Landis on Armstrong - the gory details

The federal investigation is currently open, we're not going to find out for a while.

1) In the meantime, the truthfulness of words are inherent to the words. It does not change depending on who spoke them. Attacking the credibility of the messenger is a weak tactic to deflect the discussion from the merits of the message. It's an effective tactic, especially when the people don't want to give the issue any real thought. I gave two examples where the credibility of the messenger is not important, or can be accounted for.2) Did we read the same article? Otherwise, it looks to me like you are making up facts. I didn't see any discussion about chain of custody of the samples, or the UCI or WADA rejecting these out of hand. Did WADA or the UCI even see the results? Nor did the investigator or testers match the names with the numbers. This was done independently by a French reporter afterwards. The point of retesting the urine wasn't to convict any cyclists, but to validate and improve synthetic EPO detection and criteria. The historical fact remains that six samples were tested, they belonged to Lance, and tested positive for synthetic EPO. So any claims like "Lance never ever tested positive" are simply no longer true. These claims must be softened to "Lance has never been convicted or sanctioned".3) I only speak of the existence of shreds of evidence. The claim was that Landis' imagination was the only evidence -- no other single shred of evidence exists. Landis is not alone. Personal testimony of firsthand experiences would be admissible evidence in any court.

So? Does anyone believe Geb, Ryan Hall, Rupp and Solinsky and the Africans are clean? Check the dramatic drop in running times since the 90's.

The discussion of a supposed positive test should end with this sentence.

Look, I am not saying lance didn't dope. But after the fact, completely out of control of a reliable governing body a FRENCH reporter ran his own tests and just on faith we are supposed to believe what he says as reliable? Hell he may be completely honest but he also may have had idiots in the lab testing the stuff. We have no idea. Give me a break.

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

This was done independently by a French reporter afterwards.

Let's keep the facts straight, because you missed a lot, by not reading any of the links.The French reporter did not conduct, or commission, any lab testing, but merely mapped names to numbers from previously existing test results. Surely this kind of pattern matching from different sources is what good investigative reporters do well.Has anyone claimed that the anonymous numbered samples were not correctly identified?

curious2010 wrote:

The discussion of a supposed positive test should end with this sentence.

Look, I am not saying lance didn't dope. But after the fact, completely out of control of a reliable governing body a FRENCH reporter ran his own tests and just on faith we are supposed to believe what he says as reliable? Hell he may be completely honest but he also may have had idiots in the lab testing the stuff. We have no idea. Give me a break.

fine... so we are trust his mapping?get it now, your beginning sentence always comes back to"The French reporter merely" end of storysomeone who isn't an authority figure did something, whether it is map, test, pick up, read it doesn't matter

Why are you guys mad about something so seemingly insignificant in the scheme of your lives? Rethink your actions, thoughts, and words. Retrain yourselves. Remember, there are ALWAYS three sides to every story...

Who is mad?

Super swede wrote:

Why are you guys mad about something so seemingly insignificant in the scheme of your lives? Rethink your actions, thoughts, and words. Retrain yourselves. Remember, there are ALWAYS three sides to every story...

Nope. Truthfulness is not inherent to words. Merely speaking words does not make things true. I can say "the sky is polka dot" but that does not make it so. There must be evidence to back them up. For what Landis has said there is, so far, none. Zippo. In fact, he even got at least one of his facts (the year of the Tour de Suisse) just plain wrong.

Lacking evidence, the credibility of the messenger is all that is left. When some evidence turns up, please get back to us.

Yes. And also no, apparently

Did you even look for it? UCI accepted the Vrijman report. Dick Pound whined about "numerous inaccuracies" but could not, apparently be bothered to list them. The official Wada statement complained that Vrijman had not contacted them when he said he did and got the year of WADA's founding wrong. Wow.

Yeah, right. That's why WADA browbeat the lab into providing the sample numbers. That's why the report on improving EPO detection never came out. Because they wern't trying to convict anyone.

The historical fact remains that six samples were tested.

I don't know if Armstrong doped and I don't care. What I object to is the innuendo campaign that substitutes for evidence. You definitely need to do better than the word of Mr "Positively False"

No I don't get it at all.The doping control forms, with the names and sample numbers came from the UCI. It hardly requires any skill to read a name and a number in one form, and find the same number in another report.Perhaps it's better for you if I say, "the UCI, the only authoritative body with complete knowledge of the athletes names and sample numbers, sent written confirmation corroborating that 6 of the positive samples belonged to Lance Armstrong". The french reporter, successfully reprinted the authoritative confirmation from the UCI. Now it's the end of the story.The only reason I brought up the French reporter, was to show that it was someone else, not Michael Ashenden, who dragged Lance Armstrong's name into the story.

curious2010 wrote:

fine... so we are trust his mapping?

get it now, your beginning sentence always comes back to

"The French reporter merely" end of story

someone who isn't an authority figure did something, whether it is map, test, pick up, read it doesn't matter

I agree, merely speaking the words does not make things true. Nor does Landis merely speaking the words make them false. If the sky is blue, it doesn't become less blue because a liar says the words. "The sky is blue" would be a true statement regardless of who says the words, or even if no one says them. Likewise, "The sky is polka dot" does not become more or less true, if Landis says so.

I guess what you mean to say is you need evidence to believe what Landis says, given his recent history. That's where we are now, gathering evidence. My point all along is that using Landis' lack of credibility as an excuse to not search for evidence, and drawing conclusions without any evidence one way or another, is weak.

What's the Tour de Suisse story? Didn't Landis say something like "Bruyneel told me in 2003, about Lance's tour in 2002"? Isn't that the sort of confusion you are dismissing as a plain wrong fact?

No I didn't look for any reaction from the UCI or WADA. It's not relevant to any point I made. You allege that UCI and WADA rejected them out of hand, but didn't say why, or point to any source. What is the "Vrijman report"? You didn't say. The burden is on you to support what you allege, and help make the link to the existing context. Lacking supporting evidence, I am forced to rely on your credibility, which seems to matter so much to you. Now what I read from you is that they saw the reports, accepted the reports, complained about them, without really saying what was wrong. Is Dick Pound qualified to challenge the lab test results? I don't see anything from you to indicate the tests results aren't what they say they are.

A couple more irrelevant and unsupported allegations. How do I know these things really happened, and why is it relevant? What I read in the Michael Ashenden interview is "Since (the Sydney Olympics) WADA has revised the rule and now you only have to fail the urine test." "The research that was conducted with these (1999 Urine) samples was informing (WADA) of whether new criteria they were considering applying would have been effective in catching athletes in previous events." This EPO testing was not a witch hunt. Is this statement wrong?

They were tested and tested positive for synthetic EPO. I haven't seen you, nor anyone, provide any evidence that they were false positives. Wouldn't you say that positive tests results for EPO counts as "better than the word of Mr. "Positively False""? If you reject the 1999 EPO tests, exactly the kind of scientific drug testing performed and accepted by WADA, I find it difficult to imagine what kind of criteria you find acceptable.

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.

There is no correlation between being smart and being right. Many intelligent people will deny their worst fears in the face of opposition just like someone who is stupid. Intelligent people will simply convince themselves otherwise and set up a facade to defend themselves from the truth. So, yes, very capable people deny that Lance is a doper, however absurd that claim may be.

Precisely Watson wrote: There is no correlation between being smart and being right. Many intelligent people will deny their worst fears in the face of opposition just like someone who is stupid. Intelligent people will simply convince themselves otherwise and set up a facade to defend themselves from the truth. So, yes, very capable people deny that Lance is a doper, however absurd that claim may be.[/quote]

CORRECTION BELOW:

So, yes, very capable people CONVINCE THEMSELVES that Lance is a doper, however absurd that claim may be.

DOUBLE FREAKING RAINBOW! IT'S ALMOST A TRIPLE RAINBOW!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.

NO PROOF NERDS.

Imprecisely watson wrote:

Precisely Watson wrote: There is no correlation between being smart and being right. Many intelligent people will deny their worst fears in the face of opposition just like someone who is stupid. Intelligent people will simply convince themselves otherwise and set up a facade to defend themselves from the truth. So, yes, very capable people deny that Lance is a doper, however absurd that claim may be.

CORRECTION BELOW:

So, yes, very capable people CONVINCE THEMSELVES that Lance is a doper, however absurd that claim may be.[/quote]

Wow. Impeccable argument you've got there.

Hmmm, I see don't understand there are two side to every coin.

You have proven nothing, except how willing you are to accept imprecise data as fact.

Peace out, brother Watson.

Ha ha, the Watson's have pwned each other.

There is no right or wrong. There are simply two side to every argument. Otherwise there would be no such thing as an argument.

Nobody ever said his lack of credibility is an excuse not to search for evidence. Even you didn't say that. Until now that is.

What I said was, "When the messenger has zero credibility, that matters". And until I DO see some actual evidence, it still matters. The mere word of a messenger with zero credibility is not evidence.

No confusion here:

Landis claimed that Armstrong tested positive at the 2002 Tour de Suisse and then paid off the head of the ICU to cover it up. Armstrong did not even RIDE the Tour de Suisse that year. And the ICU revealed that when Armstrong DID compete at Tour de Suisse (the year before), there were no positive tests.

The Vrijman report was the official independent investigation of Ashenden's claims. It rejected them.

My apologies. I thought you had more than a superficial understanding of the topic

Dick Pound isn't qualified to do much of anything except be a blowhard. He does that quite a bit. He was an embarassment to WADA.

Irrelevant? Not at all. They go directly to contradict your contention that nobody was testing the samples to "get" Armstrong. Unsupported? Well I suppose if you believe Ashenden and only Ashenden then yes.

Oh by the way, as long as we are on the topic of Ashenden and credibility in general, do you know who was was working for? SCA Promotions. Now since I'm SURE you don't know who they are, they're the company that tried to get out of paying Lance Armstrong 5 million dollars by contending that he was on drugs. Ashenden worked for them.

If there was a documented chain of custody like there is for samples between initial collection and testing, if there were B-samples for independent verification, if the people claiming they are Armstrong's did not have financial incentive for them to BE Armstrong's, if we knew for certain that they were not contaminated and if we knew for certain that 6 years could not cause them to report false positives, then yes, that would certainly count better than the word of Mr Postively False

How about a drug test that does NOT have all of the failings I just described.

Hold on a sec wrote:

No confusion here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=5218887

Landis claimed that Armstrong tested positive at the 2002 Tour de Suisse and then paid off the head of the ICU to cover it up. Armstrong did not even RIDE the Tour de Suisse that year. And the ICU revealed that when Armstrong DID compete at Tour de Suisse (the year before), there were no positive tests.

Could you clarify how the ICU revealing there to be no positive tests at the Tour de Suisse invalidates a claim that Armstrong paid off the head of the ICU to cover up a positive test? If such a cover-up had taken place, the ICU could continue to claim there to be no positive tests regardless of whether or not Armstrong himself tested positive. The cover-up would obstensibly negate or surpress the contradictory result of Armstrong's own tests, allowing the ICU to happily claim there to be no positive tests among the remaining riders (assuming this to be correct and accurate).

I'm not suggesting Armstrong tested positive when he rode the Tour de Suisse, that he paid off the head of the ICU, or that the ICU or Armstrong are in the habit of covering up test results (I don't really know enough about cycling or Armstrong to make a firm judgement one way or the other, really), but the organization's announcement does not, in and of itself, entirely counter this charge.

I see from the link you've provided that the ICU indicates Armstrong promised a $100,000 donation in 2002 that he subsequently made in 2005, but again, I don't entirely follow how this disproves the charge. It seems likely that if a cover-up were to be orchestrated and funds were to be transferred, those funds would not take the form of a very public donation. Obviously, this line of thinking has the potential to devolve into conspiracy theory style questions fairly quickly, though.

I do find Landis' chronological errors, as you've pointed out throughout the thread, are not the most effective way for him to establish credibility as a reliable source of evidence and information.