I’m a Lance fan from way back, but I admit his image has been tarnished since he stopped riding (claims of douchey-ness from folks who know him here in Austin, cavorting with Olsen twins, etc.). And it does seem that people really have it in for this guy… so perhaps there’s smoke where there’s fire, in his case? But no reliable (IMO) sources have stepped forward and said “Yep, Lance was doping.” Floyd Landis is about as trustworthy as… er, he’s not trustworthy.
On the other hand, I think it would wear me out beyond belief to have to deal with this type of scrutiny for investigation after investigation. I can see why you might want to say, “Fuck this. I have more important things to do with my time.” That’s admirable, even though some will see it as an admission of guilt. Sad, really.
In my heart, I want Lance’s tour victories to be legit. Honestly I don’t know what to believe. The one person I haven’t heard accusations from is Bob Roll…he trained with Lance for the big comeback. I guess he could be naive or extremely loyal.
I don’t follow biking, but I find what I’ve seen about this story surprising. Am I missing something, or can the USADA actually strip Armstrong of his titles without even putting forth some sort of evidence?
Who didn’t expect this to end this way? It’s like when I was a kid, it didn’t matter to the adults whether or not you did anything wrong, you would be punished until you admitted it, and then you would be punished for lying about it because you got tired of being punished. He won when everybody else was cheating, therefore he was cheating and that’s that. No evidence required. Just badger him until he admits or quits, or goes broke from paying lawyers to fight a never-ending battle he can’t win.
I’m of the mind that everyone in his sport, around his level, dopes. Everyone knows it, does it and looks the other way. All of a sudden, someone’s really got it in for Armstrong in particular. So what used to be off-limits is suddenly fair game to ruin someone. This reminds so much of politics I’m really interested in the real story, and by that I mean who has it in for him, why, and who is paying the bills for it, and who is going to benefit from it?
I don’t even care about whatever sports drugs he was using or whether doping is bad, mmkay?
What’s your source and what’s your criteria for determining reliability? What I’m reading is that the USADA had lots of witnesses lined up. Plus blood samples from LA’s comeback years.
Either LA actually decided to give up for the reasons he is now giving or he decided that if he took his bat and ball home now, he could avoid any clear result to the ball game.
I notice however that he just spent considerable effort on an attempt in an Austin court to try to have the USADA arbitration blocked after he had the USADA prosecution brief. I’m thinking that if he was just tired of fighting, it would have made more sense to give up a few weeks back. Seems to me that instead he tried his hardest to knock out the arbitration on technical grounds but gave up when it appeared that he would have to fight the substance of the charges.
Co-incidentally enough, I quite regularly have clients who give up fighting and settle immediately after jurisdictional or other technical knockout attempts have failed. It’s pretty much always because I’ve said to them “we might be able to knock this over on technical grounds but if we don’t you are screwed on the substance of the allegations, so if we reach that point you will need to settle.”
But of course it could be that LA has just got tired. Could be.
What Princhester says, re bailing out when faced with the inevitable loss on substantive issues.
If he was doping but managed to pass hundreds of test throughout his career, then the testing needs to be much more stringent.
A better use of resources would be to look into the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the testing regime.
I’m most interested. As a lawyer and a close follower of the pro tour I would like to know how this is obvious to you. Feel free to be specific.
I know that LA and others (but mostly LA) like to issue press release after press release about it being a kangaroo court and about how it is all a witch hunt and about how it is all terribly unfair. Indeed it’s almost as if they feel that if they say it often enough people will assume it’s true. I have yet to hear one single substantial description of a failing of the USADA’s arbitration methods at all. Haven’t yet heard a single one. Nada. Zip. Zero.
Further, my understanding is that LA’s complaint was that the USADA’s arbitration proceeding would be unfair and the court thought not. So perhaps something is obvious to you that wasn’t obvious to that court.
Maybe there’s a fair deal of nationalism here, but to this armchair cyclist he was clearly using - well, not necessarily drugs and other techniques that were illegal at the time he raced, but (shall I say) techniques that anyone would consider unsporting. As an example, whole or part blood treatments. That that might have crossed the line into stuff that was out and out illegal at the time he used it surprises me not a whit.
If they make the charge and he withdraws any defence of it, then like in any other court he’s guilty and evidence doesn’t enter into it.
The following is not directed specifically at you, Muffin. I feel like I should have a paragraph along the following lines saved somewhere that I can just cut and paste into these threads.
Yes, obviously it would be good if testing could catch all forms of doping but sadly not.
The prime doping method till about 2001 was use of EPO. There was no test for EPO usage till then. When a test for EPO usage was developed and some of LA’s old samples were unofficially tested, they failed.
From 2001 the prime doping method was autologous blood transfusions. There is still no clear test for autologous blood transfusions. There was no test at all until about the late 2000’s, by which time LA had retired.
LA knows all this. So when LA says in relation to an allegation that he doped that he “has never failed a test”, he knows that this means nothing, but he also knows most of the public don’t know that. In other words, he is deliberately playing on ignorance.
Even now all that can be done is to try to draw inferences about blood doping from examination of regular blood test results (the “blood passport” program). The blood passport program was in place by the time of LA’s comeback. According to the USADA’s prosecution brief, LA’s blood passport from that time shows he was blood doping during his comeback. This is one of the allegations LA is too tired to fight.
You want to know something truly interesting? Cycling has the best dope testing program of any sport in the world. Most don’t even have blood passport program. There is nothing at all but faith and hope standing between you and your belief that any endurance athlete who is not a cyclist is not blood doping.
Or he’s deliberately reducing the issue to a soundbyte that will carry through the noise. It means he will not be forced onto the defensive, resorting to mealy-mouthed bullshit that will make him look suspicious. No, instead his position is simple: the physical evidence says your accusations are without merit.
Claiming it “means nothing” that he never failed a test is absurd. If it “means nothing”, there’d be no point in performing the test in the first place.
Not really. If he says “I have never cheated”, their response can simply be “He has cheated”. If he says “I have never failed a test”, they have to say “Yes, but…”
Which would be an out and out lie. The physical evidence does not say any such thing. Do you think to the contrary? If so, why?
OK, it means nothing relevant. Happy now? Or do you think it’s actually relevant that a guy accused of using EPO (the most effective performance enhancing drug for endurance athletes ever) was tested and found not to be using steroids?
I appreciate that the position of pro athletes is tough because they operate in a world where they could be cheating and they can’t prove they aren’t. But at least some pro cyclists are straight up enough to say: “I can’t blame the fans for suspecting me”. I can respect that. I can’t respect someone who keeps trying to slime his way towards having fans believe he must be clean when he knows damn well there is no evidence that proves that.
If he doesn’t participate, will that mean a decision will be made without evidence, or that evidence will be submitted and weighed and a decision made without Armstrong testing the evidence?
