How can the USDA strip him of his 7 Tour titles, surly thats up to the Tour organisors to decide

Despite all LAs “boo hoo, they’re picking on me” rhetoric he has just pleaded guilty to doping.

That means he can’t sue anyone who says he did. The truth will out. Simione will want his money back for a start.

I so want him to be clean, like him or not he’s an inspiration to an awful lot of people. This witch hunt does no one any good, everyone accepts that the majority of the peloton were doping in those days so where do you stop. You either have to go for everyone or draw a line under it. As oldgit said are you going to go back as far as Simpson?. 🙁

Technically I doubt USDA can strip the titles but symbolically and far more damaging from a general public perception point of view of Armstrong in the states, your own country no longer recognising your achievements is a coffin nail regardless of what the UCI do

He couldn’t win against the USADA. He knew the only route was to arbitration. This meant mitigation/accepting their charges. The witnesses had the threat of lifetime bans from USADA if they didn’t co-operate. Yes some were done and did it willingly but then if they didn’t would their own prior results be stripped?

I think Lance put himself in the USADA’s hands by registering through them in 2010 on his comeback? Thats where he went wrong.

IF he is stripped of his 7 titles then I think they should just cancel out the sport. Its a farce.

What if Wiggins dominates next years tour – when do the whispers start, the accusations and does Wiggins then start sending legal letters? After all if you keep quiet you are definitely guilty.

None of the top, middling or even lower ranking riders were clean. They all doped at somepoint. Its a shit sport. Supposed to be healthy yet all of them are smacked up. They will all try it in some form in the future. What a house of cards.

Let me just say hes not admitting to doping is he. Lets watch abit longer as the UCI has the say over their jurisdiction.

IF he is stripped of his 7 titles then I think they should just cancel out the sport. Its a farce.

Balls.

The farce would be to leave them with him so the fanbois still refer to him as 7 times champ rather than the true title:
drug cheat, ring-leader of systematic doping on the Tour de France.

So lets see, of the 7yrs who would be the cleanest rider and what was their position? Don’t class anyone who was subsequently found to be a user – even if they were a smackhead like Miller who simply admitted.

Hora, are you the only person here who hasn’t read this Michael Ashenden interview. Or did you just decide that it’s not relevant?

If the USADA has a list of self confessed (Possibly by a Spanish type inquisition) drug cheats then this should be published and the full penalties applied to them too.

If they want to take a tough stand……

Did you read what I said about him about 2/3 pages back phil w?

Didn’t the Spanish raids turn up alot of evidence – the same evidence that the authorities quietly supressed as it would implicate one of their own stars badly?

Why should Contador be allowed to keep all his titles?

None of the top, middling or even lower ranking riders were clean. They all doped at somepoint. Its a shit sport. Supposed to be healthy yet all of them are smacked up. They will all try it in some form in the future. What a house of cards.

You said this hora, are you saying it excludes LA?

no harm done….

Lots of harm done if you are prepared to accept drug cheats “because everyone is doing it”. This case is not just about pro cycling; the same rules apply to all UCI competition, and I don’t want cycling to become a sport where I have to take drugs to be competitive (and we know some non pros have gone down this road).

An unsatisfactory outcome, as it would have been better for the evidence to be presented in court, but well done to USADA for pursuing this.

If you lot get hora to say ‘ok, lance doped’ are you expecting the internet to give you a special award?

The witnesses are saying hes not clean. Then they all are- we might as well say ‘well its the pressure mate, I had to do to keep in my job as a domestique’.

Was George clean? Hes never had a positive but are you sure? why would you ride clean in a team full of team mates who were all doping around you and you didn’t participate and kept quiet. Wierd.

Imagine having to smack yourself up just to keep your job.

Get another? Do something else? Sorry I don’t get the ‘must be fit, eat properly, train then **** with substances. I know miller et all explained why they did/had to be come on.

Did you read what I said about him about 2/3 pages back phil w?

Missed it first time, but I have now.

hora – Member
Ashenden – again I don’t want to see analysis or opinion. I want to see bloody facts, either tests presented, caught and done by a professional body. So I will WAIT.

Clearly you’ve closed your eyes to the facts. The test’s were done by a professional body, just not for the purpose of doping control. What more do you want? To do the tests yourself?

Well he’s done exactly what I’d have done. Why dance to USADAs tune?
Filthy sport, sorry I know a lot of you love it but I shall not be wasting another minute of my time on it. Brit TDF winner or not.

After Festina, there was a window of opportunity for the sport to clean itself up. The leading light in not doing this was Lance Armstrong and the US Postal team. When you have a team that is doping and winning the blue riband race each year, it creates an environment where people have to dope to compete. I’m not saying the FIVE people who were accused are the sole reason for doping in cycling, but they helped foster an environment where not only was it needed but those voices trying to bring greater transparency were stifled and their careers ruined (with the complicity of the rest of the peloton it has to be said). The conspiracy of doping and silence they helped create and maintain led to Fuentes and the farcical situation with Contador. I don’t care if he’s stripped of the titles but finally being held up as a cheat is fair.

Next we get to see the case against them when Johan goes for his day in court. It should be interesting to see what evidence they have and the number of witnesses that come forward. And on that subject…

If the USADA has a list of self confessed (Possibly by a Spanish type inquisition) drug cheats then this should be published and the full penalties applied to them too.

And how do you propose to convince people forward in future? “Please come forward and help us clean up the sport but be aware you’ll be banned for life when you do” doesn’t seem like much of an incentive.

Without reading all of the to and fro above, I’ve got to say that I’m genuinely feeling quite sad right now. Way back I read both his books and followed and shouted at my telly for him in the tour. Over the intervening years I’ve come to have my doubts, which became deeper and deeper. But today to have those suspicions as good as confirmed still feels a real wrench. A bit like a relationship that was dwindling away but has now truly finished.

A sad day. 🙁

The test’s were done by a professional body, just not for the purpose of doping control.

Then why doesn’t UCI also let French Newspapers contract a Lab etc to carry out tests?

Do you see why not. Why it has to be one body.

And how do you propose to convince people forward in future? “Please come forward and help us clean up the sport but be aware you’ll be banned for life when you do” doesn’t seem like much of an incentive.

I believe there words were something along the lines of
“Everyone else said you were cheating rat out Lance and we will let you off”

Seems simple really, shouldn’t be too hard to get more people cooperating.

Sky Postals next. Damn them guys are good. What are they using?

Those wheels on the team GB track bikes- must be some of gyroscope or cheat going on.

Hora invokes the cycling Godwins law of doping debate

Then why doesn’t UCI also let French Newspapers contract a Lab etc to carry out tests?

What? A newspaper didn’t do the tests. They were samples given during the tour and used for research by the same lab that does the doping tests for the UCI.

Which bit of that isn’t enough for you?

Matt Seaton’s article in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/aug/24/how-lance-armstrong-strongarmed-cycling?CMP=twt_fd

Lance’s official statement on it:
http://lancearmstrong.com/news-events/lance-armstongs-statement-of-august-23-2012

Sky Postals next. Damn them guys are good. What are they using?

Those wheels on the team GB track bikes- must be some of gyroscope or cheat going on.

If you look at the performance differential between what Lance and US postal were doing back then and what Brad and sky are doing now, sky look clean. However because of the past tainted image of the sport created by Armstrong and those generations of the sport, there is a doubt.

I hope that sky are clean, I want to believe they are, but if they are not it wouldn’t shock me, or cause me to stick my fingers in my ears while singing lalalalala to drown out the reality.

cause me to stick my fingers in my ears while singing lalalalala to drown out the reality.

it’s called doing a ‘hora’

I must be missing something here. Or maybe I misread that Ashenden interview.

I thought that tests on LA’s urine from the tour of 99, showed the presence of synthetic EPO.

Whats to debate ?.

❓

I now don’t care whether he did or did not.

I think a 10 year pursuit has cost an awful lot of effort, money and resources that could have been better used on the sport for the last 10 years. The rabid pursuit is depressing and an utter waste.

I thought that tests on LA’s urine from the tour of 99, showed the presence of synthetic EPO.

Whats to debate ?.

Depends where your sensibilities lie.
The fact that the test was retrospective and for research only (testing the efficacy of a new test for EPO), the fact that the results were leaked to/obtained by the press, the fact that results can’t be used retrospectively. All sorts.

There’s been so much on all of this that no-one knows who’s done what any more. Everything is cloaked in allegation, rumour, lawsuit, counter-suit, conspiracy theories, fact, fiction and bias.

I’d long ago given up caring what the result of any of this was, I just think that the way they’ve gone about hounding one particular rider (whatever the outcome) is out of order.

Edit: +1 for what TooTall said ^^

Here’s who to give the titles to…..

From here

What gives USADA the right to strip the TdF titles?

What gives USADA the right to strip the TdF titles?

I wondered this. Couldn’t the UCI tell them to go swivel?

Solo – that is right.

hora wont say whether he has read the Ashenden interview…

My read of it was that Ashenden was working with UCI and the testing laboratory to develop and approve a test for synthetic EPO.

The test was ready for “live”, but they wanted to validate it by looking at previous samples where EPO could have been used (ie was suspected to be in use) and therefore might be present in samples – in order to “test the test”.

’99 Tour was chosen, and a bunch of samples showed synthetic EPO. Neither the lab nor Ashenden knew who the samples came from.

It is a sad day for the sport, not because LA has been accused / found out, but because he was part of it in the first place

ETA – too tall / crazy legs – kind of see your point if LA had retired into obscurity. His aggressive legal pursuit of anyone tarnishing his rep is aprt of this debate, like it or not.

The way this has p[layed out over the last month??? Challenge in the US courts? Question of jurisdiction?

I fully believe in “innocent until proven guilty”, but that does depends on:
a) No case to hear, or
b) test the evidence in court / public arena

If LA was always clean, surely his response would be to say come on then, try your best. He has used his very considerable influence to suppress evidence at every stage over this sorry saga

Crazy Legs.

The test was the test and according to Ashenden, it was carried out correctly.

The sample shows synthetic EPO. It simply shouldn’t be there. Humans produce there own EPO, not synthetic EPO. Its there, in his urine, end of. For me.

Anyway we’re agreed. Lance is still a far more awesome cyclist than anyone on this thread.

Anyway we’re agreed. Lance is still a far more awesome cyclist than anyone on this thread.

😆

You haven’t seen me go, on a good dose of EPO.
😉

Why should Contador be allowed to keep all his titles?

Contador was stripped of his 2010 title.

I dont care if he was doping, everyone was doping. What is the point of chasing him for 10 years that is what is called a vendetta. What purpose does it serve? He isnt a despot that killed thousands of people or the like, he is a guy that rode a bike in races.

He was quite good in Dodgeball for a non actor.

Pigface, as I posted yesterday… you wouldn’t say to a banker who had skimmed off millions through a fiddle – ahh well, it was 10 years ago

ETA

Lance is still a far more awesome cyclist than anyone on this thread.

You haven’t seen me go, on a good dose of EPO.

and that is the whole point…

Over the past three years, I have been subjected to a two-year federal criminal investigation followed by Travis Tygart’s [USADA’s chief executive] unconstitutional witch hunt.

FFS he is still at it…one would think this would make you angry and determined to clear your name not capitulate so that the evidence is never made public and you are known as drug cheat to all but the fanboys

If there is one thing LA is not it is a quitter – i will leave Hora to have a think about why. Having denied all his life and having never ever quit anything in his life he has capitulated rather than have his day in court to prove his innocence
I take that as an admission though it is clear he never will and he will continue to do everything possible to maintain LA the myth to those who know little about cycling