Two of his former teammates have now reportedly said that they personally witnessed him using EPO. Does anyone still believe that he’s clean?
But really the whole sport was dirty. With that in mind, I think he still deserves some recognition. If everyone was cheating, he was still the best on a level playing field. And his dominance did bring in lots of money for cancer research and prevention.
I’ve argued for some time now that an athlete simply cannot dominate at the highest level of any sport if he’s clean and mostly everyone else is dirty. Impossible.
I’m still waiting for a positive test. It doesn’t look good, but I still don’t understand how everyone else was caught and he never tested positive once.
Easy. The cheaters have always been way ahead of testers. Even the guys who got caught have passed all sorts of previous tests. Often they caught by something other than failing a test.
I understand giving the guy the benefit of doubt but the circumstantial evidence is far more extensive than other people who have been judged guilty, like say Sammy Sosa.
Most of the cyclists were doping . Many have been caught. Many teams have been caught with doping regimens for the whole team.
Yet Armstrong dominated them and stayed clean? Doubtful. He was just better at masking.
Right, but when one inevitably gets busted he’ll turn states evidence. I find it hard to believe someone would go through all this trouble to cheat (if he did) only to trip up on something so stupid.
I don’t think this holds, if everyone was doing it under team direction.
It’s not just that everyone was tested, LA was tested constantly, and more than everyone else. Either he’s very good at masking (certainly a possibility) or he wasn’t doping. The testimony is bad, but each of those guys has something to gain by casting aspersions on LA. That doesn’t mean they are lying, but I still have to give Lance Armstrong the benefit of the doubt. For now. That may change.
When it was just Floyd Landis, I thought maybe it should be discounted because he was so inconsistent in his own story. But now that three more teammates have made the accusation, I find it very difficult to dismiss.
Hamilton has a book to sell, I believe. So rolling out the old Lance did drugs chestnut is a no-brainer for him. Probably put 50 000 sales onto it, whereas without the Lance factor it would be read by two men and a dog. Tyler Hamilton is a proven cheat and brass-necked liar, so it’s water off a ducks back really - Lance will just deflect this the way he always does.
The balance of probabilities is now overwhelming that LA doped, of course. The number of world class cyclists he crushed in the mountains, who are now proven dopers, grows longer by the year.
Still, the more cack-handed allegations I hear from the likes of Hamilton and Landis (I minded LA’s blood when he was away on holiday Course you did Floyd, now go and have a lie down there’s a good lad) actually widens the window of doubt that maybe he was clean.
People said the same thing about Jose Canseco when he talked about steroids in baseball, but eventually almost everything he claimed turned out to be true.
I’ve long believed Lance Armstrong to be a cheater. Cycling is just a dirty, dirty sport.
According to reports, Hincapie never tested positive either. Hincapie was like a brother to Armstrong. He apparently also admitted to authorities that he and Armstrong doped. He’s not talking to the media about it, but if true, it would probably be the most damning testimony to date.
A few elite cyclists that later admitted using PEDs, never tested positive for them during their careers, e.g. Bjarne Riis. LA’s near perfect (depending on how much you believe in the one or two reputed positives alleged) record under tremendous drug testing scrutiny, while impressive, can’t dispose of the issue entirely. Like many, I think he just hasn’t gotten caught. I don’t support yanking his TdF championships if he later admits PED use, simply because of the prevalence of PEDs in cycling during his prime. Who out there was demonstratively clean, if LA’s drug testing record isn’t enough for us to believe he was?
FWIW, I think Hamilton’s confession stems from trying to save his own ass and not perjure himself in front of a grand jury, more than trying to sell his book. That there’s a federal investigation of this whole mess is a separate irritation.
Most of that circumstantial “evidence” consists of his competitors saying “Well of course he cheated. Everyone cheats! How do I know everyone cheats? Well, I do it, and if I do it, everyone else must be doing it too!”. Which is really, really weak.
Frankly, I think that the fact that Armstrong was so incredibly far above anyone else to be a good argument for him not cheating. No matter what we assume, we have to assume that he’s physiologically an extreme statistical outlier. But once you’re already assuming that, that can explain his performance all by itself. We’re given the choice of “he’s a freakish outlier” or “he’s a freakish outlier and also a cheat”, and the former makes less assumptions, and is therefore preferred by Occam’s razor.
Canseco’s list (including McGwire, Clemens, Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro, Giambi and a few other guys) turned out to be mostly true. But of the ones that he didn’t personally inject with, they all say his stories are bullshit (see A-Rod, Sosa and a bunch of other guys).
Canseco also said that Clemens was his only teammate that wasn’t cheating on his wife. :rolleyes: So yeah, I’m pretty convinced he made up a bunch of shit and got lucky that it happened to be true.
Can’t agree. He could not have possibly cheated. Here’s why: cancer survivor; many yellow bracelets; U.S.A. Best; Sheryl Crow; Wheaties (or something).
Course you did Floyd, now go and have a lie down there’s a good lad) actually widens the window of doubt that maybe he was clean.