I can see why you, Tom, would especially be worried. If Lance were to test positive, the US cycling world would be rocked. People would view it a source of national embarassment since we have put Lance on a pedestal. I think demand for the sport of cycling would fall to an all time low affecting LBS's like yours. It would easily be the biggest scandal of the year. I mean it would be up there with Bill/Monica (although probably not as drawn out). But I agree with you, I don't think it is true. I think he is just that good. Good enough that no one can believe it. Do you think that he puts on his cycling clothes in a phone booth? Sometimes I do.

---

------------------------------------------------------------
"One thing I have found there are just two ways to go
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow"- Robert Earlk Keen Jr.

Exactly. As a very, very, very small member of the cycling retail industry it is immensly frightening.

The exposure of sponsors such as OLN, Subaru, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Nike, Trek, Oakley, Giro and many, many others is enormous.

IN the ugly shadow of the David Millar affair, where he did not test positive once but was none the less apprehended and subsequently confessed, yeah, I am suddenly concerned.

I am not so much concerned that drugs are in use, but more so that the pall cast by the spurious banter (I guess like this...) causes.

Maybe I should not add to it. But we got to thinking, what if....

And it scared us all.

---

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

We Canadians went through this in 1988 when Ben Johnson tested positive. We were on a national high after he spanked Carl Lewis (Mr. Holier-than-thou) that came crashing down after the positive test. There was a documentary on the whole incident a few weeks ago on CTV in Canada. The problem with this episode was that during their careers 5 of the 8 finalists in that race tested positive for something at sometime during their racing career. The documentary went on to state that in the 1984 games that the safe containing the list of athletes names that matched the numbers on the urine samples was removed from a safe and shredded (probably by the host nation officials according to the report) since there were large numbers of positive tests and the US organizers didn't want the 3 ring circus type of atmosphere that would have resulted if perhaps someone like Carl Lewis had tested positive ... oh I forgot, he would never have taken anything that was performance enhancing and I do like watching his "gold medal" run where he had that look of dismay as Ben shut it down with his arm in the air and rolled in for a "controlled" 9.79 a full metre ahead.

I hope that Lance isn't on steroids or EPO and that he is doing it clean but if he's not, I hope that he never gets caught and all the sanctimonious jerks from around the world point fingers and say that he was the "only one" when drug use is so rampant that there is really a level playing field anyway (boy I'm cynical tonight).

True. A substantial- if not all- of the credibility of the sport would be gone/compromised. I can see the Saturday Night Live skits now... Jay Leno would be all over this. It would be very messy.

I should stop worrying. There is no "proof". I am wondering a lot about LeMond's comments.... Why did he do that? What is his motivation. He looks a triffle foolish to me.

---

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Yes, LeMond does look a bit jealous...and he does have a French sounding name :) But you can only turn a deaf ear so many times with so many accusations...you almost have to blindly believe...kind of like church.

---

------------------------------------------------------------
"One thing I have found there are just two ways to go
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow"- Robert Earlk Keen Jr.

That my friend is called stupidity. We have system here where someone is believed to be innocent until proven guilty. As guilty as someone like Barry Bonds "appears" to be, he is still innocent because he has denied doing so and there aren't positive test proving he has taken illegal drugs. I'm not a fan of Barry at all, but the guy doesn't deserve to be called a doper even if he appears to be, because there is no proof and if there was, he wouldn't have had his day in court yet. It's the same with Lance.



BTW-notafish, I'm not personally attacking you and I'm not calling you stupid. It though does always perplex me when I hear people just blindly believe in things, it just seems ignorant to me.

no offense taken and good point.

---

------------------------------------------------------------
"One thing I have found there are just two ways to go
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow"- Robert Earlk Keen Jr.

Another thing that you must consider is whom is making these accusations and why is this person or persons making them. What is there motive for doing so?

Tom, your actually pretty close to the situation. Knowing Frankie as you do, I would be surprised if this subject hadn't come up before on one of your rides or other occasions. Being that they were teamates you would think that by being in such close proximity one teamate usually knows what is going on with the others. Not necessarily of course, but certainly possible. If you want to share please do. I certainly would understand if you didn't want to betray cofidences if that was the case.

I agree...also, the media knows that there is nothing the general public loves more than a good scandal. It is what brings the readers and in turn brings the ad dollars. I think sometimes they are a little trigger happy. Sometimes it gets hard to tell the difference between a tabloid and actual news. But I digress.

Lance's situation is also different. There is a ton of public empathy for him as a cancer survivor. So the reactions to these accusations tends to be "well he/she is out for something". BUT like you said, it is all in the innocent until proven guilty clause.

---

------------------------------------------------------------
"One thing I have found there are just two ways to go
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow"- Robert Earlk Keen Jr.

One of the things that drives this is the difficulty people have in believing that what they do in the TDF is doable by a normal, albeit fit and extremely motivated, human. Day after day of those relentless rides. Most people think that is not possible.

Personally, they are all innocent until proven guilty. Even is LA is juiced, my firm belief would be that if he is then they all are - so it would be a level playing field anyway.

But like you, I hope to God he is clean. That guy is a legend, and it would really hurt to see his image (and cycling itself) tarnished

---

kiwipat

per ardua ad astra

Why would he use an altitude tent if he were using EPO? It would be extremely difficult to dilute his blood enough to get down to the 43-44 he typically records if he were doing both. I think EPO is probably the only drug he would consider using since HGH, testosterone, etc. modify growth rates of various cancers, so I think unless the tent is just an unused prop he is probably clean.

I think people just dismiss or ignore the incredible genetic variability in human characteristics and assume that anyone who excels is cheating, perhaps mostly because they would if they could. After all Martha Stuart is going to jail primarily for being rich and unapologetic about it and the sort of envy that yielded that jury verdict is probably behind many of the accusations against Armstrong as well.

That said if LA were to get caught doping it would be the death of cycling as a "big" money sport in the US if not world wide. Sponsors are already spooked about the amount of money and risk involved.

So many peole have so much riding on him that I'm sure there are hefty penatly provisions in his contracts if he tests positive and that these are sufficently scarry to keep him on the up and up at this point in his career. He is at the stage where he has much more to lose from testing postitive than losing the Tour.

I'm sure that there is a clause in his Trek contract that states that he will remove is remaining testical himself with a dull knife in front of the board of directors, turn over one of his kids to the company for use as a crash test dummy, and pay about a billion dollars in liquidated damages and if he ever tests positive.

You worry because you have seen enough of humanity to worry about anyone.

I hope that Lance is clean. He would be incredibly foolish to be doping now, regardless of whether he had in the past, because getting caught now would be far worse than losing the Tour as another poster said. It would also be remarkably stupid to risk your health now after dodging a bullet by surviving cancer. But, people have done stupider things. If it turned out that Lance was doping, I would be disappointed, but not incredibly surprised.

There are still a million small legal details that taken together can give a sufficient advantage to make the risk of drug use unnecessary for Lance - read the bus parking article on Velonews I referenced in an earlier post. Lance and Postal are just plain playing at a higher level than anyone else in the Tour. They have changed the way a Tour is done and other teams are still playing catchup. Lance doesn't need drugs to get that extra 1% advantage he seems to have over the other top riders. He's getting it by out working and, more importantly, out thinking his opponents.

Would he do drugs if everyone else was at the same level? Who knows - but right now he does not have to.

Funniest part of the whole Ben Johnson scandal was how our National media handled it.

After he won the Gold medal: "Canadian Sprinter wins Gold!"

After he tested posive: "Jamaican-born sprinter tests positibe for steroid use."

"IN the ugly shadow of the David Millar affair, where he did not test positive once but was none the less apprehended and subsequently confessed, yeah, I am suddenly concerned."

Millar was not tested on an hourly basis (exaggeration) like Lance.

If Lance is using anything, it's something they can't test for or haven't yet defined as illegal. You can't get tested as much as he's been and be cheating.

Chill, Tom. Life is good.

---

Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

[reply]
I hope that Lance isn't on steroids or EPO and that he is doing it clean but if he's not, I hope that he never gets caught

Yeah, Great statement there. Lets just sweep it under the rug, as long as Lance gets his 6th TDF title. Cynical? Try hypocritical

some good points here....

---

_______________________________________________

I tend to look at doping in economic terms. If you are a cyclist at told not to dope, and yet you are aware that it isn't inforced, and other riders and teams are systematically doping and beating you, then you have to choose between doping and finding another job. Not a good choice to have to make.

On a larger scale, since corporations and in some cases governmental adencies are putting up large amounts of sponsership money for pro cycling teams. They also need to accept responsibility for any doping that their sponsered team is doing.

I would hope that Trek, USPS and now Discovery channel have made every attempt possible to ensure that Lance and his team are following the anti doping rules. From a business point of view the risks of the team getting busted far out weight any additional results doping would produce. If I was a member of management of any corperation that sponsers a cycling team, I would make sure that I had full access to that team. Meaning that I would send unannouced auditors to review training plans, medical records, follow the team in the weeks prior to the tour, etc....

A couple of things that help me believe postal is clean are

1) The team's sponsers allow the team to focus on the TDF. While many people complain that Lance doesn't do enough world cup races, or the Giro, USPS knows that is is unrealistic to be competative in that many races and still win the tour. I would be worried if Lance was winning world Cup races in April, contesting the Giro, and then winning the Tour.

2) There was an article several years ago about a phone call David Millar made to Lance's cell phone over the christmas holidays.

David (paraphasing) "tell me your not riding your bike"

Lance "I'm riding my bike right now"

David "S**T, how long"

Lance " 4 hours so far."

David "I'm drunk right now and your riding your bike"

so maybe there are other reasons why Lance is winning than drugs. There is no question that he trains hard, and that he has world class genetic, and the best team.

So with all the testing he has gone through and how hard everyone is looking, I feel good about thinking the postal services accomplishements are legit.

I don't know if Lance is doping or not, but recent events have shown that you can easily dope and be test and not be caught.

I'll still go with cynical tifreak ....

My personal opinion is that they are wasting time trying to drug-test anyone. Most athletes who are taking them (and from what was revealed by the Dubin inquiry in Canada after the Ben Johnson scandal .... there was an indication that at the Olympics there were huge numbers of athletes that showed an endocrine profile that would prove that they were on some type of steroid but without the capable of identifying which one .... which you can't if it has cleared .... they don't test positive) will never get caught. Is there any way to ensure that all athletes are clean? I don't believe that there ever will be short of sticking them all on an island someplace to train for 6 months and then having them race each other.

What constitutes a performance-enhancing aid? A steroid won't make you any faster unless you use it to train harder so how is this different than being able to afford a massage therapist and altitude tent .... shouldn't they be banned as well since they are obvious performance enhancers? The original intent of banning steroids was not for the performance gains but for athlete safety since there were concerns about long-term side-effects. All this means now is that instead of taking a little extra testosterone the athletes are taking a chemical soup of whatever the latest non-detectable drug is so yeah, I'm cynical!

"how is this different than being able to afford a massage therapist and altitude tent ...."

I agree that we'll neve catch the majority of the cheaters but the problem IMO is the long term health effects to the athletes involved. We can't prove that FloJo's death was steroid related but there is certainly suspicion. Also consider the East German athletes from the 80's that are now coming forward and talking about their related health problems.