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The Lance years brought some truly memorable spectacle but I now wonder whether the price is one that will end up costing the sport dearly in the long run?
LA did not introduce doping to cycling. Kelly, Mercx, Ullrich, Coppi, Anquetil. All before LA. The damage to cycling was done far before LA arrived. Granted, he didn't help.
JY - correct I have absolutely no evidence, it just seems his rise is all a bit 'unbelieveable' what with his blood disease, etc., in what, March? this year? It just seems a little far fetched. Plus, I will stick my hand up and admit thre's something I just don't like about him. From purely a gut reaction. If I wanted to argue the toss I'd say if it was back in the late 90's or 00's then he would have been shredding in the Vuelta, the blood passport keeps things [i]within[/i] certain margins after all. If LA's bloods escaped the BP reviews then why shouldn't anyone elses?
I am not stating 'for sure' that he's doped, just my spidey senses are a tinglin'
By association I mean if you start to question one, then automatically the other follows... Yes, with even [i]less[/i] justification... 
Same with Sagan, though. Just unbelievable.
By experience I am deeply cynical, this is what I was driving at. Thats where it leads us all to no?
Thus is USDA wish to stand on the moral high ground then all Pro's in the tours in question would need to be reviewed in the same light by the UCI PRIOR to removing Lance's victorys and handing them to ANY Cyclist that is confirmed as 100% clean beyond all question otherwise all they have achieved is to victimise one individual.
Their will be no winners in any of this other than the laywers, as all that can be argued is "to what rigour must the USDA demonstrate guilt" not is / was LA clean.
Kinda agree with this in some respects. If you're gonna say Lance didn't win any tours then we're going to have to apply the same criteria to other riders. And then do you get down to Cofidis being not exactly the cleanest team and Wiggins used to ride for them? etc. etc. BMC are the phoenix risen out of an old team (I can't remember their name) that IIRC folded due to drug issues so is that Cadel implicated?
I suspect a fudge by the UCI - results null and voided, no winners. A statement of intent to be clean blah blah blah, then hiding for a while until the pressure dies down and back to business as usual. And hopefully the sport come cleaner by it's own volition.
And to paraphrase a comment in another thread, if, say, LA was clean but his entire team was doped to the eyeballs like they admit, then does that really make him a true winner. Do you apply that logic to, say, Cadal Evans and his BMC team, or anyone else. It would just descend to a farce so quickly as to make it just comical to the rest of the sporting world.
as has already been explained [b]US[/b]DA banned and stripped of titles the [b]US[/b] riders. Seems that UCI either chose to bury their head in the sand or were bought off. A US governing body can't tell the rest of the sporting world they've been very naughty boys, this is sports not international politics.If you're gonna say Lance didn't win any tours then we're going to have to apply the same criteria to other riders.
if, say, LA was clean but his entire team was doped to the eyeballs like they admit, then does that really make him a true winner
If my auntie was a man she would be my Uncle
That is an If that everyone knows is not true .
So Nike have dropped him, good, and he's stepped down as chairman of Livestrong, wise.
I will love to hear what he says to the livestrong rally this weekend.....
We'll get clean, but boring racing, look at the difference between this years tdf and the vuelta, one was a bit boring, and one wasn't.
I will love to hear what he says to the livestrong rally this weekend.....
Just heard on the radio that he's stepped down as CEO of Livestrong.
[url= http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-lance-armstrong-livestrong-20121017,0,681872.story ]HERE[/url]
no longer chairman but still on the board?
I believe the Lance Armstrong affair does not reflect on Nike, surely it beggars belief a huge corporation like Nike, with their intimate knowledge and involvement in sport had no idea what was going on with Lance Armstrong. It seems to me Nike were happy to be associated with Lance Armstrong and make lots of money on the back of that association, and turn a "blind eye" to the rumours until Lance Armstrong became too much of a liability.
If you take an overview, not only does Lance Armstrong come back from cancer, but (according to him) beats many riders who have now admitted doping, cleanly, incredible! Also the present generation of riders (Wiggins, Froome and co) are performing about 5% less (in terms of power) than Armstrong´s era. 5% is about the advantage successful doping will give you!
There's comment from Bruce Schneier here...
... he writes from a US security viewpoint.
And I wonder why T-mobile pulled out a while ago.
Aren't you all bored of this by now??????
Mods, please can we ban all Lance and Kaesae threads, PLEASE!
Nowhere really...those that don't compete will retire to the pub and have a discussion over a pint of whatever; those who don't cycle may or may not have any interest in it and those who do compete will become entrenched in their belief (whatever that is).
Those who are clean will try harder, those who aren't will try harder to hide the fact they aren't. UCI will look even further at their navel and do very little whilst publicly telling everyone to calm down, they are making it better.
The Pro teams are likely to make a lot of fuss and bluster about being clean, but to be honest, who really knows?
So I suspect those who don't have direct impact from this will do nothing other than have something else to discuss...
I'm glad it has finally come to light, but I seriously doubt anything of real value will be done...this is going to take years to weed out and remove (and at the same time gives those who are still tinkering the chance to get new stuff and new techniques to hide it all).