Lance Armstrong at Center of Cycling's Most Sophisticated Doping Program, Officials Charge

Is there any PHYSICAL evidence that Armstrong doped? Not the words of others, but real evidence? For instance, how many tests did he fail? 10, 20, 30? If a group of my buddies tells the dean of my school that I was smoking dope for the past few weeks, would their word constitute proof in and of itself? No.

Perhaps Armstrong did dope as alleged. The court of public opinion can draw its own conclusion there. What I mainly glean from all this is that the doping agency needs to brush up on its testing methodology more than anything else.

south sider wrote:

Is there any PHYSICAL evidence that Armstrong doped? Not the words of others, but real evidence? For instance, how many tests did he fail? 10, 20, 30? If a group of my buddies tells the dean of my school that I was smoking dope for the past few weeks, would their word constitute proof in and of itself? No.

Perhaps Armstrong did dope as alleged. The court of public opinion can draw its own conclusion there. What I mainly glean from all this is that the doping agency needs to brush up on its testing methodology more than anything else.

Yes, there is. You need to read the report.

Is it so hard to understand that this is not a criminal trial? Why are so many LA lemmings so damn dense? There is no need for the level of "proof" you seem to want. 26 witnesses is not enough??? Fact is, Armstrong caved in here like a little girl when he knew Georgie and other former colleagues told the truth. He had plenty of chances to have his day in USADA court, but declined.

Cards falling where they may.......

south sider wrote:

Is there any PHYSICAL evidence that Armstrong doped?

Financial records, e-mails, laboratory test results and scientific data.

Plenty of proof. Eye witness testimony is an accepted form of evidence. Do you really think this is one big conspiracy to bring Lance down? Please read this:

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8487169/usada-report-lance-armstrong-end-debate-whether-doped

To those claiming that Lance beat a field of cheaters and/or that he was training harder than everyone else: 1) not everyone responds to PEDs the same; 2) is it a level playing field when you get assistance from the governing body of your sport?; 3) he was not training harder than everyone else - that was simply part of his PR campaign.

Lance powered up the Alps because he had a superior doping system. Prior to '99 how did Lance do in the Tour? Yet he comes back post-cancer to be the best Tour rider in history?

If everyone is doping, should Marion Jones get her medals back?

gonchar wrote:

Why are so many LA lemmings so damn dense?

Quote of the day!

Thanks Tor. I've already been on the front page. Time for you my friend. You actually deserve Poster of the Year for your willingness to bang away with truth at the LA Fraud for so long.

gonchar wrote: Why are so many LANCE-HATERS so damn dense?

Tor wrote: Quote of the day!

+1

[quote]Tor wrote:

3) he was not training harder than everyone else - that was simply part of his PR campaign.

I can assure you he was using advanced training methods,strength training,and nutritional analysis that the Euro's did not believe in.

Should be interesting to see how many lawsuits Lance is gonna get hit with now that this testimony is public record and he has failed to contest it. The guy is reportedly worth over 100 million dollars and he's made it all by cheating. Surely somebody - competitors, sponsors, cycling officials - is going to have reasons to be aggrieved and will want to go after some of that cash.

I'm not saying they will succeed, but it will happen. This ain't over for Lance, however aloof he's being right now. Hell, the Lance fanboys on letsrun alone are enough for a class-action suit. He basically fu\cked with their brains.

I think Lance has already paid more in legal fees than he could lose in any civil or criminal case. I still think it would make more sense for him to come clean now, although the best moment to do that has clearly passed.

It will be interesting to see if UCI now tries to punish those riders that admitted to cheating in their affidavits and who are still active, on top of the six month bans they received from USADA, and where they go with the Kimmage case.

If this happened in T&F, and if the IAAF used my money (through UKA membership fees) to go after a journalist who helped uncover doping, I would protest. I am surprised there aren't more amateur cyclists so annoyed by the UCI's behaviour that they stage a rebellion.

As for the Livestrong fundraising, you have to ask yourself if some of the money raised by Livestrong and spent partly on Armstrong himself, would not have gone to other charities and spent on cancer research instead. I think the verdict is still out, but even if the net effect of Livestrong is positive, Armstrong's behaviour as a cyclist remains indefensible.

Tor wrote:

Lance powered up the Alps because he had a superior doping system. Prior to '99 how did Lance do in the Tour? Yet he comes back post-cancer to be the best Tour rider in history?

Although you are quite right about the superiority of the Armstrong doping program....

The fallacy that LA had first started doping in 1998 was essentially a plea bargain deal that the USADA was offering Lance.

(That way he still gets to keep on fleecing gullible rubes through his "charity." All that has been at stake since July was the general public coming to grips with how LA got the cancer. Another juicy subplot is that the in competition drug tests from 1996 should have detected testicular cancer due to elevated HGH levels as well. Perhaps nobody was actually checking the results?)

Suffice to say that there is ample evidence to suggest that Lance was doped to the gills all the way back to 1992 or earlier.

His own doping doctor (on the LA payroll from no later than 1996 himself,) had represented that Armstrong could have indeed GOTTEN the cancer as a direct result of cutting edge doping practices. A doping program that presumably first started with the Kaiter/Strock debacle at the USOTC in the early 1990s and Carmichael calling the shots.

Essentially the "company line" about reduced upper body mass and Lance eventually learning how to climb with the top GC men at a grand tour is for the most part true. Pre-riding the passes rather than racing elsewhere and thus being subject to in-competition testing certainly contributed to this transformation.

LA's time trialing did not need nearly as much improvement; even when he was famously caught for three minutes by Indurain Lance still finished eighth on the day. That would have been an acceptable result for any young rider not named Contador.

Tyler Hamilton is the one who attests that he finished 92nd riding the tour clean and 4th riding it dirty with a broken collarbone most of the way.

mmccii wrote:

"Then again there are people that deny evolution."

Shit, was Armstrong also involved in evolution?

Yes, he did an end run around evolution by having children after he had testicular cancer. If evolution were allowed to proceed naturally, his testicular cancer would have ended his ability to reproduce. He preserved his "seed" and reintroduced that flawed DNA into the gene pool.

I read the 200 page summary. I'd say 80% percent of the evidence against Lance is by testimony, 7.5% by email exchanges and other online documents, 7.5% by bank records, and only 5% physical and tangible evidence such as blood and urine samples. When you take that 5% of evidence, it still only proves that Lance used EPO for '99 Tour, doped for 2001 Tour de Suisse, and blood doped in his 2009-2010 comeback. That's it. Still leaves him with 6 tour titles.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an idiot, I definitely think Lance doped from '99 on though. To have 20+ witnesses all corroborating the same stories would have to be the biggest conspiracy of all time for it not to be real.

Its crazy all this "evidence" surfaces after he has long since retired.

LETS MF RUN wrote:

I read the 200 page summary. I'd say 80% percent of the evidence against Lance is by testimony, 7.5% by email exchanges and other online documents, 7.5% by bank records, and only 5% physical and tangible evidence such as blood and urine samples. When you take that 5% of evidence, it still only proves that Lance used EPO for '99 Tour, doped for 2001 Tour de Suisse, and blood doped in his 2009-2010 comeback. That's it. Still leaves him with 6 tour titles.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an idiot, I definitely think Lance doped from '99 on though. To have 20+ witnesses all corroborating the same stories would have to be the biggest conspiracy of all time for it not to be real.

Not only positive tests constitute a doping violation. Lance was sanctioned for:

(1) Use and/or attempted use of prohibited substances and/or methods including EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone, corticosteroids and masking agents.

(2) Possession of prohibited substances and/or methods including EPO, blood transfusions and related equipment (such as needles, blood bags, storage containers and other transfusion equipment and blood parameters measuring devices), testosterone, corticosteroids and masking agents.

(3) Trafficking of EPO, testosterone, and corticosteroids.

(4) Administration and/or attempted administration to others of EPO, testosterone, and cortisone.

(5) Assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up and other complicity involving one or more anti-doping rule violations and/or attempted anti-doping rule violations.

On the report there is conclusive evidence that supports all those 5 doping violations.

Lancey wrote:

Not only positive tests constitute a doping violation. Lance was sanctioned for:

(1) Use and/or attempted use of prohibited substances and/or methods including EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone, corticosteroids and masking agents.

(2) Possession of prohibited substances and/or methods including EPO, blood transfusions and related equipment (such as needles, blood bags, storage containers and other transfusion equipment and blood parameters measuring devices), testosterone, corticosteroids and masking agents.

(3) Trafficking of EPO, testosterone, and corticosteroids.

(4) Administration and/or attempted administration to others of EPO, testosterone, and cortisone.

(5) Assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up and other complicity involving one or more anti-doping rule violations and/or attempted anti-doping rule violations.

On the report there is conclusive evidence that supports all those 5 doping violations.

Let's be honest, everyone deep down knows that he did a majority of the things he was accused of. That's not the point. The point is whether there is definitive evidence that he himself toke PEDs. I could really care less if he distributed drugs to others if he never took them himself. Based on the physical evidence, he is still a 6 time tour de france winner. And besides, most of the evidence for his other doping violations were mostly by witness testimony as well.

LETS MF RUN wrote:

Let's be honest, everyone deep down knows that he did a majority of the things he was accused of. That's not the point. The point is whether there is definitive evidence that he himself *TOOK* PEDs. I could really care less if he distributed drugs to others if he never took them himself. Based on the physical evidence, he is still a 6 time tour de france winner. And besides, most of the evidence for his other doping violations were mostly by witness testimony as well.

LETS MF RUN wrote:

7.5% by bank records

Why he payed for his drugs via bank wires and not in cash is beyond me.