Someone in the other thread made the point that it’s hard to know who would get credit for Lance’s Tour de France wins. The 2nd and 3rd place winners were probably busted years ago. Whos to say the 4th place winners are lilly white clean either? This obsession with the past needs to stop.
Has any other sport ever gone to this extreme lengths? Going back 15 years to right some wrong? The world isn’t perfect and neither is sports. All you can do is try and do better tomorrow. Let the past be.
It would be nice if it worked like that but it doesn’t. The simple fact is that it is harder to catch cheats than it is to cheat and the testing authorities are always one step behind. I think the present strategy is to hunt down and ruthlessly ruin past champions to show that in the long term you can’t get away with it.
I’m not sure how effective the strategy is, because as others have said it’s the guy who stands on the podium that everyone remembers, not the runner up who is anointed as the winner three years later when the first guy gets caught and stripped of the title. I think a lot of guys are going to think that if they use drugs to get on the podium in the short term, that’s enough, regardless of what happens later.
Also bear in mind that LA is only one of the targets of this investigation. Most are trainers and doctors who were involved then and are involved in cycling now. They need to be trashed to stop them leading current young riders down the doping path. And they could hardly charge all those surrounding LA without attacking LA himself.
I disagree. As others have mentioned, there are types of doping that can’t be detected with todays tests. Athletes can use them more or less with impunity.
But if samples are taken from athletes now with the understanding that if a new test is developed in the future, it will be applied to those samples, then the assurance that they can dope without being caught disappears. Its impossible to say what future tests may be able to detect.
But for that to be a credible threat, the authorities need to show a willingness to pursue cases from several years ago. Otherwise, present day riders will know they just need to worry about what can be detected in the present.
Many (most?) ‘crimes’ have a statute of limitations. This isn’t murder.
So? These aren’t criminal proceedings. I don’t see the relevance of your post.
(Plus, LA’s win was in 2005, and his last race was 2009. Its not exactly ancient history).
I can’t see the relevance of badgering some 80 year old because he might have pumped his own blood into his veins when he was 20. So, what is a reasonable limit for something so minor?
This is a rather American-centric point of view. The Michael Jordan of cycling isn’t Lance; it’s Eddy Merckx. Lance was a brutally boring technician of a rider. Cycling has long had a large following in Europe, and to this day it’s still a very marginal sport in the US.
Anyways, you’re off on several counts here. First, cycling isn’t doing the damage to the sport - it’s USADA that’s pushed the investigation, not UCI. And arguably the whole goddam thing is the UCI’s fault for brushing Lance’s first positive result under the table back in 99. After the Festina scandal in 98 they might have got things turned around, but the first chance they got they turned a blind eye to doping because the doper in question had a good storyline. If they don’t allow that ridiculous retroactive therapeutic exemption, Lance never wins his first Tour and maybe, just maybe the post-Festina pause in doping might have taken hold. Or maybe that’s hopelessly optimistic.
But it’s really annoying that people blame the people trying to enforce the rules for hurting the sport, rather than blaming the guy who blatantly broke the rules while loudly proclaiming his innocence, not to mention besmirching the character of anyone who dared question him and constantly hiding behind the cancer martyr image.
Personally, I think if new evidence comes to light to show someone cheated to win a sporting title, that title should be stripped. The timing isn’t relevant.
And why should that be a problem? If cheating at a sport is “something so minor”, then clearly losing a title is also a minor issue. You can’t have it both ways.
And how can you do that when turning a blind eye to blatant cheating? As others have pointed out, it’s not just about Lance, but also removing coaches and managers who are still part of the sport. If professional sport is to be meaningful, it’s necessary to stamp out the culture of cheating.
Far-fetched I know but indulge me. Let us say the anti-doping authorities pursued their campaign so vigorously and doping proved so endemic that practically all the major cyclists ended up with life bans. What is to prevent them forming their own association, holding their own test-free events and telling all these ‘official’ sporting bodies to go take a hike?
Professional sports only exist because of public support. Such an event would have a very hard time attracting spectators and sponsors.
Marion Jones was stripped of her 2000 Olympic Gold medals after admitting to steroid use in 2007.
That’s unpossible! She was tested and didn’t fail the tests.
No statute of limitations in sports then? Isn’t this a contract between you and the organizing body? Should not the rules apply as with any other contract?
I don’t want it both ways. I’d prefer to see a rational approach to a situation. If you can’t find that someone cheated within a reasonable time, then leave it alone. If you declare something is illegal, then you should have a test for it, or a way to discover it, at the time you declare it is illegal, is what I’m suggesting.
I read Armstrong has $100 million in endorsements. That’s serious business, not sports. All that money was obtained via fraud. Total up all the athletes doping or otherwise cheating that’s easily billions of dollars obtained fraudulently.
Absolutely not, and why should there be? You win a sporting contest by following the rules of the game. If it turns out that you didn’t actually follow those rules, how can you be viewed as having won?
I don’t see a sports title as a “contract”, so I don’t see the relevance. The arbitration agreement is a contract, but presumably if there is a statute of limitations on it, we’re inside it.
I disagree, for the reasons I gave earlier in the thread.
I can’t help thinking that Lance Armstrong is just unfortunate in that he’s American and the USADA are particularly zealous in pursuit of their crusade. I can’t imagine that all countries pursue testing quite so rigorously (although of course they would go through the motions). For instance would the Jamaican ADA be as determined to trip up Usain Bolt and the other sprinters, thus depriving their country of its athletic glory? (With clever use of steroid cycling the sprinters would be quite secure from detection at the Olympics or World Championships).
In other words are we quite sure that it’s a level playing-field out there?
Lance Armstrong isn’t competing against Usain Bolt, so I’m not sure what “playing field” your refering to.
As to other countries Tour competitors, they seem to get caught doping pretty regularly, so whatever the rigour of their ADA, its hard to see an argument that they’re getting away with doping at the expense of their American counter-parts.
No it’s not a level playing field. Some athletes have an army of lawyers behind them that keeps the authorities off their backs for years longer than their rivals and teammates.