Landis on Armstrong - the gory details

or maybe even wrote:

troll alert. 3/10

There is not one person on the planet with an IQ over 70 that believes that Lance is clean. Not one.

He was obviously being sarcastic, but thanks anyway.

Florida Track Club wrote:

So you are saying for 10 years or so lance has been doping to the gills, and even though he has been tested multiple times a week for years on end, and hundreds of people have been devoting their jobs if not lives to catching him, but the only evidence they can find on him is a "partial sample' that a journalist "found" from a french lab?

Like I said, all you morons that are convinced he is doping are dumb asses, and this absolutely asinine response just proves my point.

I would never say that I am 100% sure Lance is not doping (though I have may substantial reasons to think he is not), but to be convinced he based on some of the shitty logic some of you are using is ridiculous.

This guy is aa card carrying member of the sub 70 club.

Hey, I'm just glad to see some people reading the Wall Street Journal. Most people on this board start their day with a cup of coffee and Paul Krugman, if they bother to read at all. And they will cling to the notion of neo or pseudo-Keynesianism all the way to the demise of US sovereign credit and the economy just as hard as they cling to the notion that their beloved is clean because he was never caught, except for the fact that he was, but then lawyered up.

It's deflation. It's deleveraging. It's deceit. It's delovely.

Sagarin wrote:

Hey, I'm just glad to see some people reading the Wall Street Journal. Most people on this board start their day with a cup of coffee and Paul Krugman, if they bother to read at all.

Krugman's last article was great. Quick question, Sagarin: how do you explain what the austerity program in Ireland is doing presently?

Sagarin wrote:

Hey, I'm just glad to see some people reading the Wall Street Journal. Most people on this board start their day with a cup of coffee and Paul Krugman, if they bother to read at all. And they will cling to the notion of neo or pseudo-Keynesianism all the way to the demise of US sovereign credit and the economy just as hard as they cling to the notion that their beloved is clean because he was never caught, except for the fact that he was, but then lawyered up.

It's deflation. It's deleveraging. It's deceit. It's delovely.

Delightful.

Nice posts, Sagarin. You are making a lot of sense.

What's to explain? What do you think austerity means? All of the PIIGS are massively over-indebted (as well as the CINN states in the US), and you don't cure a debt binge with more debt. At some point, the credit market shuts you out, and Greece found that out in a hurry because of a lack of austerity for years. Besides, whatever capital capital we had is long gone on boneheaded government misallocation. The US is no longer the tail wagging the dog, as was so poignantly spelled out at the G-20 summit.

Quick question markeroon... how do you explain what Japan's quantitative easing strategy has done for the past 20 years and counting? We're going to deflate either way. This isn't a normal business-cycle recession; nor is it a double dip. It's the Great Deleveraging, as I've warned on here for three years now. Postponing it only makes it worse. So does sitting on our hands when it comes to scalable, non-petroleum based energy policy.

Unemployment probably doesn't peak for two years at the earliest, housing is far from bottoming, and the market is going to do what it's going to do, depending on whether or not this government's growth-thwarting regulatory and fiscal profligacy continues, to make no mention of raising taxes on capital in 2011 and escalating protectionist rhetoric by the Chuck "Where's the camera?" Schumers of the world.

What good has a lack of austerity and massive government spending done in the US so far? Oh that's right. We would've had even more than the 600,000 discouraged workers that dropped out of the labor force in yesterday's jobless report. Wonder why business and banks are hording cash?

Huge chasm between the comfortable, Marxist, Ivory Tower view of how things "should be" and the hard reality of Social Darwinism and a global economy engaged in tax and wage arbitrage, as well as the competition for scarce resources. It truly is a brave new world, and we will get the message... in the end.

But, back to Lanced and Landis...

How do you explain El Paso Co. residents voting against their own best interests?

I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned Lance's very impressive performance in the prologue today.

Lance, like Barry Bonds and Marion Jones, may very well be the best of his generation, with or without doping. But the people who believe that he's been clean throughout his career seem seriously delusional.

I believe he's clean now, at least. So bringing up every anomaly as support for the doping argument does not convince me.

Yes, he's nearly 40. Yes, he's beating the best in the world. At worst, he's transfusing blood, which will have no effect at this point, but he's still beating these guys. Testosterone aids recovery, but all these guys are recovered today. He already has an age disadvantage for recovery.

When did you all become cycling experts? I sure don't claim to be, but this is a running websites forum. Those of you saying that Lance is surely doped have very little credibility to back up your assumptions.

I only glanced through most of these posts but one of the ones I saw tried to use Lance's lack of a testicle in his reasoning that Lance must be doping. This is just an example of these half informed "know it alls".

A man with one testicle produces the same amount of testosterone as one with two. Next time you set your mind on something make sure you at least kind of know what you are talking about.

I am not saying that I know that Lance didn't dope. I hope he didn't as that would be good for athletics overall, but those of you who always assume the worst ruin athletics for the rest of us.

You are stupid fan boy.You know what the chances are of a clean, ~40 year old guy, with one nut, doing well in the TDF? Zero.

Python wrote:

I believe he's clean now, at least. So bringing up every anomaly as support for the doping argument does not convince me.

Yes, he's nearly 40. Yes, he's beating the best in the world. At worst, he's transfusing blood, which will have no effect at this point, but he's still beating these guys. Testosterone aids recovery, but all these guys are recovered today. He already has an age disadvantage for recovery.

I think Lance doped. I ask why does it matter? Lets look at the 2009 Tour de France GC standings.

1 Alberto Contador

Got a blood clot in his Brain at age 20. This happens to someone who's in incredible shape training incredibly hard. What could turn someone like this's blood to sludge? Also Lance's teammate. Dirty.

2 Andy Schleck

His brother and teammate admitted to doping. His brother used to be better and then Andy blew by him. Dirty.

3 Lance

He's clean, while training with doping cyclists, beating doping cyclists, being accused regularly of doping, being coached by doping doctors and competing in a sport with a culture of doping. Dirty.

4 Bradley Wiggins

Went from not even a world class time trialer or one day race rider but a world class track rider (i.e. really really good at racing for 4 minutes) into 4th in the Tour de France. Dirty.

5 Frank Schleck

Tested positive.

6 Andres Kloden

Lance and Alberto's teammate. Was on T Mobile. Still Lance's teammate. Dirty.

7 Vincenzo Nibali

Rides for Liquigas, who has a number of superhuman climbers, picked up Basso this year after his doping suspension ran out, and had Beltran test positive and made a big show of how good people they were for kicking him out before his B sample came back, probably because they knew it'd be positive. This was one of their top riders in '09. Dirty.

8 Vande Velde

Vaughters has made a huge show from day 1 of talking about their team's anti doping stance. But Wiggins is clearly dirty. Vande Velde was a former teammate of Armstrong's. Dirty.

9 Kreuziger

See Nibali. Plus he's Eastern European. Dirty.

10 Le Mevel

Relatively unknown, not on a huge time team. Finished 10th with relatively little support compared to the big guns above. Either he's just one needle short of being a super Lance or he's dirty. Dirty.

Autologous blood doping is impossible to test for, so it's impossible to prevent without 24/7 monitoring of cyclists. The good doctors know what the ideal levels are for performance, and it makes the Tour more exciting because people can recover quicker so there aren't dead bodies strewn across the mountain sides every time a top GC contender accidentally over-exerts themselves on a mountain stage the day before two more mountain stages. Only problem is every once in a while a bad doctor messes up and Contador almost dies. Keep enforcing to prevent people from going above and beyond safe doping, and the playing field's level, the races are more exciting and relatively few top level cyclists will get strokes. Everybody wins.

i really enjoy cycling wrote:

5 Frank Schleck

Tested positive.

Typo, Frank Schleck admitted to doping, or at least to providing cash payments to somebody who sold doping equipment.

The big question is whether Landis got his testosterone imbalance from the fact that he probably just did several days of patches when they took the blood for the transfusion before the tour. Other teams who were more experienced than Landis would have known to be careful in the days before taking blood for transfusion during high testing season

This happened after the 1984 Olympics when a guy got hit on a steroids positive from having transfused blood taken during a cycle when he was using them during off-season buildup.

B33R G0GGLES wrote:

Anyone find it interesting that an old guy (nearly 40) with one nut, is able to hang with and beat young guys in a race that lasts 3 weeks?

Especially since Lance has admitted, in a televised interview, that his testosterone is a bit low as a result of his one nut.

Less testosterone = lower hematocrit, slower recovery, yada yada yada

I may have missed it, but in this do you give the basis for your statement that Armstrong "DROPPED 25 pounds"?

Florida Track Club wrote:

If Lance has been doping for years and years and years, how is it that he has never been caught? Care to explain that?

Ever hear of Marion Jones?

Why do you people say "doped to the gills?" Are cyclists fish or something?

think again wrote:

Florida Track Club wrote:

If Lance has been doping for years and years and years, how is it that he has never been caught? Care to explain that?

Ever hear of Marion Jones?

Wasn't she on 'The Clear"? It was undetectable while she took it, then the found a test for it.

I'm not saying it can't happen again, but he's clearly not cheating in the exact same way as her.