Armstronglivs wrote:
You expend every effort in saying Lance failed doping tests (that nonetheless never resulted in a violation) while not acknowledging the same applies to Lagat, who also failed a doping test. In each case the tests were not conclusive sufficient to result in a violation. So it is just as pointless citing Armstrong's failed tests as Lagat's. Testing doesn't necessarily catch the cheats. I would no more trust Lagat was clean than Armstrong. He was luckier.
Not sure what point you want to make -- the myth is that he never tested positive. I expended the minimum amount necessary to point out that he had many, and they were public knowledge at that time. That should have been the beginning and end of that whole conversation.
Rather than contest, or quietly accept, that undisputed, and undisputable, fact, you want to build a new goalpost that compares a true positive with a false positive, because neither resulted in a sanction. Are you just starting to realize that both innocent and guilty athletes can have positive tests, and sometimes innocent athletes are sanctioned, and sometimes guilty athletes are not? There is no hypocrisy in drawing different conclusions from a completely different set of facts. This less than perfect result is the predictable outcome of bad science, combined with bad law.
For your new goal, you essentially want to compare two cases which are not comparable because virtually every fact in the two scenarios is different, and for good measure, you are getting some of the basic facts wrong.
Lance's positive tests were in fact conclusive enough to result in a violation. The UCI violated its own rules by not charging Lance -- a case of two wrongs not making a right. Both the UCI and Lance made these facts clear from confessions, and from a detailed commissioned report.
In Lagat's case, Lagat was charged, unlike Lance, and requested a B-Sample analysis. Based on the facts uncovered in the full report of the B-Sample result, not only did the B-Sample fail to confirm the A-Sample, there was some doubts raised about whether the A-Sample was in fact a positive test at all, due to the observed enzymatic activity altering the urine. They also raised several doubts raised about the error-prone process used to detect EPO in urine. This is because the EPO test was new, and relatively immature. This is what Michael Ashenden told us about the checks in place for unstable urine during the EPO research testing of the 1999 Tour de France urine samples -- they took extra care not to repeat the mistakes made in Lagat's case.
So Lance had a true positive, which the UCI failed to charge, and Lagat had what was determined a false positive, for which he was charged, and successfully argued was due to multiple errors during transport, storage, and testing.