Neither did Tyler Hamilton. He didn’t take drugs either. (Well he probably did but he never got busted for that) The goal isn’t to take drugs specifically. The goal is to get as much red blood in your body as possible. The goal, also, is to raise your VO2 max to it’s highest level. And lastly, the goal is also to lower your body fat percentage to it’s lowest possible amount before getting REALLY sick.
You don’t need to specificaly take EPO to achieve the first goal. EPO simply became an incredibly easy way to achieve the goal because you could just shoot up the stuff in your leg. It was just SO easy to use. However, Operation Peurto has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that autologous blood doping is a cottage industry in it’s own right - servicing more than just pro cyclists of course. Many European based pro footballers are doing it too. There’s a sting in the tale in that story we’ve yet to fully hear about I reckon.
Just a note on Armstrong… he was a maniacal trainer. Focused to the point of taking far more from the sport than he gave to it. But so are the other guys he beat. I’ve heard him say a million times “I never once took a performance enhancing drug.” I think he’s actually telling the truth - well, his version of it. But by his own admission he was on a truckload of anti-remission therapies after he returned to pro cycling, and still is. And let’s not forget something either… recombinant EPO was invented specifically to fight anaemia after cancer radiation treatment. It was the first drug of choice while he was recovering from all those drill holes in his head. I don’t have a problem in the world with someone taking EPO to save their life. He had a great run, almost 15 months of training without a single drug test - and back in 1998 - 99 they couldn’t even test for EPO back then.
So he never took a drug which he got busted for? So what? He took drugs, lots of 'em - granted, for medical reasons. Hey, if they helped him stay 8 kilos lighter than he ever was before he lost his nuts, in my book, that’s taking drugs to win a race. But I think that’s largely irrelevant. Blood doping is the scourge of all high end cardio sports in 2007 - from track and field to pro cycling to soccer to cross-country skiiing. I reckon Armstrong used to filter 20 litres of his own blood each year and whack it in while he was doing all that secret training while everyone else was busting their guts in the real races. He just never got caught. He also was a magnificent natural talent, but he was NOT a Grand Tour winner prior to his cancer. Then he came out of secret training each year, raced one month and then won the Tour de France 7 years in a row. If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, it’s a duck.
What Armstrong proved conclusively is that you could win a Tour de France with secret training and not require traditional race fitness. 100 years of pro cycling says that’s abnormal - abnormal to the point of setting off a galaxy of warning lights. When you combine the fact he beat so many guys who were using the absolute state of the art medical science to cheat, well, nothing will ever convince me he was straight - ever.
The problem I have with Americans so blindly defending the likes of Armstrong or Landis, is that the glasses they’re wearing aren’t rose coloured, they’re star spangled banner coloured. The day I hear an American defending a positive doping case (with even one quarter of the veracity) of a person who happens to be a nationality OTHER than American is the day I’ll start taking them seriously. There’s only one American who’s opinion I trust talking about cyclists, and that’s Greg Lemond. The 80’s were a funny decade. Amphetamine bombs were still common, but steroids were useless at a high aerobic sport. Hi tech red blood cell doping hadn’t yet been perfected to any great degree outside of East Germany.
I honestly believe Landis is so dumb he was jabbed by his own doctors without even knowing what he was jabbed with. But then, Christian Moreni was man enough to admit doing exactly the same thing Landis is accused of. See the difference?
I see Barry Bonds is about to break Hank Aaron’s record. Oh yes… no American would ever cheat… no… never…