise to those Americans who only casually follow the sport of professional cycling. No one else who follows it is surprised in the least. Not the French, Brits, Germans, Italians, Dutch....

The guy always has been an arrogant prick.

All cyclists are arrogant pricks they think they own every road.

Hahaha. They scare you, don't they?

Excellent summary XL5!

In general, I find cyclists to be more considerate than people with flashing avatars.

I was listening to someone on a talk show that called in to talk about the cyclists who don't dope and retired early because they couldn't compete. There were at least two who were considered "challengers" to Armstrong.

While doping is rampant in the sport, its not fair to the ones that followed the rules that Armstrong is living a millionaires life and celebrity fame while they are working at a Starbucks.

Another issue is Greg LeMond, the Lance Armstrong before there was Armstrong who was basically ostracized for dogging Armstrong early in his career for doping. This is a guy that won the tour 3 times, the first non European to win it, twice after being shot in a hunting accident, and Armstrong shut him down on his allegations by using his influence to threaten sales of his line of bicycles.

In 2007 LeMond said "If you knew the Lance I know, then you'd agree with me that when he finishes up in cycling he won't have any friends" or something to that effect.

Apparently you come in contact with a completely different type of cyclist, at a much higher percentage, than I do

In other words, all of those who Armstrong beat year after year after year after year after year, etc. Do you believe that the French, Brits, Germans, Italians, Dutch...etc. weren't all blood doping during the same time Armstrong is alleged to have been doing it?

This whole affair is reminiscent o "Casablanca".

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!

Why go after Armstrong after retirement? Why go after him after a career that never saw him sanctioned? Why the fervor to bust this guy so long after the fact?

What does cycling have to gain from this? Armstrong put cycling on the map in America. Armstrong's wins sold millions of bicycles and yellow jerseys. He increased the popularity of the sport to levels never imagined.

Did professional cycling do this to claim they were staunchly anti doping? It was much easier, and probably better for everyone if they had just let it go. Riders dope, they get tested, if they fail the test, they get busted. Armstrong slid through the system just like most of his teammates (Landis is an exception), and the dozens of others that raced.

For the typical sports fan to point a finger and say "He's a cheater, bust him" in a fit of sanctimonious self righteousness is ludicrous.

Stripping Armstrong of the titles does not change the outcome. Everyone knows who won. If you can't punish him on the spot (a la Floyd Landis) then let it go.

The real reason professional cycling is after Armstrong is that he is an arrogant ass, and has stepped on too many toes. Vendetta comes to mind. This is the big pay back.

Good post!
Well said!

Agreed. It's petty vengefulness at best.

IMO, the reason "they" keep going after Armstrong is that he's an unmitigated, unrepentant [bleep].

I read that whole report and the way he treated (treats) people is somewhat less-than-human. That makes for a lot of enemies with long memories...

As for cycling in general, 14 of the last 17 1st place TDF finishers have tested positive, as have 9 of 17 seconds, and 11 of 17 thirds. Cycling makes noises about "cleaning up" but they really don't seem to be trying too hard.

As far as integrity goes, EU cycling bodies ranks somewhere down in the cellar with the International Olympic committee....