Lance Armstrong

[Baldy]

Originally Posted by FlagRS

here we go - Lance Armstrong faces fresh doping charges from USADA.

There is nothing I understand about this except that Floyd Landis is insane...

I was seriously into watching Lance compete in triathlon and this is disgusting.

[azshtr]

Originally Posted by WVhillbilly

Guess they have nothing better to do...

than spend our tax dollars chasing this guy. Enough already, let it go.

[Baldy]

Don't they have an olympics coming up to keep them busy?

[WVhillbilly]

I guess a retired, very successful pro athlete is more important.

[2whl-hoop]

I, for a while, was an Armstrong skeptic, but really, this has gotten old.

[Kamala]

Outrageous that they are still chasing this ghost. Someone must really have a stick up their ass over Mr. Armstrong.

[Gummee!]

My thoughts run in this direction:

He either didn't dope and won (no positives, remember?)

or

He DID do it and did it better and beat em at their own game

Either way, he beat em.

...but he's been retired for how long now? 'Course, since he's back into racing Tri-s, I can sorta-kinda see keeping the investigation going. Kinda sorta. Ya also gotta remember he was kicking ass in tri-s at 16! If he was doping at 16, I'll be really, really surprised.

M

[FlagRS]

Originally Posted by Baldy

There is nothing I understand about this except that Floyd Landis is insane...

I was seriously into watching Lance compete in triathlon and this is disgusting.

yeah my wife is pretty blown away and she was looking forward to watching him do Ironman.

[Signal]

Originally Posted by yater

I agree that Lance was the best cyclist in the world. I think he blood doped and used testoserone. I raced him when he was out of shape... He was still an ass kicker, but not like I expected. My bike failed me, but we were able to hang with him. A few of my friends beat him.

Agreed-
Also bearing in mind that since Indurain- EVERY tour winner (with the exception of Evans last year) has been busted for doping, even the spanish guy that finished second to Landis was busted in the Velta a few months later...and even Indurain was suspect (he quit racing just as EPO testing came around in 1998).

Lemond may have been the only one in recent memory not busted, even at a later date.

[Weirdo]

That's the thing. They decide that Lance was doping and they take his titles away and give it to the next guy in line....who most likely was doping.

What's the point?

[Signal]

Originally Posted by Weirdo

That's the thing. They decide that Lance was doping and they take his titles away and give it to the next guy in line....who most likely was doping.

What's the point?

It does seem there is an ongoing agenda within WADA.
Are thet gonna give a title to Ullrich or others, who were actually caught?

[Chisenhallw]

what a load of bollocks.

[squish]

There's never been a doubt in my mind that he's on or was on the juice or some other doping scheme.

In fact I seriously doubt that anyone who's worn the yellow in the last 20 years is dope free.

That doesn't mean that he's not an incredible cycling machine.

There's part of my that wishes that cycling would just come clean and say.
Look we dope, we are juiced. It's the way the sport at this level works.

Live with it.

Like someone else said, are they just going to hand the title on down the line until they get to some domestique that's way off the back somewhere and is clean...

[Jurgen]

Originally Posted by Gummee!

My thoughts run in this direction:

He either didn't dope and won (no positives, remember?)

or

He DID do it and did it better and beat em at their own game

Either way, he beat em.

...but he's been retired for how long now? 'Course, since he's back into racing Tri-s, I can sorta-kinda see keeping the investigation going. Kinda sorta. Ya also gotta remember he was kicking ass in tri-s at 16! If he was doping at 16, I'll be really, really surprised.

M

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that all pro sports are in a doping era. Baseball may (may?) have backed off a bit, but any highly paid professional sport where one can see real benefit the athletes will dope. Physicians & bio-chemists will assist them.

Cycling has real benefits to doping. Huge. I believe Lance doped, a bunch of smoke there. But I also believe most of the field he was beating doped too. The dopers were (are) ahead of the detectors. Even now they are going after Lance in a "non-anylitic case."

So what? How many of the runner ups have been found to be dopers? How many of the others were or will be analyzed in the same way as Lance is now being accused?

One could read between the lines of the USADA chief's comments when the federal criminal investigation was dropped that this may be coming. But what will they be proving?

Years ago in pole vault they went from bamboo to fiberglass poles. Fiberglass had huge advantages. Records flew up. If you competed with a bamboo pole you would lose. Lance had a fiberglass pole. But so did everyone else in the peleton.


Convince me that the following did NOT dope. You will have a tough time.

Originally Posted by JurgenResearchService

TdF runners up to Lance Armstrong--

1999 (2) Alex Zule-- ("Five Festina riders including Zülle admitted taking EPO.")

2000 (2) Jan Ulrich-- (In February 2012, Ullrich was found guilty of a doping offence by the Court of Arbitration for Sport)

2001 (2) Jan Ulrich -- see above

2002 (2) Joseba Beloki-- (In 2006, he was among those implicated in Operación Puerto, and was withdrawn from the Tour de France. However on July 26, he was cleared by Spanish officials of any wrongdoing"---Jurgen notes also a Festina rider during their big scandal)

2003 (2) Jan Ulrich-- see above

2004 (2) Andreas Kloden-- ("In 2009 allegations emerged claiming that Andreas Klöden used the Freiburg University Clinic for an illegal blood transfusion during the 2006 Tour de France.")

2005 (2) Ivan Basso-- ("In 2007 Basso admitted he was planning to use doping and was suspended for two years."--Jurgen notes third place finisher Ulrich was DQ'd from this race)

Looks like every single runner up is tainted. This isn't something this very casual fan before spending some time with Wiki. How deep into the pack do you need to go before you get away from the odor of taint?

I don't understand what this inquiry will prove at all? It is a waste of time, money and effort.

[Balanzed]

I guess that what professional cycling has become is a competition in who has the best medical team and that no matter how good the governing part of the sport is to detect new forms of doping, they're still playing catch-up to the huge monied teams who can afford having the best of the best chemist at their disposal.