Lance goes on Dan Patrick show - says he still thinks of himself as Tour de France winner

Why shouldn't he consider himself the champion look at who he beat for the title, they are just as dirty as he is...

This board is too PC! wrote:

Why shouldn't he consider himself the champion look at who he beat for the title, they are just as dirty as he is...

look at who he beat, there were clean riders in their somewhere. There is a few riders in their who done it clean. The real champion is in there somewhere.

for me, a champion is a guy who rises above everyone else. A loser is a guy who drops down to the lowest level and blames everyone else for his faults.

I did dope and it's something I regret. I gave myself every reason why I should and never thought about the guys I was beating who were clean. Those guys knew what was going on and had the strength of character to say no. I admire those guys for that.

Fine come 40th through 100th. Your not sniffing the top of the podium clean. Racing full out 6 days in a row is impossible clean

I get what you're saying. But if this hypothetical rider (that was screwed out of a Tour win b/c he was clean) wasn't even within the top 20, no EPO in the world could make him a Tour winner. The difference between winning and 20th place is large chunks of time.

"Lets not fool ourselves though, the same issue is going on in T&F, we just don't have 3 week races where the athletes have to risk microdosing / boosting to maintain performance the whole time."

EXACTLY THIS ^

Lets not fool ourselves though, the same issue is going on in T&F, we just don't have 3 week races where the athletes have to risk microdosing / boosting to maintain performance the whole time.

Lets not fool ourselves though, the same issue is going on in T&F, we just don't have 3 week races where the athletes have to risk microdosing / boosting to maintain performance the whole time.

Lets not fool ourselves though, the same issue is going on in T&F, we just don't have 3 week races where the athletes have to risk microdosing / boosting to maintain performance the whole time.

Lets not fool ourselves though, the same issue is going on in T&F, we just don't have 3 week races where the athletes have to risk microdosing / boosting to maintain performance the whole time.

treads for wrote:

Captain Oblivious wrote:

Prove your first statement.

And thanks tips, for your second one.

This is not a subject with peer-reviewed studies on it for obvious reasons. It is what I have learned from years as a cyclist. If a high performing athlete came in to the team and had a low natural haemocrite reading, the team doctor would be rubbing his hands together.

A low natural level means you can take more EPO and still be in the safe zone in tests. The half life of EPO microdosing is about 4 hours for a synthetic test which makes the chances of being caught that way very small. An increase of 42 to 50 is a bigger increase than 45 to 50. The first rider gets 8% more RBCs after EPO while the second only gets 5%.

No endurance sport is just about blood levels.

The fact that you've now said a "high performing athlete" with a 42% reading improves more is all the difference.

That's not a random sampling. That's cherry picking.

I get what you're saying. But if this hypothetical rider (that was screwed out of a Tour win b/c he was clean) wasn't even within the top 20, no EPO in the world could make him a Tour winner. The difference between winning and 20th place is large chunks of time.[/quote]

If that were true, then how do you explain Lance Armstrong himself? He did the Tour de France four times before he ever won, and his results were DNF, DNF, 36th, and DNF. EPO (and blood bags, plus who knows what else) is POWERFUL stuff if it can transform someone from that much of a non-factor to a 7x champion.

Here's the thing, though. There are tons of fantastic cyclists in the TdF who don't sniff the Top 20, because that's not their strength. Sprinters who win 3 or 4 stages are still big stars, even though they might finish 170th overall. Tony Martin is an awesome TT guy, but never contends in the overall. There are numerous roles to play in the Grand Tours - it's not 200 guys all battling for the win. Most domestiques aren't worrying about what place they're in. But what EPO or other blood vector techniques can do is transform guys who don't belong anywhere near the podium into good climbers, which means they are suddenly contenders. In fact, some evidence suggests the guys who are a little larger (like Armstrong) actually benefit more from blood boosting. Armstrong was a successful pro cyclist before winning the Tour (TdF results notwithstanding), but didn't stand a chance at ever winning because big lugs can't climb. Unless they tamper with nature through the use of PEDs.

So to say EPO would not make a significant difference if you weren't already close to the top 20 or whatever is just not true. It's almost like the opposite is true. It used to be that to be a good climber, you had to be light. All of a sudden, big guys were destroying the climbs (these were guys who, like Armstrong, traditionally fared well in 1-day races, but would never contend for 3 weeks). So our hypothetical non-cheating cyclists who are naturally better-suited to Grand Tours, where climbing and durability is so important, suddenly have no area of strength anymore.

So you think Lance was clean when he was WC in '93?

The most glaring example of doping was when the light climber types started dominating the whole thing.

Contador and Rasmussen in particular.

Contador being fastest in a TT is just as suspicious as Mig winning in the mountains.

I said everyone was physiologically different. You disagreed with me. Now, you're saying everyone is physiologically different. Get your story straight.

And it's not cherrypicking, it's fact. Yes, I picked 42% as a reference for this discussion but it was used in a factual matter. Blood doping plays a massive part in cycling and endurance sport. A sport where maybe only 1% separates the top ten. I get what you're trying to say about haemocrite being lower yet the athlete is already high performing. This means his oxygen economy is higher than a guy riding at 45% naturally.

What you are missing here is, add EPO to a rider with a lower haemocrite and higher oxygen absorption economy and you get a dominant athlete or in another term "Lance Armstrong"

This board is too PC! wrote:

Your not sniffing the top of the podium clean.

You could say the same for most track events as well.

As others have said, should Ben Johnson be considered Olympic champion? Marion Jones? Why should Lance be given a pass on his "victories?"

Finally, if everyone was doping, why did Armstrong feel the need to apologize to Bassons? And why did Hamilton and White, after their confessions, apologize to "all the clean riders?"

Captain Oblivious wrote:

So you think Lance was clean when he was WC in '93?

The most glaring example of doping was when the light climber types started dominating the whole thing.

Contador and Rasmussen in particular.

Contador being fastest in a TT is just as suspicious as Mig winning in the mountains.

No, there's no way he was clean in '93. He just wasn't on the high-quality program he was on when he won the TDFs. He wasn't with Dr Ferrari yet. He was probably on steroids, HgH, and a variety of other stuff. And when he won the WCs in '93, that was the type of event that was in his natural "wheelhouse" - a one-day race over suitable terrain.

It's easy to forget that doping is not this simple binary thing, where there is Natural Lance and Doping Lance, and nothing in between. The doping was a learning process for him and his team. New products were becoming available, but you had to know how to use them. Why do you think Michele Ferrari was the go-to guy for cyclists, and why he made millions? After all, EPO was supposedly relatively easily available - it was reportedly available over the counter in Switzerland, for example. It wasn't just a matter of taking the right substances. Ferrari was the master of knowing when to take EPO, during what part of your training, how to avoid testing positive, making sure you didn't accidentally die, etc. If it was as simple as just take a bunch of EPO and transform yourself into a superstar, we'd never have heard of Ferrari.

The clean riders are sacrificial lambs similar to pawns on a chess board. They break the wind and follow a dirty Lance on his charges to the lead and try and form a wind breaking funnel. I can't see any clean guy ever being the top rider on any team it's too tough to compete on a multi day riding marathon against dirty riders.

This board is too PC! wrote:

The clean riders are sacrificial lambs similar to pawns on a chess board. They break the wind and follow a dirty Lance on his charges to the lead and try and form a wind breaking funnel. I can't see any clean guy ever being the top rider on any team it's too tough to compete on a multi day riding marathon against dirty riders.

That only makes sense if you take for granted that some of the riders will be cheating. If, hypothetically, you put 200 top cyclists who were actually clean and had them race all over France and elsewhere for 21 days, SOMEBODY would come out the winner. And that would be the top clean cyclist, even if they averaged 16 mph.

The concept of guys with a natural 38 hematocrit getting a greater benefit from EPO than guys with a natural 48 or 49 hematocrit is not hard to understand.

EPO boosts your hematocrit. That is a fact, and is easily looked up. During the heyday of EPO, there was a somewhat arbitrary 50 hct limit for riders.

If you were a rider with a naturally low hct (38-39, let's say), you could take a relatively large amount of EPO before your hct reached 50. You would then have way more red blood cells, and therefore way more oxygen-transporting ability, than before.

If you had a natural hct of 48 or 49, you could have essentially no EPO in your system during the race.

It stands to reason that if a drug provides a benefit (which EPO clearly does), those who CAN use it will benefit more than those who CANNOT use it.

So he was the best cheat

Is that something to be proud of

You are making that a rule. I really doubt that is true 100% of the time.

Lance did not win fair and square. Everyone is physiologically different. One rider could have a natural heamocrite of 42 and the other could have a natural haemocrite of 45. If they both perform at the same level when not doping, if they both take EPO and get their haemocrite up to 50, the rider with the natural 42% reading will destroy the rider with the natural 45% reading.

On the healing side of these drugs. I was taking HGH, Deca and EPO in the past and some of the effects are incredible especially HGH. About a month after starting to take it, The complexion of my skin was incredible and I didn't need contacts or glasses anymore for small print reading.

And by the way, EPO is already used to treat cancer patients after chemo to help create red blood cell growth after radiation therapy.[/quote]

We have a winner. For those who know nothing about human physiology, take note. This post was the best post on the entire thread. Lance did not win fair and square and "Treads for" is absolutely right. Educate yourself people.

Lance lied and lied and lied and treated people like crap (not poorly), allegedly threatening them according to what I've read. How anyone can look up to him is beyond me.

This board is too PC! wrote:

Fine come 40th through 100th. Your not sniffing the top of the podium clean. Racing full out 6 days in a row is impossible clean

Total BS pal. How did they do it this year? You know nothing about the sport, nothing at all. Racing full out 6 days in a row is NOT impossible. Do your research, they train their butts off!

The Turd of France has been a cheating contest ever since 1904 when half the field ended up disqualified for things like riding in cars and trains, attacking each other, and putting nails in each other's way. The GC top 4 and every single stage winner were booted.

They were undoubtedly all using dope of some kind. Ether, narcotics, cocaine, alcohol. But that is a sissy's way of cheating compared to knocking your opponent over. The modern TdF is very clean by comparison. Probably the cleanest ever.