Is LA's return a knowing move...
Comments
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God, what is with you Armstrong acolytes?! The point I was making, and which you have willfully and disingenuously ignored, is that people have argued that Armstrong consistently lost 6 minutes and more in his pre-cancer TT`s because, one way or an other, he was more tired, stressed, under pressure or whatever than when he came back. I was simply arguing that having to ride, day after day, in order to out to defend or gain a yellow jersey has to be more physically and psychologically stressful than riding in the anonymity of the bunch, and so being much more able to focus on key stages, such as those TT`s.leguape wrote:So now performing under pressure and when focused on a goal is a mark of doping?
What`s more given Armstrong`s character I very much doubt he was simply riding those pre-cancer TT`s for the fun of it. In fact his comments suggest that he gave these stages everything he could, hence is dismay as to his performances and his declared goal of knocking a minute off each year he rode. (Something he manifestly and consistently failed to do for 3 years).0 -
azzurribike wrote:If the testing is so P#%$% weak and Lance did cheat then your anger should be directed at the testers don't you think?
If a speeding driver kills someone, should we feel no bitterness towards him then, we should redirect our anger onto the police for not stopping him ?
If the police were at fault for not doing their duty, then perhaps we should have complaint with them.
If the government were at fault for not giving us enough police, or not giving the police enough resources or suitable radar-trap equipment, or even by leaving loopholes in the laws making it illegal to speed, then perhaps we should have complaint with them.
But either way, wouldn't we be angry with the speeding driver...?0 -
Back to the original post - that would be some insight to know that some big names might be out of the picture in 2009.
I think it's more likely that he sees very few outstanding contenders out there anyway and might as well give it a go. Obviously he's fit and up for it. Also he may have one eye on making sure no one else gets near 7 wins.
The crunch is whether both he and Contador are fit and riding for the same team.
Turning to the 'was he dirty' arguments, personally I don't believe the whole USPS and Discovery teams could have got through 7 winning tours with no positive tests apart from the skin cream incident if they were as dirty as some people are insinuating. On that basis however, if it is scientifically sound to re test urine samples from 1999, it should be a matter of just doing it rather than requiring consent.
I take the view that Lance Armstrong was clean, then again look at Riis!O na bawn i fel LA0 -
aurelio wrote:
God, what is with you Armstrong acolytes?! The point I was making, and which you have willfully and disingenuously ignored, is that people have argued that Armstrong consistently lost 6 minutes and more in his pre-cancer TT`s because, one way or an other, he was more tired, stressed, under pressure or whatever than when he came back. I was simply arguing that having to ride, day after day, in order to out to defend or gain a yellow jersey has to be more physically and psychologically stressful than riding in the anonymity of the bunch, and so being much more able to focus on key stages, such as those TT`s.leguape wrote:So now performing under pressure and when focused on a goal is a mark of doping?
What`s more given Armstrong`s character I very much doubt he was simply riding those pre-cancer TT`s for the fun of it. In fact his comments suggest that he gave these stages everything he could, hence is dismay as to his performances and his declared goal of knocking a minute off each year he rode. (Something he manifestly and consistently failed to do for 3 years).
So questioning your reasoning makes me an Armstrong acolyte now? Frankly that's just cheap. It's perfectly fair for you to make subjective judgements and ignore Rich's points yet we are beholden to believing yours on what grounds?
By every single measure you put down, you should be ranting and raving about how the GB track team must be doped because their performances are so much better than everyone else and we all know people are doping out there.
You know what, you're going to try and hammer me for this point, but I imagine that somewhere after "hey, you're about 5% away from dying" or whatever the schtick is, "hey you need to keep yourself up in the bunch and out of trouble" amounts to pretty low on the stressful scale. As OllyBianchi has pointed out previously, Armstrong almost always made sure he was in the right place when things happened. That's why Zulle didn't beat him in 1999 - because Lance was on the right side of the crash in Passage Du Gois and he wasn't.
Actually, you know what is most outrageous about you're whole claim that "GT winners showed there form from early in their careers": you are talking about riders who we know doped during their career at a time when doping was endemic in the sport and accepted behaviour and we have no reason to doubt that they were almost certainly doing so from early on in their career.
And don't tell me "oh but it was different, the products didn't have the same effect". Seriously that is just a nonsense. I've seen people on amphetamines, cocaine, heroine and the wide variety of other common substances abused back then. Even alcohol affects some people differently, I know people who gibber after a half and others who are 15 pints down and sober as a clergyman.0 -
You seem to be overlooking the fact that Ex USP riders have admitted that they doped when on the team, and yet they were never caught.Meds1962 wrote:Turning to the 'was he dirty' arguments, personally I don't believe the whole USPS and Discovery teams could have got through 7 winning tours with no positive tests apart from the skin cream incident if they were as dirty as some people are insinuating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/sport ... ref=slogin
There are plenty of reasons why USP/Discovery were able to dope and get away with it. For one right through the Armstrong era there was no test available for autologous `800 ml of packed cells` blood doping.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/landis ... ssage.html
Secondly until the Sydney Olympics there was no testing for Epo, and restrospective tests on Armstrong`s samples from the 1999 Tour brought up 6 positives, even if no sanctions could be brought against Armstrong as these tests were done as part of a research program.
Thirdly, there is the following revelation from Jesus Manzano which was printed in L`Equipe in June last year:
I want to give you an example, something I've never spoken about except to the police up until now. It concerns one of the four Spanish Laboratories credited by the UCI. This laboratory who is in charge of sending the "UCI" vampires (doctors)to take the samples during the Vuelta and other races is the same lab that's in charge of the doctor visits to the cyclists, they follow the cyclists and give them the stamp of approval on their licenses. The owner of this clinic, a renowned hemotologist, called Walter Viru, who is one of the doctors for Kelme to alert them the day before the uci vampires were coming to take the samples from the cyclist. And he did the same thing with Del Moral, the doctor for the U.S. Postal team and then Discovery, a good friend of his.
Fourthly, there are suspicions that USP adopted the old trick of urine substitution. For example, one expert witness at the SCA hearings testified that the samples supposedly provided by USP in the 2000 Tour were not consistent with what would be expected from a cyclist who had just ridden a mountain stage of the Tour de France.
On top of all that many doping products are still undetectable:
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/05072007/ ... tests.html
http://www.bicycle.net/2008/doping-expe ... -de-france0 -
I would agree that all drugs affect different people to different degrees, but the central point is that amphetamines and even corticoids and so on don`t have the ability to turn also-rans into Tour `winners` as Epo and blood doping can. :roll:leguape wrote:don't tell me "oh but it was different, the products didn't have the same effect". Seriously that is just a nonsense. I've seen people on amphetamines, cocaine, heroine and the wide variety of other common substances abused back then. Even alcohol affects some people differently, I know people who gibber after a half and others who are 15 pints down and sober as a clergyman.0 -
aurelio wrote:
I would agree that all drugs affect different people to different degrees, but the central point is that amphetamines and even corticoids and so on don`t have the ability to turn also-rans into Tour `winners` as Epo and blood doping can. :roll:leguape wrote:don't tell me "oh but it was different, the products didn't have the same effect". Seriously that is just a nonsense. I've seen people on amphetamines, cocaine, heroine and the wide variety of other common substances abused back then. Even alcohol affects some people differently, I know people who gibber after a half and others who are 15 pints down and sober as a clergyman.
Yes they do, because they wipe out those things that stop an average rider being a great one - the capacity to ride beyond that pain threshold, to have the self-belief to push that bit harder, to ignore the fatigue of a three week tour. To in effect gain those characteristics that define GT-winning riders.
As far back as the 1960s athletes were using autologous blood doping (Nencini, Lasse Viren, we know the US Cycling team was attempting to use it in 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics (but due to sheer incompetence settled on homologous) yet you still want to pretend that the badness and wrong results start in 1991 with EPO?
Oh I know the answer to this one: it was only when USPS came along 15 years later that someone started to get it "right". You seriously want me to believe that a sport which devours every possible medical advantage available before it's even formed on a petri dish, wasn't knocking this out with regularity before then to the advantage of riders who responded best to it?
Pffffft!0 -
I get the feeling that you haven`t actually raced yourself. This whole idea of a `pain threshold` is a nonsense. In a bike race one is in pain and suffering from the level of exertion and so-called `lactic burn` or one is not. I have ridden 80 mile races where I was suffering in this way after the first km and felt much the same till the finish line and I needed no artificial stimulants to push myself to do this. Similarly, when I was riding time trials, I was able to average 192 Bpm when my maximum was 198 (producing 10 mile TT times in the mid 20 minute range on a normal road bike with no aero aids other than a pair of tri-bars) and there was no way I could have physically gone harder. That is the bottom line, stimulants do not increase the actual physical capacity of the rider and will-power is no substitute for watts!leguape wrote:
Yes they do, because they wipe out those things that stop an average rider being a great one - the capacity to ride beyond that pain threshold, to have the self-belief to push that bit harder, to ignore the fatigue of a three week tour. To in effect gain those characteristics that define GT-winning riders.aurelio wrote:I would agree that all drugs affect different people to different degrees, but the central point is that amphetamines and even corticoids and so on don`t have the ability to turn also-rans into Tour `winners` as Epo and blood doping can. :roll:
It`s also something of a myth that the winners are largely the ones who are able to suffer the most. I would say that a lot more suffering goes on amongst the stragglers (especially those riding clean) than goes on amongst those high in the GC. The suffering that comes with a good performance (especially when it leads to a win) is also rather different to that which arises from simply grovelling to survive.
I agree that stimulants might help a tired and unmotivated cyclist to climb into the saddle again, but in a stage race an already tired rider using stimulants would soon be totally physically worn out. You also seem to be forgetting that after the late 1960`s stimulants were the very first thing that testers looked for and so their use was more or less restricted to the after-Tour criterium circuit and 6-Day circuit. (Where the racing was often little more than entertainment in any case, with the result often being decided before the event even started!).
So are you now agreeing that Armstrong and USP/Disco were doped, but are merely arguing about how prevalent such methods were in earlier eras?leguape wrote:As far back as the 1960s athletes were using autologous blood doping (Nencini, Lasse Viren, we know the US Cycling team was attempting to use it in 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics (but due to sheer incompetence settled on homologous) yet you still want to pretend that the badness and wrong results start in 1991 with EPO?
Oh I know the answer to this one: it was only when USPS came along 15 years later that someone started to get it "right"...
I would say that there is plenty of evidence that blood doping was not a common method of doping prior to the Armstrong Era, at least in stage races. For one such methods require a lot of medical and logistical back up (motorcycles with refrigerated panniers and so on...) and until the advent of big budget teams like USP the cash simply wasn`t around. (And of course the bigger the budget and the bigger the potential rewards the bigger the temptation to dope). Just look at the budgets of teams in the 1970`s, with even class riders often earning little more than they could in a factory.
Secondly, the performances of the riders themselves suggests that blood doping was not common. It was not until the Epo era that the speed on the climbs reached unprecedented new levels, with riders climbing on the big ring and `with their mouths shut` cols that had them grovelling in the past. Similarly, the drop out rate in races like the Tour was much greater in the past than it is today, with far more riders having to abandon due to exhaustion.0 -
aurelio wrote:
I get the feeling that you haven`t actually raced yourself. This whole idea of a `pain threshold` is a nonsense. In a bike race one is in pain and suffering from the level of exertion and so-called `lactic burn` or one is not. I have ridden 80 mile races where I was suffering in this way after the first km and felt much the same till the finish line and I needed no artificial stimulants to push myself to do this. Similarly, when I was riding time trials, I was able to average 192 Bpm when my maximum was 198 (producing 10 mile TT times in the mid 20 minute range on a normal road bike with no aero aids other than a pair of tri-bars) and there was no way I could have physically gone harder. That is the bottom line, stimulants do not increase the actual physical capacity of the rider and will-power is no substitute for watts!leguape wrote:
Yes they do, because they wipe out those things that stop an average rider being a great one - the capacity to ride beyond that pain threshold, to have the self-belief to push that bit harder, to ignore the fatigue of a three week tour. To in effect gain those characteristics that define GT-winning riders.aurelio wrote:I would agree that all drugs affect different people to different degrees, but the central point is that amphetamines and even corticoids and so on don`t have the ability to turn also-rans into Tour `winners` as Epo and blood doping can. :roll:
I agree that stimulants might help a tired and unmotivated cyclist to climb into the saddle again, but in a stage race an already tired rider using stimulants would soon be totally physically worn out. You also seem to be forgetting that after the late 1960`s stimulants were the very first thing that testers looked for and so their use was more or less restricted to the after-Tour criterium circuit and 6-Day circuit. (Where the racing was often little more than entertainment in any case, with the result often being decided before the event even started!).
So are you now agreeing that Armstrong and USP/Disco were doped, but are merely arguing about how prevalent such methods were in earlier eras?leguape wrote:As far back as the 1960s athletes were using autologous blood doping (Nencini, Lasse Viren, we know the US Cycling team was attempting to use it in 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics (but due to sheer incompetence settled on homologous) yet you still want to pretend that the badness and wrong results start in 1991 with EPO?
Oh I know the answer to this one: it was only when USPS came along 15 years later that someone started to get it "right"...
I would say that there is plenty of evidence that blood doping was not a common method of doping prior to the Armstrong Era, at least in stage races. For one such methods require a lot of medical and logistical back up (motorcycles with refrigerated panniers and so on...) and until the advent of big budget teams like USP the cash simply wasn`t around. (And of course the bigger the budget and the bigger the potential rewards the bigger the temptation to dope). Just look at the budgets of teams in the 1970`s, with even class riders often earning little more than they could in a factory.
Secondly, the performances of the riders themselves suggests that blood doping was not common. It was not until the Epo era that the speed on the climbs reached unprecedented new levels, with riders climbing on the big ring and `with their mouths shut` cols that had them grovelling in the past. Similarly, the drop out rate in races like the Tour was much greater in the past than it is today, with far more riders having to abandon due to exhaustion.
I get the feeling you've never taken cocaine or amphetamines (and for the record I have and do still race and have even done a few tough continental sportives for good measure. but feel free to continue with the ad hominem attacks). And you know what, the idea of a pain threshold is not a nonsense. Tom Simpson's death and Mallejac's madness are but two clear examples of the power of amphetamines. Riviere's career-ending fall another example of the ability of analgesic medication to remove the reflexes that stop us short of what we would consider dangerous.
They do change a rider, they change their ability to ride at or beyond their "limit". Been there done it, would love to tell you about it but frankly I wouldn't waste my breath on someone who so firmly believes I'm talking nonsense. I've seen people dripping with blood because they've danced 12 hours on pills and speed and didn't even notice. But yeah, you're right, pain threshold doesn't exist.
Guess what? Watts don't win races alone or even make riders. Then again I haven't raced have I, so how would I know?
I'm not agreeing that USPS had some sort of medical roadshow going on because I've yet to see any convincing evidence of it beyond fishing tales. I'm open to whether or not they did have systematic doping in the team, but can happily accept that some riders did dope of their own volition.
As for "no one else could afford the expense of blood doping", er, then why was Lasse Viren doing it back in the 70s?
You expect me to believe that all this medical paraphernalia and logistics went entirely unnoticed by the french authorities who managed to pick off Cofidis and bust Festina? Oh of course, ASO and the UCI colluded with an agency outside of their control to cover it up. By the way, booking a medical courier bike to do a drop isn't that complicated.
See the big problem for me in buying into all this is that in 7 years, the only time they didn't drop a bollock was Benoit Joachim. And no, I don't buy that the fact that so many got caught elsewhere as any sort of proof. Can you convince me that, according to your version of events, somehow guys who bought into autologous blood doping on one team suddenly forgot how to do it or who the go to men were? And please don't wheel out the golden handcuff argument. If these shady doctors are every bit as devious as you claim then I see no reason why they'd have any qualms about playing both sides. Patient confidentiality would see to neither party ever being the wiser.0 -
One, Simpson died from the effects of dehydration and heat exhaustion, not because he exceeded what you would like to call his `pain threshold`. Secondly, one might well argue that Simpson`s death is proof that rampant amphetamine abuse in a stage race is a sure route not to victory but to unsustainable over-exertion and physical collapse.leguape wrote:Tom Simpson's death and Mallejac's madness are but two clear examples of the power of amphetamines. Riviere's career-ending fall another example of the ability of analgesic medication to remove the reflexes that stop us short of what we would consider dangerous. They do change a rider, they change their ability to ride at or beyond their "limit".
You speak of `reflexes` which supposedly `stop us short of what we would consider dangerous`. I would agree that use of stimulants might impair ones cognitive abilities and so lead to a crash. However, I have a feeling that you are actually trying to imply that stimulants allow a rider to pass beyond some otherwise set physical limit as well ,and that in the absence of stimulants some `reflex` cuts in which prevents the rider from causing themselves harm. I don`t think such `reflexes` actually exist and would argue that physical performance is limited by nothing more than the ability to continue to fuel exercise itself.
When super-motivated and in-form I have been able to push my self to the level of developing tunnel vision. (OK, once!). Riders like Obree have regularly gone much deeper, reporting out-of-body experiences, momentary loss of consciousness and so on. If some natural `reflex` limiting the degree of exertion existed they would surely prevent every rider from going to such extremes of effort.
I assume that you agree that amphetamines do not alter the actual physical capacity of a rider. If you are claiming that they do please explain how they do this.
Accepting that amphetamines do not alter a riders physiology, just how much extra performance do you think their use provides? Do they allow a rider to sustain a power output 10% or more greater than would otherwise be the case, as with Epo and blood doping? More? Less? 5% ? 1%?
When answering this question bear in mind that the difference in power output between riding comfortably at or just above ones aerobic threshold on the one hand and suffering like a dog when attempting to maintain a pace above such a threshold is not that great. What`s more biochemistry dictates that no one can ride at such an intensity for very long, with the greater the intensity the shorter the duration being.
If it is possible, via the use of stimulants, to ride beyond ones actual physical limits why do professionals take so much care when riding TT`s and even mountain stages to ensure that they avoid going `into the red`, by means of using pulse meters, power meters and so on? They do this because they know that riding above ones threshold cannot be sustained for long and will ultimately lead to a slower time.0 -
Since when were anecdotes about night club ravers regarded as providing scientific proof of the effect of PED`s on sporting performance? I have seen drunks falling down stairs seemingly oblivious to the injuries they received, but I don`t think that this is proof that getting paralytic will make you race faster!leguape wrote:I've seen people dripping with blood because they've danced 12 hours on pills and speed and didn't even notice. But yeah, you're right, pain threshold doesn't exist.
I also think you are conflating various meanings of the term `pain threshold`. I disagree that this is a meaningful term in endurance sports as one is either in discomfort or pain from the level of exertion or one is not. There is no magic `threshold` that must be overcome.
You can believe in fairies as far as I am concerned, if that is what makes you happy.leguape wrote:I'm not agreeing that USPS had some sort of medical roadshow going on because I've yet to see any convincing evidence of it beyond fishing tales.
Show me two riders of equal determination with all other things being equal except their sustainable power output, and put them up against one another in TT or on a mountain col, and I would bet that the fastest rider would be the one with the greatest sustainable power output...leguape wrote:Guess what? Watts don't win races alone or even make riders.
Odd that you feel happy to accept that Viren blood doped, even though he consistently denied such practices and such use was never proven, when at the same time you dismiss all the allegations against Armstrong because , in your eyes, non of it provides a sufficient level of proof.leguape wrote:As for "no one else could afford the expense of blood doping", er, then why was Lasse Viren doing it back in the 70s?
I don`t doubt that, at the top level, blood doping has been used by various national teams in a range of sports. (For example, the American cycling team at the 1984 Olympics.) However, the funding and backup for such doping appears to have come from those involved in the Olympic bids of their athletes at a high level, and events such as the Olympics are a world away from the operation of some 70`s cycling team paying most of it`s riders little more than they would earn in a factory. Also, the focus of this `discussion` has been events like the Tour, and the logistical problems of blood-doping riders moving around the country day after day are in a different league to those associated with `preparing` an athlete for a one-off event like an Olympic10,000m.0 -
aurelio wrote:When super-motivated and in-form I have been able to push my self to the level of developing tunnel vision. (OK, once!). Riders like Obree have regularly gone much deeper, reporting out-of-body experiences, momentary loss of consciousness and so on. If some natural `reflex` limiting the degree of exertion existed they would surely prevent every rider from going to such extremes of effort.
Just the once? You obviously don't race hard enough. It's a tough place to go and one that's much easier found with amphetamines, opiates and other substances. Like I said, if you'd been there, you'd know about it. Neural pathways are funny things like that. Mental illness can also be a path to such things from what I understand of the topic.aurelio wrote:Since when were anecdotes about night club ravers regarded as providing scientific proof of the effect of PED`s on sporting performance? I have seen drunks falling down stairs seemingly oblivious to the injuries they received, but I don`t think that this is proof that getting paralytic will make you race faster!
Same time that IMs which have been denied as having substance by those involved are proof positive of organised fraud committed in a foreign country with enough precision to evade detection of the authorities for seven years. Even Bernard Tapie couldn't pull that one off, nor the bankroll of the Agnelli family at Juventus. There's probably as many written and verbal testimonies supporting the existence of fairies as there are for Armstrong having doped. It doesn't make either true.
Help me here with this one because frankly I'm starting to tire to having to ask for some evidence which stacks up (and remember I keep an open mind to the possibilities, something which you clearly don't):
You talk about logistics, what exactly are we talking about? Are we talking a whole bunch of trucks and motorbikes, or just the occasional cooler box carried in to a hotel?
We know the opposition were blood doping, so how did one team get so much advantage comparatively speaking? After all T-Mobile had a pretty big budget, even compared to USPS, yet they never quite got their ducks in a row in the same way. Is that just a straight wattage issue?
When was the last time you heard of a race where "all determinates being equal" applied? Support your claim that you know for a fact that the most powerful rider in wattage always wins. I was always led to believe the rider who expended the least energy in remaining competitive was as likely, if not more so to be the winner in a 3 week stage race.
You know I'd love to feel there was someone out there in possession of the full story but at the moment you keep on regurgitating the same narrow bunch of tales from a very limited bunch of fairly dubious sources, some of whom can't even get their own stories straight.
As for why I believe Viren doped, well I've heard it from people who I consider reliable, considerably more so than gossip and banter which is on record as being denied to hold substance. EDIT - And as I've said before, we have a fairly credible witness in Dumas citing the case of witnessing Nencini attempting it before that. So clearly the logistics of it can't have been that complicated if riders were making rudimentary attempts at it back then.0 -
Take care of the luxuries and the necessites will take care of themselves.0
