Lance Armstrong and drugs

jmeadows

i am a big LA fan and reborn to cycling in jan, initially i was blind to any suspicion about LA but on reading what it takes to win the tour, especially 7 times as well as reading about a few books on what LA did or didnt take/do, i have my own thoughts now and dont see him as the blueeyed boy anymore. however he has never been caught, assuming he did take/do illegal things and personally i think that somebody would have some solid proof of wrongdoing especially given the alleged witchhunt against him. if he did do wrong where is the proof, in the modern day world secrets out quickly as people have loose lips and i cant believe that considering the time he was the main man that nobody had any real proof he did wrong. people also form opinions on his charactor, they have never met him, all the greats in any sport are alleged to be arrogant and egotistic. to be the best you need to be so self assured and confident that it can border on arrogance, usually perceived by others who dont like you because you are better than them. the mans also used his position to help a lot of ill people and bring a lot of health issues into the open, is he really that bad?.....

colint

I accept it's a big leap of faith believing that Lance was clean beating so many convicted dopers, but thats exactly what I choose to do. I just prefer to believe that every once in a while an athlete comes along who is of such a high quality. Look at Butch Reynolds in athletics, a sport I consider to be the most drug riddled. He was just phenominally taltented, beat drug cheats, won everything. Sometimes it just happens.

All of the evidence is cirumstantial, and the type of personality LA is, there are always going to be people who want to bring him down. He does inspire devotion or hatred, there are several posters who try to crowbar LA and drugs into almost every thread.

I'm in the fan camp. WOuld I be 100% surprised if something came out one day ? Not totally. But until theres REAL evidence, not conjecture from people with an axe to grind or failed riders trying to sell a book, I choose to believe that he was and is a legend and the second best rider of all time.

flattythehurdler

Read "Bad Blood".

colint

Not sure I want to Flatty, whats it going to say, cycling is a drug riddled sport ? I know that, theres some circumstantial evidence against LA ? I know that as well. I'm not naive, just optimistic

RichN95.

colint wrote:

I accept it's a big leap of faith believing that Lance was clean beating so many convicted dopers, but thats exactly what I choose to do. I just prefer to believe that every once in a while an athlete comes along who is of such a high quality. Look at Butch Reynolds in athletics, a sport I consider to be the most drug riddled. He was just phenominally taltented, beat drug cheats, won everything. Sometimes it just happens.

I think you mean Michael Johnson, not Butch Reynolds.

colint

Thats the one, thanks

Peakraider

doyler78 wrote:

Kléber wrote:

Iwilks, if people could win the Tour on willpower alone, then the race would be full of cancer survivors, war veterans and others who've been through massive tests.

As for the drugs, there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence but no "smoking gun".

So you keep your role model if it helps you. But it's a choice you make and it requires a certain leap of faith.

And what choice have you made? To attribute guilt based on "circumstantial evidence". Is that the same sort of evidence which has seen many innocent people go to prison over the years? If the innocent can be imprisoned because of "circumstantial evidence" then I think your over confidence is misplaced however I doubt your opinion will change.

Oh please. Can we drop the rubbish about the innocent-till-proven guilty stuff?

Save it for the real world.

This is bike racing, not real life.

The man doped. Get over it.

Peakraider

Oh, and Butch Reynolds failed a dope test.


(So did Lance, for that matter.)

colint

Peakraider wrote:

Oh, and Butch Reynolds failed a dope test.


(So did Lance, for that matter.)

Totally irrelevant seeing as I meant Michael Johnson, but thanks for your input anyway

Cunobelin

lwilks wrote:

Two questions

1 Has anyone commenting on Armstrong's use of drugs got any hard evidence?

2 Has anyone commenting on Armstrong's use of drugs had testicular cancer?

My experience having had testicular cancer, seven lots of surgery, chemotheraphy and radiotheraphy makes me think that anyone who can survive the multiple spread of cancer that Armstrong had has enough will power to redefine the word determination.

I dearly hope Armstrong was/is clean and until hard evidence proves otherwise I choose to believe he was clean and continue to use him as a role model to make me a strong rider and person.

The whole point bout this thread is that you don;t actually need "evidence" - supposition and unproven allegation is quite acceptable.

doyler78

Peakraider wrote:

doyler78 wrote:

Kléber wrote:

Iwilks, if people could win the Tour on willpower alone, then the race would be full of cancer survivors, war veterans and others who've been through massive tests.

As for the drugs, there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence but no "smoking gun".

So you keep your role model if it helps you. But it's a choice you make and it requires a certain leap of faith.

And what choice have you made? To attribute guilt based on "circumstantial evidence". Is that the same sort of evidence which has seen many innocent people go to prison over the years? If the innocent can be imprisoned because of "circumstantial evidence" then I think your over confidence is misplaced however I doubt your opinion will change.

Oh please. Can we drop the rubbish about the innocent-till-proven guilty stuff?

Save it for the real world.

This is bike racing, not real life.

The man doped. Get over it.

Just because you walk into the toilet and smell poop doesn't mean anyone actually had poop sometimes they just farted but the stink is the same so please can we drop this just because it appears that performances would suggest he has doped means that he has doped.

I think we are now stuck on they roundabout and they have just closed all the exits.

jmeadows

colint- i am of the same point of view as you, when somone is greater than anyone else there is always people trying to knock them and destroy them.
peakrider- if only real life & sport was so clear cut as you seem to see it eh?
people will believe what they want to believe, right or wrong

andyp

Cunobelin wrote:

The whole point bout this thread is that you don;t actually need "evidence" - supposition and unproven allegation is quite acceptable.

Still choosing to ignore the evidence of EPO in 6 urine samples provided by Armstrong in the 1999 Tour then?

colint

Come on Andy, there are plenty of doubts about that as well which is why more wasn't made of it at the time. Every single piece of "evidence" wouldn't stand up in court, which is why it's never got that far. There are enough people after LA that a case would have been brought if there was ANY chance of it standing up.

iainf72

colint wrote:

Come on Andy, there are plenty of doubts about that as well which is why more wasn't made of it at the time. Every single piece of "evidence" wouldn't stand up in court, which is why it's never got that far. There are enough people after LA that a case would have been brought if there was ANY chance of it standing up.

SCA brought a case against him

colint

and what was the outcome ???????

Ramanujan

the fact of the matter is that EPO isn't like the drugs cyclists used to take back in the 70's and 80's.
The raises performances by a massive margin. It literally makes cyclists into supermen.
There is no way on God's green earth that an undoped rider could even compete with, let alone beat , the best cyclists in the world 7 times in a row in the TDF.

Greg Lemond, probably the most athletically gifted rider of his generation, went from being The best grand tour rider in the world, to not even being able to hold on to the bunch when EPO came in.

Those that think Armstrong was clean are living in cloud cookoo land.

colint

O right, thats settled then. I suggest you pass your proof to the authorities, its clearly decisive ; )

iainf72

Here's the way I see it - In my own head, I have no doubt Lance used PED's. But that is my opinion formed after seeing the evidence (EPO in urine, later on urine with nothing in it and a lot of other things)

However, I don't have a problem with him really. He's a product of an era and that's that. Every one of his challengers has been accused or found guilty of doping. So even if he did use PED's that's not really the interesting part of the story, the interesting part is his comeback.

Drugs saved him from cancer - I don't see why people think he might have a problem with using them?

leguape

Kléber wrote:

Here's an exercise: If you polled 100 cycling journalists and asked them if they thought Armstrong rode on bread and water or did what most other pros were doing and doped, where you do think the vote would go?

They'd probably ask you word count and rate before ignoring the question in favour of a lengthy scree of "maybes" and "what ifs" filled with innuendo about how they know the real truth of the matter. Here's a quote from a recent cyclingnews article:

"When he learns of our quest, William sends in a few of his old Guardian cuttings from the Tour during the early 90s. He scrawls a note on one of them: 'Those were the days. No doping scandals and lots of big characters!'"

If there's one group within cycling guilty of a far worse case of omerta than the riders it's the journalists who were far too happy to take the freebies and forget to ask the questions, and within that I include Kimmage, Walsh et al.

If they knew all that they claim to insinuate then where are the pieces on Indurain, Pantani, Telekom's systematic abuses and so on? Ultimately Walsh goes after Armstrong because it's a better story, not a more indicative subject.

aurelio_-_banned

colint wrote:

and what was the outcome ???????

It was ruled that all the evidence in the world that Armstrong doped had no bearing on the case. Rather, it was ruled that SCA acted as an insurance company, and so long as Armstrong was officially the winner of those 5 Tours, SCA were legally bound by Texas contract law to pay up. In fact this was established very early in the pre-trial hearings and Bob Hamman, head of SCA and eleven times world Bridge champion, was advised to cut his losses and pay up. However, even though he knew the case was already, lost Hamman was convinced that Armstrong doped and subpoenaed numerous witness’s in order to do what he could to show how he had been shafted

leguape

Ramanujan wrote:

the fact of the matter is that EPO isn't like the drugs cyclists used to take back in the 70's and 80's.
The raises performances by a massive margin. It literally makes cyclists into supermen.
There is no way on God's green earth that an undoped rider could even compete with, let alone beat , the best cyclists in the world 7 times in a row in the TDF.

Greg Lemond, probably the most athletically gifted rider of his generation, went from being The best grand tour rider in the world, to not even being able to hold on to the bunch when EPO came in.

Those that think Armstrong was clean are living in cloud cookoo land.

Er, sorry, but that's frankly bollocks. Nencini was caught trying autologous blood doping back in the 60s, as was Lasse Viren in athletics back in the 70s against Brendan Foster. That has been available and considered since blood transfusions began really.

And as for the line about Lemond not even being able to hold on to the back of the bunch, it sort of ignores that by that time Greg had nearly been killed in a hunting accident and was on the back end of a 14 year career at a time when the top riders rode far more than they do now and his comments about suffering from fatigue as a result of overtraining, as detailed in procycling, january 2008.

aurelio_-_banned

Duplicate post removed!

aurelio_-_banned

colint wrote:

There are enough people after LA that a case would have been brought if there was ANY chance of it standing up.

This has already been covered! :roll:

A major reason why those retrospective positives for Epo didn’t lead to any sanctions against Armstrong is that Hein Verbruggen of the UCI went out of his way to do what he could to protect Armstrong and to discredit the LNDD. For example, Verbruggen commissioned the `Vrijman report` into the testing of Armstrong’s sample, a report which was subsequently described by Wada as `so lacking in professionalism and objectivity that it borders on farcical`.

Verbruggen and the UCI also protected Armstrong when he tested positive for corticoids, accepting a post-dated TUE form, even though only days earlier Armstrong had stated he had no such form. Verbruggen did just the same when Laurent Brochard tested positive for Lidocain after he won the world RR championships.

Back then the UCI called all the shots when it came to doping control and the bringing of sanctions against riders, even forcing the ASO to let Richard Virenque ride the Tour in the wake of the Festina scandal. Given this, and their determination to protect their icon of `global` cycling, Armstrong was never going to be sanctioned..

aurelio_-_banned

leguape wrote:

Nencini was caught trying autologous blood doping back in the 60s, as was Lasse Viren in athletics back in the 70s against Brendan Foster. That has been available and considered since blood transfusions began really.

True enough, blood doping has been used in cycling before. The US cycling team was blood-doped at the 1984 Olympics and Moser blood-doped under the direction of Conconi when he set his new hour record. However, blood doping requires a lot of organisation and medical support, and so never really lent itself to stage races moving around the country everyday. It seems that it was only with the coming of USP/Discovery that the funding and organisation necessary to facilitate `800 ml of packed cells` blood doping in a stage race (courier motorbikes with refrigerated panniers and all the rest) allowed blood doping to become the `state of the art` method of doping in events such as the Tour. Even here, the development of tests for heterologous blood transfusions has given the most `professional` and well-funded teams and riders who `target` specific events the edge, what with the added complication of having to draw and store the riders own blood.

aurelio_-_banned

leguape wrote:

Ultimately Walsh goes after Armstrong because it's a better story, not a more indicative subject.

What’s so wrong with a journalists chasing the `better` story? Isn’t that their job? What’s more the doping of many other high-profile figures in cycling is practically a non-story, given that the fact they doped is widely accepted as being a certainty, even when there is lmuch ess concrete or circumstantial evidence against them than there is against Armstrong. When someone like Armstrong plays the saint whilst all those around him are metaphorically speaking `nailed to the wall` he is bound to be targeted. Also, when it comes to doping who benefited more than Armstrong? As Lemond wrote:

"If Lance is clean, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport. If he isn't, it would be the greatest fraud."

Saying `but why not focus on the others` is in my book akin to banging up all the small-time dope dealers in town whilst doing nothing to bring the `Mr. Bigs` to justice.

SunWuKong

I'm with Iain on this. He does seem to come across as a bit of a bully and that's what I don't like. But it was probably that insecurity and chip on his shoulder that led him to be so driven.

aurelio_-_banned

SunWuKong wrote:

I'm with Iain on this. He does seem to come across as a bit of a bully and that's what I don't like. But it was probably that insecurity and chip on his shoulder that led him to be so driven.

Yes, Armstrong was `driven` all right. He was the sort of person who would stop at nothing, nothing, to achive his ambitions.

iainf72

aurelio wrote:

Yes, Armstrong was `driven` all right. He was the sort of person who would stop at nothing, nothing, to achive his ambitions.

It might not be pretty but there are many successful people like that.

aurelio_-_banned

iainf72 wrote:

aurelio wrote:

Yes, Armstrong was `driven` all right. He was the sort of person who would stop at nothing, nothing, to achive his ambitions.

It might not be pretty but there are many successful people like that.

Are `killing machines` like Armstrong really the ideal model for the rest of us to follow though? Perhaps only if we want to completely replace `society` and what collective values still remain with hierarchical, `dog eat dog`, `to the winner the spoils` individualism. I’ll admit that does seem the way things are going, so perhaps `Armstrong the brand`, icon of corporate America, is the perfectly reflection of the age we live in.

Whatever, I hardly thing that Armstrong was motivated much by ` higher ideals`. Most of all it seems Armstrong was seriously interested in making large amounts of money, and his desire to revenge himself on those he felt had written him off, to `piss off the French` and so on gave him an added impetus.