I believe they also have evidence that he didn’t follow proper testing protocol because he was warned about tests, left the presence of testers who were waiting to collect samples and left the testers waiting, and fraternized with them. The first two are definitely disallowed and can, at worst, be counted as positive tests. The scientific data includes positive tests from 1999, 2001, and another year I forget that were suppressed by the UCI and USA Cycling.
They actually do have a statute of limitations, but in a previous case for another athlete the arbitrators ruled that ongoing coverup by the athlete kept reseting the clock from the time of the original offense. WADA’s CEO Tygart gave an interview where he said Armstrong could have kept five of the wins exactly because of the statute if he had come in and told the truth. I guess he decided playing martyr was smarter than admitting guilt.
I agree with the later and disagree with the former. That isn’t being obtuse, it is just stating my opinion.
I agree it would be nice. Too bad you haven’t demonstrated you understand it. By declaring someone the ‘winner’ after testing them, that is essentially declaring them ‘not guilty’. That was the trial and they passed. What you are saying is that at any time in the future and as many times as they want, they can re-open the case. And you think that is fair.
And if I even knew what an USADA was (before this thread) or had mentioned it, then you’d have a point when you refer to what I was saying.
Nonsense, Uzi. Double jeopardy is a defence that prevents a defendant from being tried again after they have been acquitted or convicted on the same charge. Neither the USADA nor anyone else has ever tried LA on doping charges. Merely checking for evidence of something is not *trying * someone for that thing. Nor does awarding someone something constitute acquitting them of being undeserving of that thing.
Double jeopardy isn’t some sort of gotcha that permits otherwise guilty defendants from being tried merely because at some earlier point in time an authority had failed to detect the crime. A test to detect wrongdoing is not a trial. Giving someone a prize is not an acquittal.
You would presumably say that someone charged with forging a signature on a check could use the defence of double jeopardy because by the bank glancing at the signature before paying on it they had “acquitted” the fraudster of forgery?
And the subject of this thread is the USADA’s pursuit of L.A. The particular posts you were commenting upon concerned whether the USADA was a kangaroo court. The specific accusation concerning double jeopardy was whether it was relevant to USADA procedure. So what the hell did you think you were commenting upon when you posted? Were you intending to post in some other thread?
That is an excellent podcast,** RedFury**, but I do have concerns with something the guy from the UK ADA said.
A good day? When they’re making eye-witness statements the basis of a prosecution? That’s a terrible day for sport. Testing, and testing alone, should be the basis of prosecution. Sure, suspicions should be raised by eye-witness statements but they should never be the grounds of a prosecution. Can’t they see the dangers in that?
I’m sure they can. But eye-witness statements are used in courts to obtain convictions every day. You can be convicted of murder and go to jail for life on the basis of eye-witness testimony. Why does cheating at sport need an even greater level of certainty than for serious crime?
And testing is just not that good a method of detecting cheating. As events over the last ten or more years have shown, testing is highly fallible. I don’t see the basis for your forceful assertion about limiting the grounds of prosecution. If several witnesses can give a personal account of assisting a particular cyclist’s drug and masking agent use, why should it be impossible to convict that cyclist if that masking is successful?
People get charged due to eye-witness statements every day. It makes up the bulk of any case. It’s hilarious to see it suddenly being considered an issue because a celebrity has been charged.
Testing is useless for catching drug cheats. Armstrong is only the latest among thousands to prove that. It’s great for clean sport that the USADA are now using the far more reliable method of eye-witnesses to catch cheats.
If the bank took a blood sample and made me pee in a cup before letting me have my money, I think you’d have an equivalent argument. But because of the amount of bank transactions that occur daily, it doesn’t make sense to go to this level of testing, thus we have the government putting laws in place to protect us from criminals and charging them after the fact.
But the battery of tests being done after a race is such that a declaration of guilt should be able to be made at that time with high confidence. People fail these tests and are not given the prize because of it. How do you not perceive this as a trial? They pass or fail, they are guilty or innocent. If innocent, they get the prize (or freedom if you want to follow that analogy), if guilty, they don’t.
There is nothing preventing the sport’s governing body from stating that all decisions resulting from the tests are final after the contest and moving on from there.
Really, you just want another kick at the can for something that
Firstly, it doesn’t matter what directions you think the definitions of “trial”, “charged” and “acquitted” should be pulled and twisted into. They are words with specific meanings.
“A couple urine tests” does not mean “trial”. “Routine checks during an event” does not mean “charged”. “A sporting body giving the person with the lowest time the trophy” doesn’t mean “acquitted”.
Consequently, there is no double jeopardy.
Secondly, even if you ignore all technical definitions and try for some sort of broad analogy to link testing before giving a trophy to jeopardy, your position is silly.
It doesn’t matter how much testing a bank does to avoid forgeries before they pay out on checks, if they find out someone forged a check the authorities can and will press a charge and double jeopardy arises. And nor should it: double jeopardy is a policy law designed to avoid wearing down a defendant through multiple trials. It is not a dumbass gotcha designed to let wrongdoers off the hook just because they managed to evade anti-wrongdoing precautions. Making someone pee in a cup or give a sample of blood is not in any sense equivalent to making them defend a charge in a trial or arbitration.
And frankly anyone who says “they pass or fail, they are guilty or innocent” at this stage of this debate just hasn’t been paying attention.
Sure it can. It is up to the sports body to do as they wish. It’s a frikken sport. A game. The rules are completely arbitrary as it is. Nor am I saying that the test has to be immediate. But many places have statute of limitations that are quite low and given the importance of this, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, either.
Sure, and black could be white and pigs could be rhinocerii. We were discussing whether USADA’s arbitration process permitted double jeopardy. You suggested it did. It doesn’t. Do you accept that now?
Because you seem to be attempting to segue from “it is double jeopardy” into “it could be double jeopardy if the race organisers chose to make it so”. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?
Sure the race organisers could have a rule that meant that once a race trophy was awarded that was the end of the matter. They don’t and probably never will have such a rule because testing in race is too unreliable.
I don’t believe there is a movement to put the winners out to stud, or to sterilize the losers. Nor would universal doping “level the playing field” as you seem to think, it merely creates a different one. Not everyone responds to substances like EPO in the same way due to, yes, genetics (as theR pointed out above).
There is a rule, which the competitors, including Armstrong, signed up to. It is “don’t take banned substances”. Testing is simply a means to an end. The first ban of a rider for use of EPO occurred in 1988.
I suggested that the amount of oversight given to race winners could be seen to be a trial of sorts.
Do you think I’d care? I’m arguing because this holds a passing interest to me, not because I give a crap if LA is guilty or not. It seems a whole lot of resources are being dedicated to keep something as inconsequential as a sport ‘clean’ (and if that ain’t an arbitrary standard, I don’t know what is).
And a 100 years from now when they find a more reliable test, we’ll get to chew up bandwidth on how someone no one even remembers anymore cheated. Yay!
Are there any sports you follow, and any teams or individuals you support? If so, wouldn’t you be be a bit miffed if the opposition, say, fielded an extra player?
Thank you. Glad you found it interesting. I thought it was quite informative as well.
I should think it is always a good day when we disclose cheaters in any area – be it sports and/or business – which is what the Armstrong Empire was all about. Further, you may or may not be satisfied in the answers given in the following article, personally, I agree with most of what they say:
But to further the point on suspicions raised by “eye-witness” testimony, I might add that if it weren’t for that a certain Jerry Sandusky would be freely walking the streets today. Mind you, not comparing the two, simply using the latter as an example of the (rightful) power of eye-witness testimony.
Moreover, at the time Armstrong “won” all of his Tours there was no – I repeat “NO” – test for either homologous nor autologous blood transfusions. In fact, there’s no sure test for the latter even today. So it would seem to me that having over ten eye-witnesses declare that they SAW Armstrong involved in said practices is actually even better proof that anything science could produce even today. And obviously, as noted above, completely legal.
The Lance Armstrong School Of Excuses is almost endless and it counts – with very good reason – on most Americans lack of knowledge of the sport. For instance, as I wrote above, the whole “500 tests w/out a single failure” is pure bunk as quick Google search will show you.
Ultimately, I wish Lance no harm – in fact, there was a time I openly admired him as a cyclist. Didn’t last long I must admit – but all that is happening was brought on by Armstrong himself, who obviously felt invincible on and off the road for many a year…no matter who fell in his wake as so many did. Thus that’s where the finger of blame should be pointed at.
Testing is the basis for this investigation. Maybe not the tests that were administered at the time, but they have developed more effective testing procedures and tested the same samples that were given and found them to be positive for banned substances. It is merely corroborated by other athletes who have said they were aware of the fact that he was doping. What evidence do you have that this investigation is based on eye-witnesses, and eye-witnesses alone?
I can’t guarantee that was part of the case, but it’s been reported in the cycling press. Considering many of the witnesses are said to be former teammates and other professionals that worked with Armstrong, I’m merely making an assumption that it would have been part of the case. I doubt it would be hard to get the sample collectors to testify.
It also was widely reported when it happened in at least one or two cases. What I’m thinking of is when he went to take a shower and left a tester waiting at least 20 minutes, more than enough time to get an IV to reduce chances of a positive, and he also was reported to leave a tester waiting when they questioned the tester’s credentials. I think checking credentials is sensible but he wasn’t allowed to disappear from sight while he did it.
I’m not sure if they will be able to use that against Bruyneel, so who knows if we’ll see that come out during his arbitration.
“In case of an obvious error in awarding a goal or an assist that has been announced, it should be corrected promptly, but changes should not be made in the Official Scoring Summary after the Referee has signed the Game Report.”
So, 7 years from now if someone tries to dispute a goal that may have awarded one team the Stanley Cup over another, they can be told to go pound sand. And rightly so. Once the Game Report is signed, it is official.