You raise a good point MilTan. I find this a bit odd too but perhaps not as odd as you suggest.
Bear in mind that testing is not equal: at least at present (I haven’t managed to turn up the 1999 rules) each stage, the race leader and stage winner is tested, plus a few random others.
Only a select few win stages and hold the race lead. In 1999, only LA and one other held the race lead. There were few who won multiple stages. The end result is that the overall batch of intra race samples would contain multiple samples from LA (14), Jan Kirsipuu (6), Mario Cipollini (4), Tom Steels (3) and David Etxebarria (2) and after that you are down to riders with one or none, probably.
Against that background, it’s not too hard to imagine how LA might come to dominate the positive tests, even while not being the only one doping.
No, because the lab was interested in research, per our earlier discussion in this thread. They have no true dog in this fight, and in theory don’t give a shit about whether or not L’Equipe “got it right” in pointing the finger at Lance.
Boy aren’t you a snot?
Given the level of hypotheticals, suppositions and assumptions in this thread, I’d say this applies equally to just about anyone who has taken part in this 4 page thread.
One problem I have with this test result is that it does not really jibe with Lance’s performances. He won that year, and he won during years that this stuff could be tested. Makes me wonder what good it was doing. If the years from 1999 to the beginning of effective testing would be his best years due to doping, then why was he winning in the later years? Competition could not have fallen off that badly, could it?
BTW, someone mentioned that three of the six positive results were from taking a single sample and splitting it three ways. Any follow on that?
Am I wrong to suggest that maybe Lance’s 2000 ‘B’ tests might also be telling?
Okay, here’s another Occams razor type lesson for you: Princhester actually belives that he’s God, and that he talks to people through a message board instead of religious visions anymore, or he’s pointing out the obvious question of which is more likely? Lance Armstrong tested positive for EPO use or some broad conspiracy between L’Equipe, the pre-eminent anti-doping lab in the nation, and the beady-eyed French bastards in general led to the placement of small quantities of synthetic EPO in the right six number-controlled samples in addition to another dozen samples to make it look realistic, all so that they could frame one of the most popular sportsmen in France.
Mr. Miskatonic, consider doping and anti-doping efforts to be a type of arms race. As testing becomes more advanced, so do testing evasion methods. Again, many examples from recent history show that it’s clearly possible to be using EPO and avoid detection even in the summer of 2005. Even after the test was introduced in 2001, two of the last three Tours have been tainted by clear EPO use; not because of positive drug tests, but because rider’s wives have been caught by border checkpoints having loads of EPO and other sundry doping products hidden in their cars. In 2003, Rumsas, who podiumed in the Tour and was subject to extra scrutiny like LA never tested positive but shortly after the end of the race his wife was caught on the Lithuanian border with dope, “for her ailing mother.” The exact same thing happened in this Tour with Dario Frigo when his wife was found with EPO. In 2004, the World Time Trial champion, David Millar, never tested positive for EPO, but then the French police searched his home and found vials of EPO. Lest you think that the French are involved in a “witchhunt” against Armstrong, David Millar rode for Cofidis, the most important French team in this year’s Pro-Tour.
I’m really curious to see what the 2000 ‘B’ samples say as well.
threemae- I have a pistol in my sock drawer. The cops would find it in a routine search of my home. Does that mean I’ve used it?
Sure it’s hard to make that argument, and ya, he’s probably just been using some sort of mask for his EPO use. But A+B doesn’t always = C, so welcome to Occam.
I say probably. I say probably because I believe that most, of not all professional athletes are dopers at one time or another. That doesn’t bother me, either. Doping has been a part of the games since long before Greece and Rome. Dope is as much a part of the game as is skill, IMO. Without the genetics and skill, a whole assload of PEDs and dope won’t do shit for you.
So use possibly if you like, instead of probably. From my perspective, however, it’s ‘probably’, because there are lots of athletes, and so few of them get where they are with hard work, determination and genetics. Look at Marion Jones and other track athletes getting wasted by the Balco scandal.
That’s it. I’m sorry, I’m done with this thread. I have a Vuelta to watch, and I just don’t know what to say to all this. Three examples of cyclists at a similar level and testing protocol to Lance Armstrong that have EPO with their wives, in their homes, etc. and you come back with this. I’m sorry, I just don’t know what else to say.
So despite knowing that either (a) their testing did not find artificial EPO in certain samples or (b) that the samples do not have the numbers that L’Equipe say they do, instead of a simple statement to that effect they just allow a person to remain grossly defamed, for no reason?
Pull the other one, it plays bicycle bells.
You might say that but it wouldn’t be true. The simplest explanation for finding artificial EPO in LA’s 1999 urine samples is that LA had artificial EPO in his urine in 1999.
Deal with it.
Because he’s the greatest, probably.
Look, many people in this debate strawman my side of the argument by suggesting that we believe LA won consistently because he doped while others didn’t (I don’t include you in that comment, Misk). That’s not and never has been my position.
For fuck’s sake. What threemae said. What the fuck do you think that a bunch of professional sportsmen’s wives would have EPO for, precisely?