Posted on 10/22/2012 4:26:59 AM PDT by Perdogg
Cycling's governing body agreed Monday to strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and ban him for life, following a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that accused him of leading a massive doping program on his teams.
Speaking from Geneva, International Cycling Union President Pat McQuaid confirmed to a news conference that UCI had decided to uphold USADA'S decision to strip Armstrong of his Tour titles.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
If Armstrong hadn't been so flagrant with doping, taking it to another level, winning 7 TdF in a row, had been nicer all around, business would still be going on as usual.
...Other than he said she said. The entire professional cycling world has basically been turned upside down by those who got caught being intimidated into fingering others.
Frankly, they should stop right now, and either change the way they do business, end professional cycling, have a test that works, or allow blood doping to a certain level.
The problem remains in the testing. Because blood hemoglobin levels are different in every rider they just cannot test for blood that is tainted or improved by transfusion. How do you test for a needle poke, or two or three? The tour for example is so demanding I am betting that 90 plus percent of riders were doping. Just look at how many got caught versus how many others didnt but were doing the same thing with perhaps just a little more finnesse. That is spelled not quite so much, or the timing was off by a few hours, or they got randomly caught.
I think how USADA has gone about exposing the cheating, if you can call what everyone was doing, cheating, and I don’t mean do diminish those few not blood doping, but when your entire program is compromised, your program needs a severe reevaluation, not a public denouncement of all accused of being involved without proof other than turning all competitors agains one another.
If you are looking for blood test, designer drugs do not show up on the blood. They have the proof. They have witnesses. Your hero is a liberal phony.
Armstrong is such a megalomaniac liar that it's almost surreal to imagine anyone would take it to the extent that he has, therefore he must be innocent. Obama does this too.
Accepting hearsay from his competitors but still no positive blood tests.
You sound like a typical leftwing kook!
They have tainted their own sport to the point that it should no longer be recognised.
let them ride their bicycles to work, or for recreation, competition is now a joke.
...So, instead of the sanctioning bodies taking the hit for allowing the rampant blood doping, because they had no real control, it is the cyclists themselves who have to take the hit. I’m not seeing it the way they are. It is the sanctioning bodies, and the testing agencies who need to say, we screwed up. We virtually allowed the doping to occur because we didn’t have a good enough test to stop it, and the cyclists and doctors were smarter than we were. Call it cheating together for the good of the sport, and now because of their desire to NOT share in the disaster, they bring the entire sport down.
Not how it should have been done IMHO, but then who am I?
Huge document. What pages are the failed drug tests listed on?
Huge document. What pages are the failed drug tests listed on?
He did the work to get 99.99% of the way. Doping is NOT what made him elite. I am unwilling to concede the point to USADA.
Exactly. If doping was so widespread and such a vast conspiracy as has been alleged, then they were all pretty much guilty of doing the same thing, so will all their wins be vacated as well? And if all or most of the elite cyclists were guilty of doping, then the playing field was still equal among his competitors and so Armstrong was still beating his competition.
The agency has never said that Armstrong failed a single test and all the claims against him come from other cyclists who claim that they themselves beat tests or avoided the test administrators altogether.
And isn’t EPO legitimate in its use for people who have undergone chemotherapy? Just asking.
And to be honest, in the world of all highly competitive sports, all athletes are looking for that edge. Some do it with the help of extreme training and diets rich in naturally occurring hormones or non-banned substances such as vitamin B shots or electrolytes and with the help of experts if they can afford them.
Perhaps instead of banning "doping", the USADA should just accept it and oversee its use.
But if you truly want to see how much of a scumbag Armstrong is, read the section on witness intimidation.
This reminds me of the ‘say it ain’t so, Sammy!’ when Sosa’s bat cracked and revealed a cork interior.
Sosa’s excuse was that it was a practice bat that got mixed in with the game bats.
==
Per a previous thread, it seemed that some 7 other riders who knew Armstrong were also using similar ‘enhancements’ or had direct knowledge that Armstrong was.
This is exactly true.
- So many of the top riders were doping (and likely are doping) that for the most part this is a non-issue from a competitive standpoint. If they want to clean up the sport, then clean up the sport, don’t pretend that this is righting a wrong from the past. They all did it, but he was still better.
- EPO is not only legal, it is something our bodies produce naturally. That is why it is so difficult to figure out who is using it and at what level. They do things like test current versus past levels and try to test blood counts, but all of those things can be managed. It’s ability to up rbc counts makes it almost the perfect drug for competitive cyclists.
- Interestingly, I did some research on EPO in a former career (working at a radiation oncology department) and was published on a paper about its effects on patients receiving cancer treatments. This was early on in its adoption for that purpose and it worked splendidly.
Interesting caveats now beginning to emerge, however. UCI insist that nothing in the USADA report implicated Hein Verbruggen in any wrong doing and that the UCI, although convinced by the testimonies relating to the Armstrong Tour winning years, doesn't regard the Armstrong tests in his comeback years (2009-10) as positive.
Well, that's all I've been claiming, but it does show that part of the USADA report in a bad light.
I feel vindicated. :-)
One of my goals in life was to have as many Tour de France titles as Lance Armstrong has.
YES!!! I guess I can now check THAT one off the ol’ bucket list! :-)
Funny that you would say that [to someone else], when you are the one reacting like a lib defending Bill Clinton by refusing to read the Starr report.
Go to the Appendices and Supporting Documents tab here and read the affidavits. Hincapie, Leipheimer, Vande Velde, Vaughters, and Zabriske in particular. http://cyclinginvestigation.usada.org/
“I heard Armstrong say that he doped.” would not be hearsay, it is direct testimony as to what the witness heard.
"Bob said that Armstrong says he doped." would be hearsay, because the witness only knows what Bob told him, not what Armstrong actually said.
What are you blabbering about??? Eyewitness testimony of 26 witnesses who saw Armstrong doping and/or heard him admit to such on multiple occasions is not hearsay. It is testimony that can stand up in a court of law and will. That is why Armstrong did not contest the USADA report.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.