HOLY showtime!!! Amstrong accepts life ban!!!

[BoardRider]

This whole saga has sadden me.
He has had such a high profile in cycling everybody seems knows him.He has inspired so many to fundraise for cancer research and to cycle for a noble cause.
Now that has been tainted, cycling can not be thought of as being honourable.
I watched my wife be inspired by this man,purchased his book,fundraise,brought live strong and began to cycle.
This has hurt the people who believed in him.That were inspired by him most all, regardless of the claims and arguments of cheating,innocence.

[il padrone]

Ivan Basso of Italy was suspended by Discovery Channel on 24 April when the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) reopened his case on behalf of his involvement in the Operación Puerto doping case. On 30 April 2007 Team Discovery Channel announced that Basso would be released from his contract on Basso's request.[286] While still claiming to never have actually engaged in blood doping, Basso admitted contacting Dr. Fuentes' clinic with the intention to engage in blood doping.[287] On 15 June 2007, Basso received a two-year ban. The time he had already spent under team suspension whilst riding for CSC and temporary suspension since leaving Discovery were taken into consideration which meant his ban would end on 24 October 2008.[299]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_do ... in_cycling

[Jono L.]

What we believe or don't believe is irrelevant.

His tests have been negative. Tests by bodies who are doing their utmost to look for traces of this stuff.

And its on the record he has submitted himself to hundreds of tests.

If we use the same twisted logic across the board then every rider who returns a negative result , should actually be considered guilty of using PED , because that is the logic some would like to apply to Armstrong. That makes no sense to me at all.

Why should some be declared innocent and others guilty even if the results of screening are identical? Negative means negative doesn't it ?? For everybody.

Let’s pause. Some will protest that eyewitness testimony is hearsay, vendetta, not real evidence. Sorry, it is hard evidence when it is given under oath. Eyewitness testimony under oath is enough to convict someone of murder. The pervert Jerry Sandusky is in prison because of eyewitness testimony, not DNA or other “facts.” Let us remember that false testimony is called perjury, a felony. Jail time. Most people won’t perjure themselves for a vendetta. Do you seriously believe that 10 people who worked closely with Armstrong would perjure themselves and risk jail out of mere jealousy towards Armstrong? That is Armstrong’s claim, but it makes no sense.

Armstrong was going down hard and he knew it. He quit his fight with the USADA to keep the evidence — that testimony from ex-teammates and employees — from seeing the light of day

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaa ... more-dirt/

[ColinOldnCranky]

Negative means negative doesn't it ?? For everybody.

Tell that to Basso and Ullrich, neither of whom ever tested positive.

nor Marion Jones and a host of others in track and field.

And although it was a short few years between her claiming gold at the Sydney Olympics and the surfacing of evidence, it it had not been for a disgruntled coach who was in the know, it would have been many more years.

I think the concept of retaining samples for testing as technolgy advances is a great thing.But if we put time limits on it then they as well not bother. (I think there is a time limit - 8 years. Drop the time limit.)

[roller]

Interesting interview with Paul Kimmage and Jeremy Whittle:

http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rte ... %3A0%3A%3A

[Baldy]

CZAR!!!


http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/y ... ur/c5xzfwx

[fthills]

Is there not a difference between LA's case and say the Marion jones case where she admitted she had doped when confronted with the evidence ?

LA denies everything AND he has hundreds of samples of forensic evidence to show he was not doping.

What would people prefer if they were under scrutiny by some authority ?

The word of self confessed dopers who by definition were at some point dishonest to begin with or the evidence from a test tube ? Give me science imperfect as it is , over even more imperfect humans.

No wonder there are some people convicted on perfectly valid witness evidence later exonerated when compelling DNA evidence comes to light.

[alex]

the cult like defense of this liar, cheat, sociopath and narcissist is not surprising.

when presented with evidence (which will appear in the next couple of weeks) the zealots will become even *more* militant in their defense of 'him', against all logic, but in line with untold psychological studies of cult worshippers.

it really is sad to see this behaviour.

[Jono L.]

The word of self confessed dopers who by definition were at some point dishonest to begin with or the evidence from a test tube ? Give me science imperfect as it is , over even more imperfect humans.
.

10 different people.

ALL risking perjuring themselves, just to get Lance

[toolonglegs]

Is there not a difference between LA's case and say the Marion jones case where she admitted she had doped when confronted with the evidence ?

Yes the difference is that Marion had to testify in front of the federal panel and telling lies there comes with heavy penalties. Telling lies to an Antidoping tribunal does not come with any penalties.
Lance will have to stand in front of a judge under oath in the future without a doubt...SCA Promotions had to give him 5 million... they will be lining up to sue his arse already to get that back.

[Mustang]

Lindy Chamberlain in good ol USA

[Alex Simmons/RST]

His tests have been negative. Tests by bodies who are doing their utmost to look for traces of this stuff.

No, he has tested positive for steroids & EPO on multiple occasions. And it seems that some of these results have been kept from the relevant ADAs.

And its on the record he has submitted himself to hundreds of tests.

No, it's not actually. Armstrong claims to have been tested hundreds of times, when that's just a fabrication. Indeed, USADA themselves have only performed 29 tests on Armstrong over a 10 year period. But even that's not the point as you see below.

If we use the same twisted logic across the board then every rider who returns a negative result , should actually be considered guilty of using PED , because that is the logic some would like to apply to Armstrong. That makes no sense to me at all.

Why should some be declared innocent and others guilty even if the results of screening are identical? Negative means negative doesn't it ?? For everybody.

You are making the false assumption that one is not doping (or intending to dope) unless they test positive, when in fact it's doping that proves someone is doping.

You see, dope controls tests, while important, are not the only means by which one can be shown to have broken the anti-doping code. It's just that some means (e.g. confessions, witness testimony, bio passport etc) usually take a long time to become available and be thoroughly assessed. And let's not forget that many items of information were not available to USADA until other investigations uncovered them.

Dope control tests are nice in that they catch a few, but in reality the well funded and smart dopers are well ahead of the testers in terms of avoidance measures. It's been that way for a very long time.

Dope control tests are really tests of IQ, only the stupid go positive. Hence why most of the big fish that have been handed a sanction have not actually returned a positive dope control but have been found out by other means.

[il padrone]

His tests have been negative. Tests by bodies who are doing their utmost to look for traces of this stuff.

No, he has tested positive for steroids & EPO on multiple occasions. And it seems that some of these results have been kept from the relevant ADAs.

Are you referring to the 1999 samples ??

another of the pieces of so-called "evidence" that Tygart wanted to use was 6 urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France, a case which had already been investigated by the UCI's own appointee, and it EXONERATED Lance. The investigator was the director of the Netherlands national anti-doping organization, and wrote in his exhaustive, 132-page report:

the failure of the underlying research to comply with any applicable standard and the deficiencies in the report render it completely irresponsible for anyone involved in doping control testing to even suggest that the analyses results that were reported constitute evidence of anything.

(p. 17) PDF link: http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news/200 ... report.pdf

This would be like if the cops impounded your car, then sold it at auction, and then 6 years later whoever is driving it gets pulled over, cops search the car, find drugs, and then want to charge YOU. It was obviously out of their "secure" impound facility the entire time, and the drugs could have come from anywhere -- including being forgotten by the cops after using the vehicle in an undercover sting operation

From Reddit

Flawed evidence is inadmissable in real legal cases for some very good reasons

[fthills]

If he hasn't been tested hundreds of times as he claims , this should be easy to prove shouldn't it ?

If the results were positive why was he at some point not disqualified ?

Was there not a federal grand jury convened to look at these allegations and this investigation was concluded in Feb this year without a charge against him?


"You are making the false assumption that one is not doping (or intending to dope) unless they test positive, when in fact it's doping that proves someone is doping."

I am making that assumption, you're right. If someone is tested and it comes back negative and that person is genuinely not a doper, they and others are entitled to say they are not dopers , why can't this assertion be made by all who test negative,till there is court evidence to say otherwise.

By all means let the evidence be tested .

We don't need to go as far back as Mrs. Chamberlain who at one point was being condemned by more than 10 people around Australia and served time.
The might of the Commonwealth was brought to bear against Mohammed Haneef for a crime far more serious than doping and we all know where that ended up .

What i' m contending is there is room for doubt . He says this , she says that in out of court assertions mean very little to me. This sort of stance does not make me or other members of this forum who share these doubts members of a cult .

[ColinOldnCranky]

Is there not a difference between LA's case and say the Marion jones case where she admitted she had doped when confronted with the evidence ?

LA denies everything AND he has hundreds of samples of forensic evidence to show he was not doping.

What would people prefer if they were under scrutiny by some authority ?

The word of self confessed dopers who by definition were at some point dishonest to begin with or the evidence from a test tube ? Give me science imperfect as it is , over even more imperfect humans.

No wonder there are some people convicted on perfectly valid witness evidence later exonerated when compelling DNA evidence comes to light.

I am ulluding simply to the suggestion that his failure to have tested positive means he was clean. And he has pulled out only just short of the moment where he would have had to meet his accusers in a place where he is compelled to answer questions and has little ability of controlling the conservation.

Jones' denials were as strident as Armstrongs right up to the time that she realised she was under fairly immediate threat of prison. And, significantly, at the stage where her defence moved from talking sweetly in the public arena to a place where she could be cross examined. Fessing up was her best option to avoid that.

Armstrong, as far as I can tell, has fought extremely hard to not be in the position to have to face his accusers. And now that the last barrier to him facing his accusers has fallen he becomes exhausted with the whole affair. That timing has moved me firmly in the camp of disbelievers. Prior to that I was neither a fan boy nor a disbeliever, though I was moving toward the latter.

Take note of Toolonglegs comment - we seem to be on about the same page.

[biker jk]

Just to get the facts right, the UCI used the Vrijman Report to cover up Lance Armstrong's six EPO positives from the 1999 TdF discovered in 2001. WADA didn't agree with the Vrijman Report. Moreover, an authority on blood doping, Michael Ashenden confirmed the six EPO positives. He says the tests were conducted correctly. If you read the whole article you also note that Ashenden says there was no EPO test in 1999 so riders could dope at will so long as their haemetocrit was below 50%. He also says that until around 2004, the UCI weren't chaperoning the riders from the finish to the doping controls so they could cheat the tests.

Lance Armstrong's '99 samples test positive

AS: So out of the 87 usable samples that they gathered, they got 13 positives and 6 of them belonged to Lance Armstrong.

MA: Depending on which criteria you applied. Yes, six of them failed the definitive criteria. There were another two samples in fact where the EPO was visually there in the gel. You could see it was there, but for one reason or another, the percentage isoforms weren't calculated, or had to be re-analyzed, or it was a little bit too faint to get a definitive result. Yes, there were six samples with EPO in it, and there were another two samples where it was pretty plain to a trained observer that there was synthetic EPO in those as well.

AS: You were able to analyze the results, correct?

MA: I interpreted the results. They assessed each sample according the different criteria, and those were the results that we were given.

AS: I found it kinda interesting, we've talked before this, you found some very interesting things about those results that really were not widely publicized, the way the percentages fluctuated.

MA: One of the things, I guess there's been misinformation in this particular area - is that the samples weren't analyzed properly, that they were analyzed using a different protocol than what was used in proper dope controls - and that's just not correct. Obviously in research where the data you come up with is going to govern how you do testing in the future, you're exceptionally careful with these measurements. You want to make sure that you don't make any mistakes. And you want to make sure that you, for example, weren't looking at urine that has been contaminated with bacteria, or isn't what we call unstable urine, where sometimes the bands shift not because of EPO use, but because of some other factors. So all of these checks and cross checks were put in place with these samples, so the data is valid. The laboratory, I've checked with the people who did the analysis, and I very carefully went through it with them. They're absolutely 100% sure that these results are valid.

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden

[Jono L.]

What i' m contending is there is room for doubt . He says this , she says that in out of court assertions mean very little to me. This sort of stance does not make me or other members of this forum who share these doubts members of a cult .

Testimony under oath.

It's what sends murderers and rapists away. It is evidence. Whether you choose to believe it or not.

[fthills]

And when has LA appeared in a court to confront his accusers like rapists and murderers do? Or is that not necessary to find him guilty of doping ?

People have signed statements , said this and that and written this and that but have we had that trial where all appear on the stand or is that not necessary?

Is there not a principle of not guilty until proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt, in a forum where all can see and hear what is going on ? Or is that not necessary?

[Jono L.]

And when has LA appeared in a court to confront his accusers his like rapists and murderers do?

He just chose not to

[Jono L.]

Is there not a principle of not guilty until proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt, in a forum where all can see and hear what is going on ? Or is that not necessary?

Nice try.

He was innocent.

He was being charged.

He chose not to contest the charges.

Strawman.

[fthills]

I don't know the legal standing of USADA but was there a jury , a hearing , an audience, a judge ?

[il padrone]

Is there not a principle of not guilty until proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt, in a forum where all can see and hear what is going on ?

Not in this kangaroo court.

[RonK]

The word of self confessed dopers who by definition were at some point dishonest to begin with or the evidence from a test tube ? Give me science imperfect as it is , over even more imperfect humans.
.

10 different people.

ALL risking perjuring themselves, just to get Lance

And one off them is George Hincapie, second only to LA himself is terms of having the respect and admiration of the American public.

These are not just disgruntled former team mates with an axe to grind, they are very credible people and their testimony won't be so easily dismissed.

And they admitted to doping, but not to win for themselves, but to help LA to win.

[Xplora]

And when has LA appeared in a court to confront his accusers his like rapists and murderers do?

He just chose not to

There must be a legitimate appraisal of the facts - USADA was not trying to take him to court. Arbitration is different. And there is a very different case here to the "murderers and rapists". Lance has truckloads of DNA/forensic/scientific evidence that shows he hasn't doped. I agree that this doesn't mean he isn't a doper... but in a court of law, reasonable doubt is the measuring stick and if OJ could get away with it, then Lance certainly deserves to get away with it. That's life.
Lance isn't contesting the charges because it seems that his natural right to a fair trial is being ignored.

The glib nature of many of the replies against Lance shows that there isn't a lot of evidential evaluation happening here.

[RonK]

And when has LA appeared in a court to confront his accusers his like rapists and murderers do?

He just chose not to

There must be a legitimate appraisal of the facts - USADA was not trying to take him to court. Arbitration is different. And there is a very different case here to the "murderers and rapists". Lance has truckloads of DNA/forensic/scientific evidence that shows he hasn't doped. I agree that this doesn't mean he isn't a doper... but in a court of law, reasonable doubt is the measuring stick and if OJ could get away with it, then Lance certainly deserves to get away with it. That's life.
Lance isn't contesting the charges because it seems that his natural right to a fair trial is being ignored.

The glib nature of many of the replies against Lance shows that there isn't a lot of evidential evaluation happening here.

Reasonable doubt? You have been watching to many TV soapies.

What part of Federal Judge Sam Sparks dismissal of LA's lawsuit, where he determined that courts had no jurisdiction, did you not understand?

The USADA is a statutary body. It is not a court of law. The testimony of 10 former team members is not going to leave much room for reasonable doubt, and as I've previously posted, the testimony of people such as Hincapie cannot be casually dismissed.

What evidence has been examined? None. LA has decided not to examine or contest the evidence.

How can you claim LA didn't get a fair trial when he himself has decided not to participate?

If LA wants to dispute the charges then it's up to him to offer a defense. The outcome will be determined by the Court if Arbitration in Sport.