The first time was in the 1969 Giro d'Italia[6] where he tested positive for the stimulant Reactivan at Savona, after leading the race through 16 stages. He was expelled from the Giro. The controversy began to swirl when his test results were not handled in the correct manner; they were released to the press before all parties involved (Merckx and team officials) were notified.[49]
Merckx was very upset, and to this day, protests his innocence.[6] He argued there were no counter-experts nor counter-analysis. He said the stage during which he was allegedly using drugs was easy so there was no need. "
******
" "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" is an old NASCAR expression. Junior Johnson had this to say about his creativity when it came to building cars:
"I loved the game. Maybe I'd have four of five new things on a car that might raise a question. But I'd always leave something that was outside of the regulations in a place where the inspectors could easily find it.
"They'd tell me it was illegal, I'd plead guilty, and they'd carry it away thinking they caught me. But they didn't check some other things that I thought were even more special." "
**********************
No news here.
Reallly... it's time to move-on.
Ha.
Doping is one of those strange rules, where apparently following the rules isn’t so cut and dried. In most sports, everybody knows you are going for any advantage you can. So part of the game is to push the limits of the rules.
Like in football, people are holding all the time, the key is whether the refs decide to call it. WIth tennis it was the rackets, people pushing the limits of what a “racket” really was. Golf has all the wierd golf clubs, and the different golf balls.
I loved the move “The Flying Scotsman”, where the guy kept developing better bicycles, and the people who ran the “sport”, who didn’t like him, kept changing the rules so he had to change his bike, eventually disqualifying him for some last-second rule.
So, “everybody” is against doping. But even casual sports people will take ibuprofen to cut down pain, will get cortisone injections, will do energy drinks and protein loading. People did hypobaric chambers, and did the thing where they simply stored off their own blood, and then got it re-transfused.
The sport had rules — we will test your blood, and if we find something, you will be punished. Imagine a baskteball game where, after the game, the referees sat down and watched the game in slo-mo, and retroactively applied penalties for every foul. It would be unworkable.
SO, if the doping test said you can’t have more than X amount of some drug, and you decided to use that drug but at less than X, and then later they decided to make it 1/2 X and re-tested your blood — were you cheating, or are they changing the rules? Suppose in NASCAR, they didn’t like who won, and after the race was over they decided to change some rule, and retested the car and disqualified the winner?
But now, some have decided that not only is getting caught later for something that met the “rules” at the time is a good thing, but that an athlete is evil and sick for even THINKING about trying to push the limits of the rules.
I’d understand if people were dissappointed in him, or were objectively in agreement that he deserved to be punished. But when I see people acting like they have cured the common cold, or repealed Obamacare, simply because they think Armstrong was caught breaking some rule, I wonder about their perspective on life.