Lance Armstrong gets life ban,loses 7 TDF,confesses he doped

surrey_commuter

Pinno wrote:

I sat through the Armstrong Lie documentary last night for the 3rd time. I still can't quite square the circle.

I suppose we should be grateful he 'got busted' because at least the UCI took steps and didn't sweep the problem underneath the carpet as a 'yesteryear' problem and with all the scandals in athletics, at least cycling isn't the bogey sport anymore.

As I remember it his problems started with the guy who had underwritten the insurance for the bonus USPS owed LA for multiple victories. This ended up in court and LA swearing under oath he had not doped. As USPS is a Govt body he was now in the world of Federal crimes and his henchmen could be threatened with massive prison sentences.

frisbee

I'm just glad there is a chance that Floyd Landis will get $25 million, he's a great guy.

dennisn

frisbee wrote:

I'm just glad there is a chance that Floyd Landis will get $25 million, he's a great guy.

And you know this how?

webboo

He might be being ironic but then again he might really like Floyd.

frisbee

dennisn wrote:

frisbee wrote:

I'm just glad there is a chance that Floyd Landis will get $25 million, he's a great guy.

And you know this how?

US Postal paid $32 million in sponsorship, triple damages, under the False Claims Act Landis as a whistle-blower could get 25%.

http://road.cc/content/news/218037-federal-judge-sets-november-trial-date-100-million-lance-armstrong-whistleblower

yorkshireraw

For those interested (and I understand many may not be), the latest Armstrong podcast (The Forward Podcast) is him in discussion with Hincapie, Christian VdV & Dylan Casey - recorded the night before they did that 24 hr mountain bike race the other week.

Armstrong had asked for questions on Twitter about an hour before they recorded and I'd randomly posted one (I don't follow Armstrong, I think someone else re-tweeted him into my timeline), not expecting them to answer it - turns out it was the first one up (at 23 minutes in).

PS their approach to the race is somewhat relaxed as they have clearly had a couple of sherbets before / during the recording.

shockedsoshocked

What did you ask him?

pinno

We're waiting with bated breath... (well, sort of).

yorkshireraw

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

What did you ask him?

Sorry - good point, maybe should have included that.....
Question was aimed at all of them:
"Your time was what it was, do you wish you were racing now".

Figured he'd been asked the old 'do you regret / would you change anything' spin on that question - which he himself said in the response.

ddraver

YorkshireRaw wrote:

For those interested (and I understand many may not be), the latest Armstrong podcast (The Forward Podcast) is him in discussion with Hincapie, Christian VdV & Dylan Casey - recorded the night before they did that 24 hr mountain bike race the other week.

Armstrong had asked for questions on Twitter about an hour before they recorded and I'd randomly posted one (I don't follow Armstrong, I think someone else re-tweeted him into my timeline), not expecting them to answer it - turns out it was the first one up (at 23 minutes in).

PS their approach to the race is somewhat relaxed as they have clearly had a couple of sherbets before / during the recording.

Thanks for that. A great listen and a great question

I assume Hincapie is high out of his mind...

yorkshireraw

ddraver wrote:

YorkshireRaw wrote:

For those interested (and I understand many may not be), the latest Armstrong podcast (The Forward Podcast) is him in discussion with Hincapie, Christian VdV & Dylan Casey - recorded the night before they did that 24 hr mountain bike race the other week.

Armstrong had asked for questions on Twitter about an hour before they recorded and I'd randomly posted one (I don't follow Armstrong, I think someone else re-tweeted him into my timeline), not expecting them to answer it - turns out it was the first one up (at 23 minutes in).

PS their approach to the race is somewhat relaxed as they have clearly had a couple of sherbets before / during the recording.

Thanks for that. A great listen and a great question

I assume Hincapie is high out of his mind...

Perhaps Landis sent him a few 'samples'.

Richmond Racer 2

ddraver wrote:

YorkshireRaw wrote:

For those interested (and I understand many may not be), the latest Armstrong podcast (The Forward Podcast) is him in discussion with Hincapie, Christian VdV & Dylan Casey - recorded the night before they did that 24 hr mountain bike race the other week.

Armstrong had asked for questions on Twitter about an hour before they recorded and I'd randomly posted one (I don't follow Armstrong, I think someone else re-tweeted him into my timeline), not expecting them to answer it - turns out it was the first one up (at 23 minutes in).

PS their approach to the race is somewhat relaxed as they have clearly had a couple of sherbets before / during the recording.

Thanks for that. A great listen and a great question

I assume Hincapie is high out of his mind...

Hincapie, with his investment and property portfolios, and that chi chi B&B in S Carolina...I'm sure he's high on...life

yorkshireraw

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Hincapie, with his investment and property portfolios, and that chi chi B&B in S Carolina...I'm sure he's high on...life[/quote]

And his ex-podium girl wife. Don't forget her.

tailwindhome

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRHj7iOFJgY/

lancearmstrong
That moment when you realize @uspostalservice wants 100 mil plus a dollar and 9 cents from you.

No_Ta_Doctor

TailWindHome wrote:

lancearmstrong
That moment when you realize @uspostalservice wants 100 mil plus a dollar and 9 cents from you.

I don't usually like to give LA credit for anything much, but that is very funny.

bompington

So it was all a big fuss about nothing?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017 ... sts-claim/

RichN95.

bompington wrote:

So it was all a big fuss about nothing?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017 ... sts-claim/

I think David Millar has always maintained that it probably wouldn't make much difference to an untrained amateur

wallace_and_gromit

bompington wrote:

So it was all a big fuss about nothing?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017 ... sts-claim/

This seems to be a classic example of someone forgetting to take a step back from their detailed results and sense-checking them against reality.

Unless there's been a massive conspiracy theory over the last 25 years then guys really did ride up Alpe D'Huez circa 4 minutes faster during the EPO era than before, "donkeys" really did make the transformation to "thoroughbreads" and guys the size of Ullrich did start climbing at speeds similar to guys the size of Pantani.

So if it wasn't EPO, it was something else!

bompington

... hence the :?:

I would guess that you could look at maximum performance relying on a chain of factors all being in place - presumably the bits that EPO can affect won't help if some other part of the chain isn't optimal.

That said, it does make you wonder how much of it is a placebo affect - which works whether or not a drug has a proven physiological effect.

The_Boy

Two questions:

How closely does the methodology match what the pros at the time were doing? ie is a single injection weekly for 8 weeks an accurate representation of how it was used?

How is the research to be interpreted given we know that epo was used as a cocktail of substances/techniques including synthetic testosterone, hgh, blood transfusions etc?

Edit: and is there a reason they used climbs to measure the effect rather than lab tests?

meanredspider

“An important level of performance at this high intensity is the mental aspect,” he said.

I can't disagree with that bit (in isolation).

But EPO will only help where Hct levels are the limiting factor so I'd imagine you need to train using it in order to benefit from it. In simple terms, it's like tuning a car engine: filling the thing with a higher octane fuel will do nothing unless you adjust at least the ignition timing. Just increasing the oxygen carrying capability of your blood is unlikely to help you without other adaptations which, we know, take time. The best athlete I know (and certainly the fastest guy up a hill) also has the highest Hct level I know too.

I think the study should warn off amateur athletes from thinking a bit of EPO will help them in their next sportive but I'm pretty confident it would make a pro athlete quicker when used consistently.

yorkshireraw

They did state they used 'fit' amateurs implying they weren't just blokes straight off a sofa, but that descriptor could have wildly different interpretations.

As it is the methodology seems b0ll0cks. They needed to do a before / after test on the individuals, instead they did this:

"But after the gruelling 21.5km climb - which was preceded by a 110km cycle for good measure - the average results of the two groups showed no difference whatsoever."

Comparing the average between 2 groups? The EPO group could have been sh1te vs the other group without 8 weeks of gear, but they didn't baseline it at the start.

Even within the groups you could have massive differences. A decent cyclist, doped up, could have been flying off the front of his group, which might also have contained a rubbish cyclist, for whom no amount of EPO was going to help. Averaging their 2 performances gives you a 'middle' result, matching the other group.

I'm not really sure what the scientists were trying to achieve - if they prove EPO is ineffective they need to be telling Oncologists, not worrying about cycling. Who / why was this funded in the first place?

fat daddy

YorkshireRaw wrote:

Who / why was this funded in the first place?

I don't think it was funded ....... it comes across to me that someone was going through there old cycling kit and found a few syringes of unused EPO and thought "hmm what I can do with this" .... the same way you put on a jacket you haven't worn in 12 months and discover a £5 note in the pocket

davieb78

The methodology of the study wasn't complete nonsense. They certainly did baseline studies and didn't pick cyclists of wildly different abilities. There were selection criteria, baseline tests, lab tests throughout, and then the final Ventoux race etc etc. As usual, the way it has been reported is highly selective and sensationalist, and of course it focuses in on the Ventoux ride.

That being said, I think the authors have been pretty careless with some of their quotes (although of course things can be misquoted, out of context, "off the record"). I also agree that the Ventoux part of the study is quite weak. The biggest weakness is the presentation of results of AVERAGE parameters in the EPO and placebo groups. Would be more interesting to see individual changes rather than averages (accept this may be in the appendices but I don't have time to look).

Dropbox link to paper: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nayq07b254y3t ... t.pdf?dl=0

pinno

I question the efficacy of this study.

It raises questions:
1. Would it not have been better to have done the race TT fashion so that no individual could benefit from group dynamics? EPO fuelled bloke goes off on a flyer and weaker yet determined individual wheel sucks for the duration. EPO guy bonks and finishes 30 seconds behind non-EPO guy as he's taken the brunt of the wind and has worked his ass off, expending 25% more energy than non-EPO wheel sucking guy in the process. Although finishing behind determined wheel sucker, has performed far better (?). We've never witnessed that before have we Mr Gerrans*?
2. Would it not have been better to send all the riders on the first day of the test on the route (individually as above) and then mid test and then at the end of the test?
3. So the article comes to a conclusion that the studies show EPO to be inconclusive because at the very end, the author writes this rather ambiguous and contrary paragraph:

"Professor John Brewer, an expert in applied sports science at St Mary’s University College,cautioned that the benefits of improved oxygen uptake might be more pronounced in professional cyclists than in amateurs and said EPO should remain banned."

*I'm not implicating Fab C before anyone rushes to defend him.

I only hope Lance read and believed the test results as I would love to think he turned a funny shade of green.

Mad_Malx

thanks for link davieb.

Power levels at baseline are a good bit below the elite, aren't they?
Baseline max 4.4 w/kg, lactate threshold 3.9 w/kg

As MRS says, if oxygen delivery isn't the limiting factor then increasing delivery isn't going to help.

Mad_Malx

Pinno wrote:

3. So the article comes to a conclusion that the studies show EPO to be inconclusive because at the very end, the author writes this rather ambiguous and contrary paragraph:

"Professor John Brewer, an expert in applied sports science at St Mary’s University College,cautioned that the benefits of improved oxygen uptake might be more pronounced in professional cyclists than in amateurs and said EPO should remain banned."

Brewer was not an author of the study, he was commenting on it.

pinno

Mad_Malx wrote:

Pinno wrote:

3. So the article comes to a conclusion that the studies show EPO to be inconclusive because at the very end, the author writes this rather ambiguous and contrary paragraph:

"Professor John Brewer, an expert in applied sports science at St Mary’s University College,cautioned that the benefits of improved oxygen uptake might be more pronounced in professional cyclists than in amateurs and said EPO should remain banned."

Brewer was not an author of the study, he was commenting on it.

[Pedant mode on] When I said 'author' I was referring to the author of the Tory Graph article. Would it help any if I said more accurately "...Henry Bodkin, the Daily Telegraph journalist quotes Professor John Brewer, an expert in applied sports science at St Mary’s University College in his article who said... da da da.." just so someone on an internet forum may pick irrelevant and non-consequential holes? [Pedant mode off].

Mad_Malx

I'm taking off my jacket and glasses

pinno

Mad_Malx wrote:

I'm taking off my jacket and glasses

Well that's a no brainer - you need to take off the glasses so they don't cause injury but then A) you can't see me to hit me and You don't know when to duck?

Back of Gregg's?