Same here. Something isn't right about this whole mess.
As a doctor, I’m really at a lost to understand this.
Erythropoietin is used in treating anemia also in the treatment of cancer. I’m not sure how this aids in cycling unless it has other attributes on increasing skeletal muscle, but it doesn’t it increases smooth muscle fibers.
If Armstrong is getting benfit from the hormone, then you would think his RBCs are sky high and thusly it would be obvious. If his RBC levels are normal or low, then how is he benefiting from the hormone?
I mean we’re not talking steroids.
Secondly, are we to believe that he pulled this off over a period of 7 years, and countless drug tests?
I can understand him getting away with it the first couple years, but they’re not able to catch him during 7 years?
I don’t know who in the cycling world gave these anti-doping agencies such authority, but I bet they regret it now. I agree with Lance’s decision not to contest the charges — why spend years and millions going over “he said-she said” testimony?
Sure, drugs are bad, mmkay? But the point of drug testing in a sport is to enforce agreed-upon rules banning certain substances so as to ensure a level playing field. If you have passed the tests you were required to take, is there really an obligation on your part to prove that you also wouldn’t have tested positive if they had better tests at the time, especially years after the fact?
For the protection of the sport I should have hoped that the ICF or the French TdF authorities would apply a statute of limitations to the doping agencies’ inquiries. Who now won the Tours that Lance has now forfeited? I’d bet a majority of the other guys on the podia either have already been convicted of doping infractions of their own, or could not stand up to a probe of the intensity of the one Lance got; if they had a race, and nobody won — was there really a race?