Different sports have different rules, and cycling is more like the Olympics in terms of awards being vacated than it is like the NHL. So you’re quoting the manual for how one aspect of one sport is played as though that specific standard should be applied to every other sport imaginable? That’s funny, considering the NHL’s policy on banned substances in their players:
WADA? Hmm…I think I’ve heard of them before…
Ridiculous hypothetical to follow, but I hope you’ll see the point.
Let’s say that one team has found a way to have invisible players on the field who are not detectable by current video technology or the ref’s eyes. The additional players use very subtle tactics so that there is nothing obviously out of the ordinary, but they manage, by interference and the odd helping hand here and there, to help their team win many prestigious competitions. Ten years later the technology becomes well known and video enhancing techniques that work on archived video are developed that allow officials to detect the presence of the additional players. It turns out that this great team had been cheating all along. Should the team’s wins still stand?
You don’t even have to go that far, Richard Pearse. Just say that one team won the Stanley Cup, was drug tested following the victory, and every single player was on steroids. In Uzi’s book, that isn’t cheating, so they still go home with the trophy.
:rolleyes:
You asked for an example, didn’t like it when I gave one that proved that contests could be decided at the time they are played rather than years after, and are now butt hurt. Color me un-surprised. Don’t bother asking next time.
And where did you get the idea I didn’t think it would be cheating? Of course it is cheating. The NHL has a drug policy that is separate from the outcome of the game. If a player is discovered having used drugs, they are penalized. It doesn’t affect the outcome of past games, though.
Here’s a pretty good post from The Science of Sport about the case. This is one of their few posts that doesn’t include a lot of science.
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012/08/the-armstrong-fallout-thoughts-and.html
It addresses a number of questions that have been raised and has links to other relevant and interesting articles.
Well yeah. I’m not arguing that that is a sensible thing to get all enthusiastic about, by the way. It’s clearly a stupid thing to be into. But far less than ones than sports where it’s all about physical luck.
By the way most sports are about more than physical luck. E.g. football (soccer) - you can have all the right physical makeup but there’s ahelluva lot of control, coordiation, tactics etc. That could still apply to cycling.
Of course cycling is still gonna be MOSTLY just based on the physical make up of the person. That’s one reason it’s so boring and only followed in France and Belgium.
Thanks, Princhester (and others)(but mostly Princhester) for your insightful contributions. I’ve always had a strong sense that Armstrong was a cheat (and said so before on this board) but it’s pleasant to see those inklings backed up tenaciously by someone who actually knows quite a bit of the facts of the case.
I’m glad that Armstrong’s given up his ridiculous saga as it will hopefully contribute to shutting up his some of his mouth breathing followers that are throwing around stupid talking points about witch hunts, kangaroo courts, and ‘the worlds most tested athlete’.
The point is that the rules that apply to one sport aren’t necessarily appropriate for another. Holding them up as an example of “a contest that is determined at the time” is stupid. All contests are determined at the time. And if it is discovered later that you cheated to get that result, you’re punished and you don’t get to keep the victory. That isn’t a difficult concept to comprehend.
No problem Svejk. I don’t even really know that much about all this. It’s just that cycling isn’t a big sport in the US so people on these largely US boards don’t know much about the cycling context, while (paradoxically) thinking that they “know” Lance Armstrong as a cycling hero. Consequently LA is a subject about whom there is a remarkable noise to signal ratio. I don’t have to know much to stand out here. I know so little about cycling that on cycling forums I wouldn’t dare open my mouth 
The real point is that rules for sports are arbitrary and can be changed as needed.
You asked a question and I answered it with an example. And no, the Stanley Cup isn’t taken away from a team where its members are found later to have been using drugs. Nor are their records removed from when they played.
Hey, whatever. Keep a minor sport looking even more stupid than it already is. Track down the ne’r do wells even after they are in the grave for all I care.
Beyond abomination, translation, please. Or maybe not.
" Following the game, Finland launched a protest, demanding that the result be over-turned because the Germans had used an ineligible player. At the time, players were not allowed to switch nationalities under any circumstances and the IIHF agreed to overturn the result and award the two points to Finland."
The more that this discussion goes on, the happier I am with the whole outcome. Not only has Armstrong rightfully been stripped of fake victories obtained through but it’s also upsetting people who believe that it’s ok to cheat if you don’t get caught. Splendid stuff!
Considering the tour de france has a greater worldwide audience than the stanley cup, what does that make ice hockey? Unknown, or fringe?
Interesting interview with Christophe Bassons
Show where the cycling rules have changed during the course of this? They haven’t. You go into a sport knowing what the rules are, and if you break them, you deal with the consequences.
Nobody gives a shit what happens in the NHL. It isn’t even comparable to cycling, where your wins ARE taken away if you are caught cheating.
If you don’t give a shit about the sport, or their attempts to keep people from cheating to win, why do you keep arguing vehemently on the side of allowing cheaters to keep winning?
An excellent example of how the result of taking drugs overturned a game years after the contest was over. Except it wasn’t about drugs or overturned years later. In fact, it was overturned during the midst of a tournament and if it hadn’t been caught at the time, the results would most likely have stood.
I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. The rules can be changed as the governing body sees fit. Right now they have decided that a title can be stripped years after the fact. I think that is ridiculous and takes away from the sport itself.
I’ve stated an example where a sport doesn’t do that and doesn’t lose anything because of it.
Where did I ever say that? I’m disagreeing with the contention that it makes the sport better, or more valid, or whatever other reason used to justify revisiting results years after the fact.
Then you are missing the point. A free-for-all as long as you don’t get caught at the time absolutely cripples the sport. That’s where the sport was a decade ago and why doping was rampant. Stripping titles isn’t only about setting things right in the past, it’s a deterrent to doping right this minute. Knowing that your samples will be retested years later once screening methods catch up to doping techniques is meant to clean up the sport now. If you dope today you risk being caught in the future and known as a cheat instead of a winner.
And she went to JAIL! For lying under oath iirc…
I think the lines have already been drawn and there won’t be anything that will convince Armstrong’s supporters of his guilt, but the USADA released its Reasoned Decision on Lance Armstrong. It’s a big document with a ton of evidence if anyone is interested in the actual facts of the case, it’s mostly laid out there, including the steps he took to intimidate witnesses against him. I think it makes it pretty damn clear that Armstrong is a lying piece of shit who doped his way through his career. Again, not that it will matter.