Armstrong formally charged by USADA

[jules21]

I hope he is clean, at this stage I choose to believe he is clean but how many tests must a person submit to before he is left alone.

i hate to be the party pooper, but someone has to say it - the tests can (or could) be beaten. those who got caught were the sloppy ones - e.g. the cobra.

not testing positive really doesn't mean much.

[Xplora]

Doping is bad, but let's get real - these guys in the peleton aren't "normal" and they aren't getting their performance levels by eating a couple extra cans of tuna each week. Every professional athlete is taking a zillion chemicals and adhering to strict regimes which are impossible for nonprofessionals. I generally hold a "no drugs" policy, but if I wanted to join Cadel on the Alps, I would have to have more juice in me than a fruit canning factory. We talk about natural performance, but tons of these guys don't exist in the normal ranges. Extra big hearts, lungs like a horse, extra testosterone. There might be something special about being a natural athlete, but there is nothing natural about professional sport anymore. They may not being manipulating themselves through drugs, but they are doing everything else physically possible.

The whole point of no drugs in sport is that normal people can compete without taking some substance to keep up, but that simply isn't the case now. Tiger Woods was playing golf most days from the age of 3. The Williams sisters were trained to play from a very young age. I think we're holding onto a myth that somehow you can ride the TdF without being a freak and acting like a freak in your diet, training and recovery. You just can't.

[RonK]

Once I was a huge Lance Armstrong fan, but as win after win accumulated and more and more of his former team mates were exposed as drug cheats, I began to doubt his credibility. If he had retired after 5 tour wins I probably wouldn't have thought much more about it - after 7 wins I no longer believed he could have achieved them without using performance-enhancing drugs.

I'm glad he has been charged, and I'll rely on the court of law to determine the outcome, not the court of popular opinion or web forum legal experts.

If he is guilty then he has betrayed all cycling fans, just as did Landis, Rasmussen, Vinokourov, Contador and too many others, and won't get any sympathy from me.

[csy75]

http://velocitynation.com/content/inter ... l-ashenden

just because his foundation may or may not do great work, does not mean if there is substance to these accusations, they should not be investigated and pursued....

[yarravalleyplodder]

I hope he is clean, at this stage I choose to believe he is clean but how many tests must a person submit to before he is left alone.

i hate to be the party pooper, but someone has to say it - the tests can (or could) be beaten. those who got caught were the sloppy ones - e.g. the cobra.

not testing positive really doesn't mean much.

so using that approach they are all cheats, none of them are clean because if they pass the tests its because they have the best chemist / pharmacist not that they are actually clean

[twizzle]

I hope he is clean, at this stage I choose to believe he is clean but how many tests must a person submit to before he is left alone.

i hate to be the party pooper, but someone has to say it - the tests can (or could) be beaten. those who got caught were the sloppy ones - e.g. the cobra.

not testing positive really doesn't mean much.

so using that approach they are all cheats, none of them are clean because if they pass the tests its because they have the best chemist / pharmacist not that they are actually clean

Absolutely - if they aren't all clean then obviously they must ALL be cheats. Prepare the tar & feathers!

And I'd like to state that I've NEVER exceeded the speed limit in my car - after all, I've never been booked for speeding.

[jules21]

so using that approach they are all cheats, none of them are clean because if they pass the tests its because they have the best chemist / pharmacist not that they are actually clean

i would have passed the drug tests and i was clean. but then, i wouldn't have been capable of ascending the Joux de Plane 4 minutes faster than Brad Wiggins in the Dauphine last week.

[greyhoundtom]

It’s interesting that different organisations have different views on the whole doping in sport scenario.

This was in response to the emergence of achievable Gene Doping methods as far back as 2002.

In 2002, the US President’s Council on Bioethics met to discuss this very matter and the US is now beginning work to draft legislation on genetic enhancement. Its concerns and conclusions were not the same as those of the anti-doping world. It asked questions about the legitimacy of a sporting organisation to limit the choices people might make to enhance themselves. As well, it argued that sport thrives on performance enhancement and gene modification could be seen as an extension of this philosophy. Sport, it said, needs television audiences and sponsorship, so must provide extraordinary, superhuman spectacles.
Enhancement is necessary.

[Dr_Mutley]

What a waste of time... Who actually gives a f#%& now regardless of his past actions? They have already spent squillions on trying to bring him down and nothing has stuck. How about they just donate the money they are now going to waste for absolutely no social gain to his cancer support & research? Wake up USADA, even the anti-Armstrong population is growing tired of this waste & !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !!... Yaaaaaawnnnnnn

[familyguy]

How about they just donate the money they are now going to waste for absolutely no social gain to his cancer support & research?

OK, a little OT now...

Read this and make your own decision on whether or not Live Strong fund cancer support & research: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-ad ... tml?page=1

Thus far, the 'cancer shield' hasn't gone up yet:

Others noticed an annoying tendency: whenever questions about doping arose, Armstrong and his supporters changed the subject to his cancer work, a tactic that the bicycling website NY Velocity called “raising the cancer shield.” After the 60 Minutes segment on Armstrong aired in May—complete with damning claims from ex-teammate Tyler Hamilton that Armstrong had cheated—Armstrong’s lawyers denied the allegations and quickly invoked Livestrong in his defense. In their one legal brief to date, they blasted the feds over alleged leaks to 60 Minutes that, they said, were intended to legitimize “the government’s investigation of a national hero, best known for his role in the fight against cancer.”

I don't believe this is a case that will gain anything for anyone, except the guys who finished off the top 5 in any of the TdF's, given most of the top 3's when Lance won it were already pinged.

Jim

[bomber]

I'll rely on the court of law to determine the outcome, not the court of popular opinion or web forum legal experts.

Court of Law? this isn't a criminal or civil case. It's the US Anti Doping Agency appointing a panel of independent adjudicators to hear the evidence. With the letter of notice being leaked I can't imagine it would be completely independent.

[jules21]

Read this and make your own decision on whether or not Live Strong fund cancer support & research: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-ad ... tml?page=1

it's been a running joke amongst armstrong-watchers for years now that he set up Livestrong to protect his legacy against the inevitable surfacing of incriminating evidence. in fairness, it's not a bad outcome.

[RICHARDH]

The idea that because others were at it that its not worth pursuing is non-sense (most of the riders that stood either side of him have been busted either from test or investigations like this one ). The money is well spent and here is why, doping is a blight on this sport. We are getting away from the days when it was considered as part of your job, be "professional". What this is really about (or at least should be) is sending a message to all the riders coming through now, no matter how high in the sport you rise, no matter how important you are to increasing our marketability, we will come after you! The idea that USADA are doing this to justify there own existence is ridiculous, this is going to cause USA cycling no end of trouble i imagine there would have been some extreme pressure to bury this.

[The 2nd Womble]

This is going to be a real legal test for the ICU/WADA/whoever gets on board. Backdating tests nearly 10 years?
Jim

You need backtesting because often it takes the doctors who are a screening for doping about 10 years to catch up with the doctors who are doing the doping. If you look at the history of gold medal winners in the US athletics teams, there seems to be a definite pattern.

Do they not keep samples at least this long for this very reason? I was sure they did.

[Chuck]

The destruction of a hero’s reputation

As far as inaccuracies go that is off the scale. The guy is no hero, he doesn't even qualify as a decent person imho. And Livestrong is the greatest PR money (not his) can buy. The sad thing is that the people who he's really duping are his supporters, the ones who get on forums all over the place to passionately defend him.

The story that was meant to resurrect cycling after the 98 Tour continues to do more damage to cycling than Festina ever did. Too big to take down, he even has pollies working to preserve the lie.

[Chuck]

What this is really about (or at least should be) is sending a message to all the riders coming through now, no matter how high in the sport you rise, no matter how important you are to increasing our marketability, we will come after you! The idea that USADA are doing this to justify there own existence is ridiculous, this is going to cause USA cycling no end of trouble i imagine there would have been some extreme pressure to bury this.

Right on the money Richard

[clackers]

EPO was something Lance knew intimately before most athletes started using it. It had been part of his cancer rehabilitation.

His great rival in all those Tours, Jan Ulrich, is now also known to have doped.

A whole generation of cyclists probably took advantage of the limited testing of those years.

[jules21]

A whole generation of cyclists probably took advantage of the limited testing of those years.

for many years, there was no test for EPO at all.

[norbs]

http://velocitynation.com/content/inter ... l-ashenden

just because his foundation may or may not do great work, does not mean if there is substance to these accusations, they should not be investigated and pursued....

Thanks for the link. Hugely interesting read.

[hazmat5765]

The destruction of a hero’s reputation

As far as inaccuracies go that is off the scale. The guy is no hero, he doesn't even qualify as a decent person imho. And Livestrong is the greatest PR money (not his) can buy. The sad thing is that the people who he's really duping are his supporters, the ones who get on forums all over the place to passionately defend him.

Nobody's duping me mate! I'll wait for the outcome.
I was there for the 2009 Community Challenge TDU and the inspiration that LA gave some of the riding cancer survivors was real and priceless.
I am an unapologetic supporter.

[RonK]

I'll rely on the court of law to determine the outcome, not the court of popular opinion or web forum legal experts.

Court of Law? this isn't a criminal or civil case. It's the US Anti Doping Agency appointing a panel of independent adjudicators to hear the evidence. With the letter of notice being leaked I can't imagine it would be completely independent.

Ultimately that outcome will be decided by the Court of Abitration in Sport.

Whatever, it will not be decided by web forum lawyers.

[norbs]

Ultimately that outcome will be decided by the Court of Abitration in Sport.

Whatever, it will not be decided by web forum lawyers.

But I just put my wig and gown on!

[Parrott]

I wish it would all go away or at least finish one way or the other. It is devastating cycling as a sport's image. I love the sport of cycling and this is hammering it.

[ausrandoman]

I don't know more than a tiny fraction of the facts of the matter but I am not going to let that stop me from having an unshakeable opinion, which I will assert as fact.

[The 2nd Womble]

Lifted from thepreviously referenced Livestrong article and re USADA:

The feds aren’t his only worry. Waiting in the wings is the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which has been conducting its own investigation since it received Floyd Landis’s accusatory e-mails in May 2010. And while it remains true that Armstrong has never tested positive, at least officially, nowadays you don’t need to flunk a lab test to be sanctioned for performance-enhancing drugs.

For the past several years, USADA has been handing down non-analytical positives—sanctioning athletes based on evidence, including testimony from teammates, other than direct positive tests. In 2008, the agency banned the cyclist Kayle Leogrande for EPO use based almost entirely on the testimony of a soigneur and a team administrator. Armstrong now has at least two former teammates, Landis and Hamilton, who say they witnessed him using banned drugs—and there may be more if, as 60 Minutes reported, George Hincapie and others told similar stories to the grand jury.

That means Armstrong could be looking at a doping sanction, possibly a lifetime ban, and the loss of at least two of his Tour titles. (The statute of limitations for doping offenses is eight years.)