Lance Armstrong giving up the fight vs. USADA, may be stripped of his titles

The Game Room
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So what do people think about Rabobank’s decision to pull out and stop funding. They’ve always struck me as possibly a more straight-laced team (eg their decision to fire Rasmussen when he was in the yellow because he lied about his whereabouts. I wonder if any more teams are going to go this way.

What’s struck me most about the Armstrong report (not that this was previously unavailable info or somehow at all unlikely, but it just really brought it home to me) is the organization effort and capacity that a team can offer, and does offer, in supplying the sort of infrastructure needed to dope up a team. It does not really seem to be an individual’s effort, or at least it was not in the case of USPS (but I think we’ve seen that in Festina’s case too) - and it seems as though a lot of people are pushed to dope a little bit by peer pressure or pressure from superiors and higher ranking riders (such as Armstrong). I find that more damaging actually than the evidence that Lance himself doped - the fact that he coerced others into doing it too. Some of the affidavits have riders talking about how they leave the Armstrong team to go to some other team and that they’re surprised to find that (for financial reasons or other reasons) such a systematic approach is not in place there.

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Firstly, thanks to those posters who have provided detailed information about issues surrounding this case, and have done so in a clear, concise and compelling manner. Fighting ignorance indeed.

Secondly, USADA deserves great credit for their determined pursuit of this utter shitbag, in the face of concerted criticism from him and his supporters. More often than not, rich and powerful scumbags get a free pass because it’s too much effort or risk to take them on. We should applaud every case where the authorities go ahead and do it anyway, and especially those where they get their man in a manner so damningly thorough.

Thirdly, those who continue to downplay the revelations about LA need to realise that it’s about far more than a little bit of mild cheating. He broke not only the rules of his sport, but also the laws of at least two countries, influenced and directed other people into doing likewise, and committed a range of flagrantly immoral acts in maintaining the cover-up. And he did all of it for nothing more than his own personal gain, whilst simultaneously setting himself up in the public eye as some kind of modern-day saint. Viewed collectively, his behaviour looks little short of sociopathic.

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My own opinion, for what its worth - not al that much - is that the signs of what was to come showed up in the L.A Olympics, the US cycling team won those medals from a positions of irrelevance in world cycling terms.

I do recall the raised eyebrows but no proof was forthcoming, but it takes years, decades to build up the national expertise in almost any sport. You have to get finance, coaches, a national will - and none of it happens quickly.

Its taken the UK generations to perform well on the world cycling arena, it took years just to understand the extent of the task, it took years to build up the knowledge and it took years to build up a public interest - which then led to the incentive for incoming sports persons to decide cycling would be a good sport instead of, say, middle distance running and the US amateur cycling team did in in less than ten years.

Just suspicion at the time, however the sudden rise was remarkably sharp.

For those who still think Lance has any merit whatsoever by referring to his cancer charity work, lets debunk this one as well.

Armstrong and his charity work benefited his exceedingly well, this is what gave him the façade, and the armour against accusation. In pure money terms Armstrong’s charity work also allowed him to promote himself as a speaker, and charge up to $200k for the privilege. He personally profited from the iconic image of the charity fundraiser by allowing him to make money on his own ticket.

As for a real piece of work, Armstrong is not ‘just another cheat’ or he was doing it just as much as all the others, he was a prime mover, and there are those connected to him who are still involved in cycling at the highest levels.

How did Armstrong know when to go underground when a tester was coming unannounced? Seems he was tipped off, but by what means, how did this mechanism work, there are some very serious questions to be asked about the UCI, who was Bruyneel’s contact that he claimed to have in the testing ?

I think all those ‘true believers’ should listen to this, (the link is not valid for long so get in there)

The most striking thing about this to me is the nervousness in the voices of some of the participants in the interviews, and especially when talking about Armstrong and his talent for intimidation. Even now you can hear the fear in their voices, that says a lot about Armstrong.

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I’m looking to get clarification on one point from someone.
I’m trying to get a breakdown of what happened. Lance took a drug that wasn’t testable by 2002’s standards. Was it illegal in 2002 anyway even if you couldn’t test for it? And then, at a later point in time, they tested the 2002 sample and discovered that which couldn’t be found at the time?

Back in 2002 what was the rule on EPOs? Specifically, did it say something to the effect of “if any future test on a current blood sample shows drugs which, while not currently illegal, will be during this future test, we can retroactively apply penalties on you.” ?

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EPO was a banned substance in 2002. Blood transfusions are also banned despite there not being a good test for it. Just because something can’t be tested for doesn’t stop it from being banned.

Researchers who developed a test for EPO used some old samples from cyclists as part of their work. One of the samples that showed high amounts of EPO happened to be Armstrong’s, however that wasn’t known until later when someone happened to match Armstrong’s sample numbers with the positive sample in the test.

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It’s not about the doping, but new levels of LA’s fraud are becoming public…

307

Got it. Thanks.

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You can also get it on itunes, search on “itunes 5 sport”, it’s the 15th October release.

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My understanding is that Amgen contacted the IOC as early as 1993 with knowledge of “Epogen” abuse in sporting circles - initially in winter cross country skiing believe it or not. But yes, it was banned very early - 1995. It was possible, apparently, to detect the use of Epogen through blood tests as early as 1995 - however - only within 48 hours of use and only via blood testing. It was absorbed extremely quickly from the blood into the bone marrow I’m told.

In case you aren’t aware, Amgen the company owns the intellectual property on recombinant EPO, and they also developed the delivery method via the drug Epogen. Amgen still makes the original stuff however they faced competition in 2007 with the release of the new 3rd generation of Continuous erythropoietin receptor activator made by Roche Pharmaceuticals, a larger molecule which doesn’t pass through urine anymore - on purpose. When this new drug (aka CERA) metabolises it does pass a marker molecule specifically placed in the drug by Rosche to let testers identify abuse. Both generations of EPO work very well, although the latter requires fewer doses due to it’s being longer acting - hence it is cheaper to administer.

Greg Lemond refers to EPO as the class of “oxygen boosting drugs” and I agree with this particular category. Moving forward, it’s not unreasonable to suggest there will be more in the future - and by extension there could well be another 8 year period of untouchable uncatchable drug abuse within professional cycling.

Interestingly, I have a contact who works as a scientist for Amgen and he’s also a very keen road cyclist. I’m assured the company is intimately aware EPO was abused by a veritible shitload of sports during the 1990’s - soccer and tennis in particular. Think about a certain tennis player whose career was almost washed up before BAM! A career grand slam and major wins all over the place at the end of his career. An unusual occurrence by any standard given that 99.2% of all grand slam tournaments in history have been won by players under 30 years of age. That was EPO at work.

Any sport which is in the Olympics is governed by WADA, and if it’s governed by the terms of WADA, it’s a sport which has an 8 year statute of limitations for retrospective testing - unless you’re found to be guilty of obtaining and dissemination PED’s. Then it’s all bets are off, as I noted on the previous page.

So, in closing, last night I was leaning on the velodrome fence with a '64-'68 Olympian, a '72 Olympian, and a '76 Olympian - all of them cyclists - one of whom won 6 world championships. We all knew each other very VERY well and obviously, Amrstrong was the subject of the night. It was generally agreed that ironically, by the early 1980’s pro cycling was actually relatively clean - the amphetamine class of PED’s were very easy to catch by that stage, and steroids were also pretty easy to catch and they weren’t the primary drug of choice in road racing because they made you gain weight. (They were popular on the track however.) And then BAM! From 1989 onwards the average speed of Grand Tours gained 0.5kph per year for 10 years straight. That was the arrival of EPO. No other class of drug in cycling history has made such a huge difference to performance, it really was THAT amazing. And the guys who benefitted most were the guys who had the most natural headroom between their low natural hematocrit level and the artifical UCI 50% limit.

310

It’s come out he lying about THAT!

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A quick Google doesn’t show any obvious hits for that. Care to provide a link?

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Stripped of all titles. Wow. Now what does he put on his resume?

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What does he put on his resume now?

Realistically? That quote above is me at my cynical worst. But honestly, sue the fuck out of him. How that bastard could stand on the Champs Elysees in 2005 (after his 7th non win) and lecture us, I mean seriously lecture the whole goddamn world on him feeling sorry for all those people who couldn’t believe he did it clean? Sue him. No holds barred. How any human being could do THAT and then enjoy the fame of his future charity work, after he did THAT? In front of what, a billion people or more? Rip off his remaining ball I say.

The UCI and Armstrong had been swimming in a pool of gasoline, circling each other like sharks, for almost 2 months now. The UCI had no other choice than to get out first and throw a lit match first and burn Armstrong - because quite frankly Armstrong can still play the world’s greatest martyr by claiming the UCI created the culture which MADE him do what he did.

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The Thrift Drug Classic 93, 94?

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I know that the lack of smilies (and even there inclusion) cause some to be blind to obvious, facetious humor, but you’re better than that Colibri.

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Is there anyone who wasn’t doping to give those titles to?

My sense is that if he was doing, and he was most tested cyclist eveeeeer, then they probably all were, and we’ll never know.

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No. I saw a news story somewhere that said in the years Armstrong won the Tour, 20 of the 21 top-three finishers were either proved to be doping or were strongly suspected of it. So I guess they could give all seven trophies to that one possibly-clean rider … but more likely they’ll just leave them all vacant.

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Annoyingly, I can’t find the cycling blog I read a few days ago where someone had gone to the trouble of trying to work out who the winners would have been (with the requirement being, no failed tests, no implications of doping through Operacion Puerto, etc, i.e. not necessarily clean but also not thus far implicated).

As such, I can’t offer a cite - but they’d have had to go down as far as 7th on a couple of occasions. I think for the 7th victory, Cadel Evans would have been the winner. ETA: Evans finished 8th in that race. Ivan Basso who was second was implicated in Puerto.

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Begs question though why one would need or want to be a Lance “unbeliever?”
What purpose does it serve?

We’ve already established several things

  • Nearly everyone at the top level in cycling was/is doping
  • Lance Armstrong is clearly a scape goat due to his number 1 status/standing, his records and that he’s not European
  • Cycling was a very niche elitist ‘sport’ before the likes of Armstrong. Marketing and promotion wise, they couldn’t have asked for better…

Which leads to the next realization that this is all a wonderful PR scheme for the cycling league.

They aren’t really being at fault because let’s face it, no one forced the cyclists to cheat, it isn’t the organization’s fault. And despite any allegations of foul play on their part and giving certain cyclists a free pass, there won’t be anything substantial they cannot squash.

Since they come out of this fairly unscathed, all blame lies with the cyclists and the one in particular, Lance Armstrong.

Cycling popularity was back in a decline and this puts it all over the front page.
Now the headline will be ‘can cyclists compete at the top level without drugs? Don’t miss this year’s Tour De France…’

It’s so transparent it’s nauseating.

Meanwhile, we have people trying to intentionally be “unbelievers” as if if it’s a status quo now that the cat is out of the bag?

You want to erase the man’s good will because of his poor decisions in a sport.
You can’t have it both ways and the public knows this, which is why you still have the “believers.”

A man may be a hypocrite but his message is still relevant.

If you choose to ignore it on some faint attempt at salvaging ‘principle’ than that’s your own problem.

320

Lots of other cheaters were exposed before Armstrong was.