USADA releasing Armstrong evidence today.

i think its fair to say, most of his team mates were doing it, whats to say other teams were not doing the same just to stay in contention of him?
Agreed

so years on whose to say the other teams/riders near to him werent doing exactly the same

Its a possibility and possibly the saddest of scenarios to contemplate. That the entire peloton could have been juicing.

For myself, I really hope that there was at least one rider there who wasn’t using.
But you make a good point, we, the fans and consumers, will never really know.

MSP – Member

at the time armstrong was never found to be cheating

Yes he was, it was covered up, really how hard is this to understand.

MSP , read my post first, i dont disagree hes cheated, i think the evidence is clear and that many team mates (and some good friends no doubt) cant be wrong/hate him that much….

my point is, and solely is he cheated, it got covered up, but whats to say it wasnt a level playing field and everyone else was doing it? he evaded being caught, so other teams could have done the same, but a decade on and its only a witch hunt for LA, making it out to general public like he was the only person/rider/competitor involved… the only thing im trying to say is if it was a level playing field then hes just the best of a bad bunch (which as at the time of those tours LA wasnt found to be cheating, just like all the other riders could have been getting away with too)

my statement still stands what type of sportsHuman does that make you

Just that, Human.

We all make mistakes, surely as much as the clean and honest deserve their chance, those who fall must surely be offered forgiveness and a chance to do good, no ?.

OW.

The reasons, perhaps, that LA has been targetted are that he took 7 TDFs and thumbed his nose at the authorities whos job it is to question and look into that kind of performance.

Had LA finished 32nd, I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t have attracted all the attention he has, and all the attention he has solicited…

Oscillate Wildly – Member
my point is, and solely is he cheated, it got covered up, but whats to say it wasnt a level playing field and everyone else was doing it?

It wasn’t a level playing field because people’s bodies respond to EPO in different ways, and some riders are naturally close to the UCI’s maximum hematocrit levels so couldn’t ‘make up’ the difference like those with naturally lower hematocrit levels.

Which (as well as the possibility of killing themselves) is another good argument against ‘just legalise everything’.

No other team seemed to have the resources or the protection that Lance had, at first it seemed to be the mythology of his cancer survival, and then he became a massive financial and political heavyweight (at least in cycling terms).

Following the 1998 tour there did seem to be a will to change the sport and move away from the drugs, but he smashed that to smithereens, and later destroyed anybody who stood in his way. Unfortunately his cancer experience made him untouchable by most of the media, and then with that sucsess he bought more and more power.

And still today he is hiding behind the cancer screen

Solo – Member

OW.

The reasons, perhaps, that LA has been targetted are that he took 7 TDFs and thumbed his nose at the authorities whos job it is to question and look into that kind of performance.

Had LA finished 32nd, I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t have attracted all the attention he has, and all the attention he has solicited…

thats exactly my thinking , i agree totally, it seems like a personal vendetta against a man who has clearly ‘got away with it’ so to speak….

i still think that most of the field would have been cheating to some extent, and as we’ll never know they also got away with it….be interesting to see if they delved into every single riders history around those tours, and im pretty sure most of the field would have been doping to some extent, especially challengers to lances yellow jersey…

i mean he won 7tdf’s how on earth did he not get spotted for cheating at some point?!?! not even one little slip up, or was he really that powerful he influenced people right at the top to cover up to?!?!

guess we’ll never know….

im still on the side of yes hes a cheat, but still the best cheat around then, and sadly tarnishes any riders around that era too for me…

OW.

My point was that its no more personal vendetta than the authorities will always be inclined to scrutinise those who stand on the podium, for that very fact. Not because the winners initals are LA.

As for being the best cheat of his era, I’d caveat that with Lifer’s point about not everyone in the peloton being at the same point on the EPO useage curve.

EDIT:

Anyway, there is bad and good in all this.
Its all very sad in that any child with dreams of becoming a TDF winner like LA was. Will be very disappointed their hero has feet of clay.
But, if this cleans the sport up so that futures generations do get to compete, clean and solely on their own physical merit. Then its not all been for nothing.

solo – just meant personal as in ‘he cheated for so long and made us look bad, we best put this straight’ type vendetta…i reckon if he’d have won the odd one here and there it would be no worse than contador….

yep i agree its awful for those genuine at the time, problem is LA evaded being caught at the time, so theres nothing anywhere to say that other teams were’nt doing the same and not getting caught, its hard to draw a line under it, i guess we’ll just never know properly…. you just hope that it was just LA, but i really do doubt it….

thats exactly my thinking , i agree totally, it seems like a personal vendetta against a man who has clearly ‘got away with it’ so to speak….

Or, sending out a clear message that however rich, powerful and popular you are, you will get caught in the end – pretty big deterrent to potential future dopers.

… and now what? I really cannot understand people’s excitement in all this… ‘Good bedtime reading…’, get a life. What everyone is forgetting here is that cycling, like any other sport is entertainment driven – if it doesn’t entertain then it doesn’t exist in the guise it takes today. I ride bikes extensively, I watch cycling extensively, but really I don’t give a shit about what goes on in the background. Was the Tour exciting during the period being discussed….? Absolutely. Was it exciting in the times of Merckx, Simpson, Hinault, Fignon…? Absolutely. Nobody can convince me that substances weren’t being used then, but why should that matter to me? Was this year’s Tour ‘clean’… probably, but was it exciting…? I don’t think so, except for countless Brits getting carried away on the ‘excitement’ of an English (born in Belgium, Australian father) winner. Most of us are spectators, not chemical analysts or sports lawyers, so why do you want to know? Soap mentality?. This is hardly life changing news.
So are you all going to have celebration parties for finding out something about someone you don’t know or will never know… will that change your life for the better??? …and then go find someone else to pad out most cycling magazines with even more waffle?

you just hope that it was just LA, but i really do doubt it….
Yes, I doubt LA and his team were the only ones.

pretty big deterrent to potential future dopers

Only if you use what is currently on the banned list……

Lance outwitted them game set and match

No he didn’t when he had the chance to defend himself he chose to turn, run and try to undermine the work they’d done…

EDIT: “At the time Lance outwitted them game set and match“.

Imagine if we went back trough history reviewing all the sporting outcomes and applied today’s regulations…

Even if he did cheat (as well as all the others) which is wrong. We should also remember all the good he has achieved with LiveStrong as well.

The Savile defense. How’s about that then, boys and girls?

Main question I have about this today, on behalf of Phil Ligget: What tyres for embarassed backpedalling?

Spxxky.

Mate, chill dude and try to calm down. We’re just chewin the phat. Whos to say we shouldn’t if we want to. Check out the ads on the right hand side of the page though, while you’re here.
🙂

Did Ashenden not say in one of his interviews that the number of epo positive samples they had surprising small? That would go against the ‘everyone was doing it’ argument.

The level playing field argument has long since been blown out of the water – yes there were a lot of other riders doping at the same time but to nkow where near the level LA and his team were. The peloton were three years aheaed of the testers, USPS were two years ahead of the rest ofthe peleton.

Read Hamilton’s book and the USADA reportand youll see what lengths they went to just to stay ahead of the peleton let alone the testers, they were being funded by the US government to the tune of $10million a year and using a lot of that to pay Ferrari and Co – the payments are in the USADA docs..

‘he cheated for so long and made us look bad, we best put this straight’ type vendetta

most high profile drugs cheat ever, vehemently shot down anyone suggesting he cheated, gave clean riders who spoke out a right grilling. Seems reason enough to go after him to me, “if LA got away with it for so long maybe I can too” is not the message we want people to take away from this.

Imagine if we went back trough history reviewing all the sporting outcomes and applied today’s regulations

TBF I think they are going back and applying the regulations of the time just with today’s technology to catch cheats.

http://www.cyclismas.com/2012/06/lance-armstrongs-business-links-a-flowchart-by-dimspace/

I’ve posted this before, but it’s an indication of the idea that this is not just about someone going a bit quick in a bike race…

100% Hematocrit!

any cheap yellow Oakleys/Giros/Nikes on ebay?

If it turned out, for example, that Livestrong funds were misused in support of the doping conspiracy, that would be a different matter.

Well, he used livestrong funds to pay his legal fees when he was suing everyone, so he has.

What a crappy sport.

Here’s Armstrong’s latest tweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4UL7fXSzk8

Strange man.

Imagine if we went back trough history reviewing all the sporting outcomes and applied today’s regulations

TBF I think they are going back and applying the regulations of the time just with today’s technology to catch cheats.

By the term ‘regulations’ I included ‘technology’ used to enforce them, don’t see any clamour to use tech undo other sporting event outcomes, hawk-eye, goal line tech, 4th officials, digital timing beams to name but a few…

M,Barry rode for Sky who dont use doped riders mmm ? And Sean Yates is a Sky bloke who rode with Lance in the early Motorola years .If Lance doped then does this look good for Skys virgin white ethos?

So are my Yellow livestrong Oakleys worth more or less now?

By the term ‘regulations’ I included ‘technology’ used to enforce them, don’t see any clamour to use tech undo other sporting event outcomes, hawk-eye, goal line tech, 4th officials, digital timing beams to name but a few…

The difference is that all the other technologies you name weren’t allowed to be used under the regulations in force at the time of the event. There has never been any limitation in the regulations on the technology used for drug testing. If you had a time machine and took back hawk-eye to 1981 you wouldn’t be able to use it to get Botham out because he was LBW. However if you took back current drug testing procedures (along with the documentation to prove their validity) to 1999 they’d happily use them to test TdF samples.

It’s not just about technology for testing and intelligence gathering though, is it? The teams and cycling governing bodies are to blame – they put sham measures in place after the Festina affair (everyone could see that the hematicrit level monitoring was a complete joke) systematically turned a blind eye to doping and just heaped all the blame on any rider who got caught.

My son had his first outing on a balance bike yesterday. He was already lifting both feet up 😮

Will be sport be clean intime for when he turns professional?

Will be sport be clean intime for when he turns professional?

I didn’t realise that the international sport of balance bike had a doping problem.

By the term ‘regulations’ I included ‘technology’ used to enforce them, don’t see any clamour to use tech undo other sporting event outcomes, hawk-eye, goal line tech, 4th officials, digital timing beams to name but a few…

AFAIK most things like video replay, simulations are done to check up on refereeing decisions of match/game/race outcomes. The sport chooses whether it wants technology in game eg photo finish, hawkeye, video replays etc like most sports or (as in football) decide to trust one myopic ref and a couple of linesmen miles away from the action. You choose your method and stick with the results. This is about catching cheats and a different receptacle of marine life altogether. You do your best to out the cheats especially prolific long term cheats. Not sure but in football if a player foul/attacks another and the ref doesn’t notice video replays are used for catching the cheats then aren’t they? retrospectively using technology not used at the time to catch them out?

Will be sport be clean intime for when he turns professional?

That probably depends on whether the fanbois are finally prepared to accept the truth. Wouldn’t you agree, hora?