Honest Opinions Sought - Is Lance Juiced?

What is the evidence that he is on drugs?

If the only evidence is the fact that he is really good...that's no evidence at all. Someone has to be the best one out there, it just happens to be him.

Innocent until proven guilty.

FACT: Lance Armstrong is drug tested in and out of competition more frequently than any prominent athlete in any sport.

The guy is clean, the guy has a huge heart, the guy's physique changed for the better through his cancer problems. The guy has the best coach in the world. The guy trains in a manner most conducive to winning the Tour de France not other races. His preparation physically and mentally is on par with one Tiger Woods. Lance Armstrong has become as great at his sport as Tiger Woods is at golf. He is an animal on climbs and will be unbeatable until he chooses to hang it up-which I predict to be after next year when he wins his 6th Tour in a row-something never accomplished by anyone.

No Comment lets talk about something else other than Juice.

The Roc

Sorry dude, when you're a millioaire like Lance, you can afford a great bio-chemist. He's using stuff (as they all are) for which there are no tests. He has to, because they are all doing it...he needs more money.

Various liasons with a doctor Ferrari who has since been found to be the single largest provider of drugs and synthetic hormones to the banesto team in the infamous tour a few years ago. If you think that by just passing a test that makes you clean then you are crazy, the latest EPO style drug is flushed from the system in 3 hours with the same benefits and less side effects, as eddy mercyx once said 'You don't ride the tour on Orange juice and water' and He was one of the greats, Armstrong is riding quicker EVERY day that Mercyx ever did. lmost every one of the Tour winners has been exposed as a cheat in some shape or form, Delgado, Roche, Pantani, Ullrich, the list goes on and on, whhat makes you think he is different?

ESPN's Sportscentury did a half hour segment on Lance over the weekend. His body did change after cancer. He was more of an explosive type pre-cancer. Additionally, coaches, friends, competitors, etc. talked about his competitive fire. For example, when Lance was 16 and just before a tri, he went up to the #1 elite and said, "You may beat me today, but you'll never beat me again."

Michael Jordan had that same fire. Add that to talent, and it's an unbeatable combination.

They also talked about how focused he became after his battle with cancer. It's not uncommon for people who have tasted death to come back with a determination to live and win that few have.

He's just the best. He's driven, focused and talented in a way that few ever are.

I read somewhere that there is a legal limit of 49????for epo or so in the tour de frace and every athlete is right on the boarder...but epo isnt the reason he is better because all of them are at the same amount

If you need help sorting out what you really believe, do go ahead and list all the things you think you really believe and I am sure you will get a wonderfully thorough, courteous, unbiased analysis of why you should or should not believe all those things.

How are you going to sort out the honest, not-so-honest, honest-but-unknowing, knowning-but-lying, lying-but-with-good intentions, members of the WWF, NRA protagonists, and so forth?

Lance is riding faster than Eddy and the others for a number of reasons:

1) The peloton is so much deeper now; there are so many more cyclists who are good racers compared to the 60s. Guys who are domestiques now would have been team leaders in the 60s if they were performing this well. So that means that the pace of the races will be faster.

2) In relation to the faster courses, the Tour has made some of the stages easier (and thus faster). Also, there were days where you would race twice! One of the years that 7-11 (later became Motorola and could be considered a grandpa to USPS) raced a stage in the morning, got the Maillot Jaune for one of its riders and then have to race a team time trial in the evening. That does not happen anymore.

3) Lance trains for one event: the Tour. Merckx and others were better all around riders in that he wanted to win the Classics as well. Lance no little to no interest in any of the Classics unless they happen to fit into his prep for the Tour.

4) Lance can do #3 because of the money now available. Riders in the old days had to win more and race more to make enough money.

5) Athletes are better prepared nutritionally and in terms of restoration--even outside of any possible medical interventions.

The argument against Lance being doped is that he has been a successul endurance athlete since he was a teenager. Do you think he was doping when he was 19 and doing so well in triathlons?

I fall into the group that does not believe everyone is doping.

their hemocratic level is not tested every day.

It appears that waz the Euro-Troll is back with his drug accusations again.

Read Chris Carmichael's (Lance's coach) book on training. You'll see that his training is geared almost exclusively towards the demands of the Tour. I also found it to be similar to what the Africans have been preaching and winning with: long miles, lots of climbing (hills), incredible amounts of race paced quality work rather than repeated sprinting or explosiveness. In short, Lance practices race pace everyday and his body has adapted to meet the demands of multi-stage racing. As for riding faster than St. Eddy M., consider that today's carbon fiber wonder frames, titanium gruppos, and clipless pedals make Lance's custom Trek about 5-6 pounds lighter and much more efficient than anything available in the 60's and 70's. Factor in nutrition, advances in training theory, heart rate monitors, et al. and you will get faster overall speeds.

he did undergo significant amounts of 'drug' treatments to beat cancer

it is very possible that had a lasting impact on his biochem makeup

Forget that, you should read "A Rough Ride' the story of a domestique in the tour in Stephen Roches team, it won Sports Book of the year in 95, he describes 'the hide the syringe' fiascos in races where the riders knew there was no testing, the massive and open use of amphetamines in the end of season criterions and the toop riders hooked up to dripos and syringes in their hotel rooms after the stages, the guy who wrote it faced about 10 lawsuits and he still published the truth. Cycling is dirty, you only have to look at the number of recently retired cyclists who have croaked it in the last few years, their bodies wrecked by drug use, Lance is dirty, everybody knows it, his competitors are dirty, hell Ullrich is just returning from a ban, the guy who was 3rd last years wife was stopped at the border with enough growth hormone to keep a cattle farm going for 10 years.

Again you do not explain Mercyx's comments

'you do not ride the tour on water and orange juice'

If anybody knows he does.

First off let me say that I hope he is not and until he fails a test I will believe he is not.

BUT I myself went thru a cancer thing 4 years ago. Now Mr Armstrong & I at the time of our sickness were 1000 of miels apart in bsic overall fitness. But after going thru all teh chemo and radiation treatmenst I went thru it has taken me 4 years to buidl up to 5k worth of running. Now of course that is his job, he was way way way ahead of me to start, but to get back to the level he did as fast as he did he had to have done something.

waz - consistently redefining the word "specious" for the letsrun community.

firstly, isn't ullrich returning from an ecstasy related ban? not exactly a performance related drug; i didn't see him petting any of the other riders up l'alpes d'huez.

secondly, the book you cite won the award you cite in '95, which means it was probably written earlier. flash to 2003: now riders get tested 168 times over the course of the tour, which works out to 7.3 times a day, or once every 3.28 hours. i suppose your mythical 3 hrs out of the system EPO, a claim which you back up with enough evidence to fill a naked singularity, would still work.

thirdly, i guess some riders are hooked up to drippers after stages. ooh - BIG REVELATION! they're burning up to and sometimes over 5000 calories a stage. add that to basic everyday calorie requirements; i doubt hitting the old country buffet every night is in everyone's best interests. quite often, triathletes need an IV after an ironman. are they all juicing? now try the equivalent of racing 21 half IM's in 23 days.

i tire.

Miles Davis wrote:

Sorry dude, when you're a millioaire like Lance, you can afford a great bio-chemist. He's using stuff (as they all are) for which there are no tests. He has to, because they are all doing it...he needs more money.

Your level of ignorance is higher than average even for this board. You think biochemists go around in their little labs, laughing evily and making new wonderdrugs there are no tests for? I AM a biochemist, and you have watched way too many movies. There are not bunches of crazy mad-biochemists flooding the world with wonder-drugs...creating a drug requires huge amounts of money, time, and resources. Second, the GC/MS used for most drug testing can detect anything...even new compounds never seen before. It just won't tell you what it does.

The only trick things are biologicals like EPO because they are protein and are nearly identical to things already in your body. Yet so far we can test for these.

Don't even start on genetic engineering, no matter what the media tells you (they love to pretend they're educated beyond their 4-year communications degree) we're well away from that.

Blank Generation,

So, you're comparing yourself to a professional athlete? And, not just an athlete, but Lance Armstrong?!?!

It is his job, and he was worlds ahead of you to begin with. Everyone responds differently to chemo therapy and radiation therapy. You don't have enough knowledge to make the claim you are making.

You've been Monkey Mooed.

Cycling is the dirtiest sport in the world. EVERYONE in cycling is using something. If everyone is using is it really cheating?

The French are getting pissy about it now because they haven't won the tour in eons, so they are busting every foreign rider they can....and Lance is target #1. I bet after this year's tour he quits while he's ahead.

As soon as a French rider wins again the drug hounds will be called off.