Lance Armstrong admits doping may have caused his testicular canceR

Subway Surfers wrote:

Wow. Wow. Wow. wrote:

If I ever thought something this stupid I would probably try to keep it to myself.

No this is incorrect, a study about 15 years ago found that elite male mountain bikers reported a way higher incidence of testicular issues.

Bollocks.

What a clown, he's the Pete Rose of cycling.

USPS always had a very good intelligence gathering system on advanced notice of the drug testing:

"In a sworn affidavit, former Armstrong teammate Dave Zabriskie said that team director Johan Bruyneel "always seemed to know when drug testers were coming at races. His warning that they're coming tomorrow came on more than one occasion."

Other times, the report alleges, the notice was shorter but still effective. Vaughters said that the team had an "outstanding early warning system" for drug tests.

"We typically seemed to have an hour's advance notice prior to tests," he said in his affidavit. "There was plenty of time in advance of tests to use saline to decrease our hematocrit level. There were at least three or four occasions during [1999] where I and other riders used saline after receiving advance warning of a doping control."

LA was the best at anti-doping countermeasures. ?

I guarantee you that each and every person who has had or will get cancer has drank water.

Therefore drinking water possibly causes cancer.

rekrunner wrote:

In this case, sanctioning the 26 riders seems appropriate, at least by today's WADA standards. But that was 1999, the year after the Festina scandal, and the year before WADA, and the UCI was interested in restoring the image of cycling.

Yes, the teams indeed should've been aware of the test beforehand, and it was actually that 26 tested positive but 23 had some bogus/real medical condition except Armstrong and two others who should've been sanctioned. The UCI didn't want the maillot jaune to be sanctioned which must've contributed to the decision not to punish the three.

Well that is the question. How/Why was he able to pay for better drug programs? Why weren't Marco Pantani and Jan Ullrich on similiar programs? How did some random american get the good stuff? Was the Postal team set up better than the other ones? Were the other members of those teams actually cleanner?

Obviously we have no way of knowing. For all we know the top 20 were on pretty level playing field (i.e. all doped to the gills) and Lance's ability and prep were the difference. Or maybe he just had a better doping program.

To some extent it is probably a combo of all of them.

I have always thought had everyone been clean Lance would have still won. He was the best cyclist of the era and worked harder and smarter than everyone else.

I don't condone the cheating and it has tainted what should have been a great story, American dominates European cycling after nearly dying of an aggressive cancer. But at the end of the day it was still a level playing field because everyone, at least everyine that mattered, cheated. It wasn't like Lance took the crown from a clean rider, he took it from another chester.

I wish the sport was clean then and while I do believe it is cleaner I don't think it is truly clean now. The 2020 tour will surly be the only clean your of the past 30 years because it just won't happen.

dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:

Well that is the question. How/Why was he able to pay for better drug programs? Why weren't Marco Pantani and Jan Ullrich on similiar programs? How did some random american get the good stuff? Was the Postal team set up better than the other ones? Were the other members of those teams actually cleanner?

Obviously we have no way of knowing. For all we know the top 20 were on pretty level playing field (i.e. all doped to the gills) and Lance's ability and prep were the difference. Or maybe he just had a better doping program.

To some extent it is probably a combo of all of them.

Pantani was a client of Conconi, and probably getting the best of the 1990s.

Ferrari was a student of Conconi, and it could be he made improvements, building on what he learned.

But for a complete answer, we still need to consider other factors -- as you said, a combo of all of them.

Regarding Pantani, was there a Tour they rode together? Pantani didn't ride in 1999, and dropped out in 2000. Afterwards his performance and motivation declined. Pantani suffered an accident in 1995 which took years and surgeries to recover from. Maybe he wasn't physically 100% anymore. Pantani was considered one of the best climbers, but maybe not the best all-arounder. In 1999, Pantani was expelled from the Giro d'Italia with a 52% hematocrit. We know that doping allegations affected him psychologically. In 2000, he dropped out of the Tour with stomach problems, and afterwards his racing was sporadic, and his results and motivation were poor, as new doping allegations haunted him, until his death from drug overdose.

Regarding Ullrich, although he had the physical ability to win the Tour, maybe he lacked the extreme motivation and drive that Lance had. He often let himself go in the winters, gaining weight, which may have impacted his peak fitness in the Tour.

Regarding Armstrong, another factor was that Lance only raced the Tour seriously, while others raced in the Giro and the Vuelta.

But probably the central factors were Armstrong's motivation to do everything at 110%, including wind-tunnel training and details like seamless outfits for reducing drag, and his charismatic ability to lead, motivate, persuade, and bully others to sacrifice themselves for his victories.

hd7begdidb wrote:

I have always thought had everyone been clean Lance would have still won. He was the best cyclist of the era and worked harder and smarter than everyone else.

I would disagree. I think Lance's victories were a team effort, not an individual one.

One on one, without supporting riders, I don't think Lance had the confidence in his ability to win without the ability to stack things in his favor. It would be more like the Olympics, where he placed third at his peak fitness.

Look at LeMond's victory over his teammate Hinault in 1986, who was constantly attacking Lemond and putting him under pressure throughout the Tour. I don't think Lance would have won under the same circumstances.

Similarly, Contador outclassed Lance under the same team adversity.

He still gets away with one area of cheating that was the most significant, the motor in his bike.

Hang on, in 2000 we knew they were using Actovegin, so it was pretty obvious that they were using EPO or substitutes or both.

Coevett wrote:

Might explain why so many cyclists behave like total w!$###s.

Quite possibly ?

roscoe. wrote:

He still gets away with one area of cheating that was the most significant, the motor in his bike.

Hahaha, no. Please expand this conspiracy. I typically ignore these. This seems too easy.

How would someone get away with a motor?

casual obsever wrote:

Blaablaablaa... you just still enjoy attacking me.

Leaving aside the fact that it is always you who accuses others being "pro-doping", "Lance fanboys" etc, I don't see me claiming even that there is anything wrong in your posts, but only pointed out that the '99 corticosteroid case was almost a non-issue because almost every second random guy has used cortisone-products (not like EPO), and Jeremy Whittle didn't bother to mention it at all while being convinced that Lance doped, perhaps actually found the saddle soreness story credible.

And not every reader knows when his EPO positives were discussed in the media, and the case against him was almost solely circumstantial + vagueish recollections from former team members (e.g. Swart, O'Reilly) and others until he gave his "miracle"-speech.

During his 2009-10 and particularly after Landis wrote the revealing email, the case for him having doped was stronger by a magnitude.

Aragon wrote:

I don't see me claiming even that there is anything wrong in your posts, ...

To be fair, everything he and you said about Lance is not wrong, and I just read them as complementary, bringing different facets of the same points to light.

The two things I found misleading and not comparable are the unnecessary swipes at Farah, and the IAAF, as:

- Neither Farah, nor UKAD, violated any rules by interpreting a missed test as a missed test

- The UCI failure to enforce rule violations was at its core, while the IAAF's failure to enforce was outside the IAAF core anti-doping structure, which identified rule violations and pushed hard for sanctions, all of which did occur, albeit with a delay. These are the findings of lengthy and detailed investigations by the CIRC and the WADA IC, respectively.

Lance was an early investor into Uber. He is filthy rich.

Old news "recycled". See what I did there.?

Also, Very ballsy of Sir Lance Alot.

rekrunner wrote:

The two things I found misleading and not comparable are the unnecessary swipes at Farah, and the IAAF, as:

- Neither Farah, nor UKAD, violated any rules by interpreting a missed test as a missed test

- The UCI failure to enforce rule violations was at its core, while the IAAF's failure to enforce was outside the IAAF core anti-doping structure, which identified rule violations and pushed hard for sanctions, all of which did occur, albeit with a delay. These are the findings of lengthy and detailed investigations by the CIRC and the WADA IC, respectively.

And yet, two days ago, you agreed with me on both points.

"the IAAF's failure to enforce was outside the IAAF core anti-doping structure"?

Strongly disagree. Both the president of the IAAF and the head of anti-doping played in active role in the bribery/extortion scandal, to put it mildly, with the IAAF Council being involved too.

I would say this "The UCI failure to enforce rule violations was at its core" is also true for the IAAF:

The IAAF failure to enforce rule violations was at its core.

Evidence for example here:

casual obsever wrote:

And yet, two days ago, you agreed with me on both points.

"the IAAF's failure to enforce was outside the IAAF core anti-doping structure"?

Strongly disagree. Both the president of the IAAF and the head of anti-doping played in active role in the bribery/extortion scandal, to put it mildly, with the IAAF Council being involved too.

I would say this "The UCI failure to enforce rule violations was at its core" is also true for the IAAF:

The IAAF failure to enforce rule violations was at its core.

We are in agreement about the UCI's failures.

But, regarding Farah and the IAAF, my agreement was only in small part. The same way you said "a bit like Farah", I only agreed "a bit", adding phrases like "but also big differences" and "not more than (a bit)".

Lamine Diack was not part of the "the IAAF core anti-doping structure". He setup a secret structure outside of the existing anti-doping core. This is well documented in the WADA IC's reports.