"Well established information sources" nice. Kind of like getting a warrant based upon "an informant who has given reliable information."

Very true fella's

I guess I'm a little naive. Just a childhood hero..

Jackmott: I'll still take my beer for being a lance supporter :) haha

You guys are brutal on ST!!

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COROS Sports Science

The effect might be to discourage doping among anyone that has any hopes of ever being a GC contender. If they know that the various anti-doping agencies won't give up, and that new technologies (or testimony from current teammates) will be brought to bear when available, they'll be much less likely to assume that they're safe from getting caught.

If the most well-funded and successful rider ever can get caught, then nobody should be able to think they'll successfully dope.

Of course, it might have the opposite effect on domestiques... ("It doesn't matter, I'll just testify against our GC contender and not even miss a race!")

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STAC Zero Trainer - Zero noise, zero tire contact, zero moving parts. Suffer in Silence starting fall 2016

My problem with WADA is that they are a political organisation who actually decided to spend time and money taking the British Olympic Association to court to force them to weaken their anti-doping procedures and allow convicted dopers to represent Britain at the Olympics. I've heard the argument about it being necessary for every country to have a consistent approach and I simply don't buy it - I don't see how it is in any way consistent for a global body set up to combat doping to take action that increases the number of dopers at the Olympics.

My problem with USADA in this case is that they seem to be going down the same political path - certain individuals seem to be more interested in making a name for themselves and grabbing some headlines than they actually are in preventing doping. I don't really understand why going after Lance is such a priority at this point in time. That said, I'm no fan of Lance and his attitude towards doping and anybody who has had the temerity to question him on it has always grated on me, so I wouldn't be too upset to see him finally convicted. From a purely sporting point of view, it is a bit of a shame we're not going to see him at Kona though...

x1

I Love Lance and him being dropped from WTC bothers me immensely.

Do I believe he doped, yes.

Do I think a vast majority of them doped, yes.

Should we single him out and punish him for doing what was rampant in order to be on a level playing field, no.

If none of the cyclists were doping, would he have been the best, yes.

Remember, the drugs don't do the hard work, they simply allow him to do more hard work more consistently. Even with the drug regime he was on, 99.9% of people wouldn't work as hard as he did and sacrifice as much as he did over time to win.

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"Chrissie wins because she trains really f'ing hard and races really f'ing hard and was blessed with a huge f'ing motor" Jordan Rapp

the majority of the riders at that time doped.

Let's move on.

As long as people keep pretending it is in the past, so now we can "move on" there won't be any progress made.

It is simply a fact of life. PEDs will always be an important part of sport. They work (too well!) and the authorities cannot reliably catch those who are using.

"Still love the guy for the passion he instilled in me as a child that I still have today..... I'm not a fan of him using PED's (even legally)... but I understand his drive to win and how he would do everything within the limits to get there"


I kinda gotta pay tribute as well. After reading his first book, I stopped in Boone NC to ride Beech Mountain as many have done. You could still see the paint on the roads from the Tour Dupont. I fell in love with the area, and knew I had to live here..10 years later still in Asheville NC. Huge part of my life dictated by being inspired by a book.

USADA is saying the report is false, no sanctions have been determined yet.

Lance doped. So did many others. We can argue about how severe it is in each case and what kind of punishments should be meted out.

But one thing seems certain: The USADA wants to punish Armstrong far more than everyone else and with a much harsher penalty (lifetime ban). And it doesn't seem to matter whether or not Armstrong is more guilty or not. It seems to be something else. A vendetta, or maybe because Armstrong is more popular or because he won the biggest prize seven times. Or to make an "example" of him. I don't know. But it's suspicious. No matter how much Armstrong doped, there's no reason to believe he doped MORE, or longer, or was a bigger bad guy than the others. We're seeing people get 1-2 year suspensions, or less. But they want a lifetime ban for Lance.

The USADA statement

US Anti Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart has responded to the Telesport article naming what it states are five witness who have given evidence in the US Postal Service team investigation, saying that such an action allows errors to be made and intimidation to happen.

“USADA's investigation into doping in the sport of cycling continues,” he said in a statement sent to VeloNation. “No individual cases have been finalized, and any attempt to guess at whom potential witnesses might be only leads to inaccurate information being reported and subjects those named to unnecessary scrutiny, threats and intimidation.”

According to the Telesport story, George Hincapie (BMC Racing Team), Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma Quick Step), the Garmin-Sharp riders Dave Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde plus Jonathan Vaughters have given evidence to USADA.

Hincapie and Leipheimer both declined to comment about the case today, while Vaughters reaffirmed his team’s commitment to clean racing and said that he encouraged anyone with information to speak honestly about it.

Telesport attributed the information to an unnamed source, and claimed they will be given reduced six month sanctions, starting September. Vaughters has rejected this as being untrue.

If the five are indeed witnesses in the case, their naming puts pressure on them during what is their most important competitive period of the year.

USADA has sought to limit any identification of the witnesses and also of the evidence that they have gathered. Lance Armstrong, who is one of six who has been charged with serious doping offences, and his legal team have been pushing to try to get more information of that evidence, as well as the identities of all of the witnesses.

USADA’s review board last week declared that it had decided unanimously to proceed with the charges. It previously spoke about concerns of witness intimidation, something which Tygart echoed today.

“It is important to remember that the truth would often be suppressed without witnesses who at great cost to themselves are willing to tell the truth under oath about what they saw and experienced,” he stated. “Any attempt to circumvent the proper procedures in order to bully or silence people who may or may not be witnesses cannot be tolerated.”

The case will likely move to an arbitration hearing, which USADA states should be concluded by Novembe

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/...n.aspx#ixzz1zlDRszjT



I don't think thats a strong denial, just says the case isn't finalized, which according to the reports about the deal could still technically be true.

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Styrrell

wow, you are so smart

Perhaps too much milk lead to high levels of HGH and Steroids?

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Ian

sorry dude, you seem to be alright & i'll buy you an Ommegang (good Belgian styled beer) if you find yourself in the nyc.

most Lance apologists really rub me the wrong way. The worst ones are the yellow wristband brigade who goes like "but my wife got so much support from them, so it doesn't matter." Calling logical fallacy on these people don't really do much as they are too emotionally invested to care.

PS. One of my favorite riders (and cycling commentator) is Sean Kelly, whom i see as a flawed character but talented rider. His biggest flaws? He and fat Pat (McQuaid) competed in South Africa when athletes were banned from doing so as a sanction against the apartheid government. And that he doped.

I don't know if he has ever repented or said anything about his past actions, but he was also the son of a poor bricklayer who broke out against all odds. People say that Fabian & S Sanchez are good as descending, but most haven't seen Kelly swooping down il Poggio in the 1992 Milan San Remo to catch Moreno Argentin in the last 2km and outsprint Argentin to take the win when Kelly was 38 or something. His commentating partner at Eurosports is David Harmon, who espouses a very strong anti-doping stance. I don't know if the two of them has ever spoke about Kelly's own troubled pasts on screen, but i get a sense that Kelly winces every time Harmon speaks out against Vino or Rebellin.

>If it turns out that all the riders named in the report did confess, why are they more credible than landis? Just because they were better dopers and better liars?

We'll have to wait for the actual testimony, but it increases credibility because if they were independently interviewed/interrogated about events they might have all witnessed, it becomes very difficult to maintain a common lie, even if they all huddled up and came up with a "game plan." Organized lying is very difficult when you're questioned by professionals. If telling the truth, the testimony becomes mutually reinforcing.

Also they're more credible than Landis because Landis was in a pathetic stage of his career. While I tire of the "X is just bitter/jealous" defense, Landis *was* pretty undeniably a bitter, outcast rider. By contrast Zabriskie and Hincapie have nothing to gain by testifying against Lance. They're both still gainfully employed. They both have nice side businesses. Both come across as pretty darned comfortable with where their careers are - hard to imagine they'd scheme to "take down" Lance in a way that would unavoidably damage their own cycling and business careers.

But we'll have to wait until we see the actual testimony.

don't forget Clen ;)




still better than defending those wristbands at this juncture in time

  

I've made this same argument. While it may be that no one wants to retroactively apply it, it might be useful for the future. I used this analogy. What if they decide to ban caffeine (they probably will)? We know it takes like 100 mg of this stuff to provide any useful effect. But we can probably detect it on the microgram (or less) scale in the body. So are we going to ban someone for having a microgram of caffeine in them, which is 10,000x less than what you need to do any good? It seems this is where we are at now. Regarding performance, it shouldn't matter if you have traces of some of this stuff in you: it's not going to help. (Yes I realize that having a trace in you at test time might mean you had more in you at another time.)

On another note: I wonder sometimes if people even think about WHY some things are banned. I'm not sure I know. Because....they are dangerous? Are they? Or are the way they are administered "icky" feeling (e.g., needles).

There seems to be no effort to ban taking in all kinds of unnatural things, and often it seems random. You can take in all the alcohol and nicotine you like! No ban! You can ingest huge amounts of manufactured protein and carbs and other supplements. No ban. Eat crazy and possibly untested wacky herbal crap. No ban!

Wouldn't suprise me if they don't test athletes for cocaine or other harmful street drugs.

I am very sorry about the mis-quote. i combined being scatter-brained with some bad cutting and pasting.

to your request above, i cannot give you a pre-Lance example. the USADA only goes back to 2000, it has no pre-Lance history. its Lance era exploits are enough for another thread (or 20). anecdotally, i do not like the USADA's PR campaign that comes with each case against an athlete, even the dirty ones. i think enforcement agencies are supposed to be like referees; silent and impartial, clinical, reliant on data, free from emotion, etc. they need to be the stoic umpire in baseball. this recent case is very Captain Ahab like.

policy-wise, i do not like the testing for non-PED drugs such as marijuana. but that's all i've got off the top of my head.

By contrast Zabriskie and Hincapie have nothing to gain by testifying against Lance.

If as is commonly assumed, their testimony was to the Grand Jury and passed along to the USADA then yes, they had a something to gain by testifying. People have been thrown in jail forlying to the GJ (Marion Jones) and even spent a long time in jail for refusing to testify (BB trainer).

I think Landis is a nut a a pretty lousy guy, I just don't think his testimony is necessarily false.

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Styrrell

If Lance indeed doped, and as you said, that allowed him to train harder, it would be very unfair to the other pros competing against him to let him do Kona. He is faster now and can train more now because of all the miles that he put into his legs in the past. If doping allowed him to put more miles in than a normal non-doped person could, that would be unfair - even if he is not doping now - the effect of all of those miles does not just disappear. There is not the kind of money in triathlon that there is in cycling, so, most of the top triathlon pros now probably did not spend the 90's and 2000's doping.

On the other hand, I don't think Lance was necessarily going to win overall, but his presence in the race would have brought a lot more exposure which would probably be a benefit.

As naive as this sounds, I still have a reasonable doubt about Lance's guilt. Hincape saying that he actually witnessed Lance dope would probably do it for me, especially if it was combined with Zabriskie and Levi. Landis and Hamilton are completely not credible, except I believe them when they now say that they doped themselves. Other than that, could not believe a word out of their mouths. But why would Hincapie or Zabriskie or Levi lie - even if they avoid a larger suspension, they have a lot more to lose by admitting to doping, especially in the twilight of their careers when they will need their reputation to sell products and make a living in the future.

I think a lot of us have very complicated thoughts on Lance and go both ways. Thrilled at watching Lance in 2001 and seeing the pretty pictures of France on Versus, I went out and bought a cheap mountain bike and started riding, which led to riding more, weight loss, racing, new bikes, my wife getting into it too, and both of us having much better lives thanks to cycling which is really largely thanks to Lance. Then as you watched more throughout the 2000's, you realize that Lance is such a jerk that you start rooting for the Bassos and Ulrichs. But when you see Lance in a race, you still kind of instinctively root for him, like my wife and I found ourselves doing during his comeback. He just looks really inspiring on a bicycle and no one else is like him. So, you root for him....but he seems like a jerk......root for him.....jerk........wow that Race Across the Sky movie was inspiring.....but he's kind of a jerk.....wonder how Lance is doing in Panama 70.3........ So he's a guy who seems like a jerk, but he actually inspired you in a way that made your life better. You don't want to believe he cheated, or wish they would just not bother investigating it so you can have your fairy tales. But then you start thinking the other way and can't ignore that it was a big fairy tale. But then, I am still not convinced that he doped either.

I agree with all of that. Complete dbag, and I think he would say anything to save what's left of his tarnished career, but when the whole pro peleton is doping I wouldn't be surprised if he is right.

Also, if cycling is a team sport, and Lance's teammates doped, shouldn't his wins already have an asterix?

One of his tour wins he even completely attributed to the team and I seem to remember Landis doing a whole lot of pace making through the mountains on that one.

>they had something to gain by testifying. People have been thrown in jail forlying to the GJ (Marion Jones)


I think you're kind of making my point. They were questioned by a professional in an environment where lying is both very difficult, and had serious consequences. What would they gain by lying? The only possible thing to gain, I think, would be a nice plea deal (to either the Feds or USADA. But if Lance was clean, they fabricated a colossal joint lie and perjured themselves in order to "gain" a plea deal? Far-fetched. People can go ahead think that the Feds/USADA are an Abu Dhabi-type justice system where the witnesses were bullied into the lie in some sense. But at some point it's more rational to consider the simplest explanation.

I agree if reports are true I don't think they are lying, I just don't theink they are more credible than Landis. Landis came clean when he was forced to by being out of a job and needing to sell a book. The gang of 10 or whatever came clean when they needed to by being thereatened with jail.

The only confessed doper I put a step above any of the other is Frankie. He did it, he admitted it with no compulsion by anyone, and he has never tried to cash in on it. I still admire the ones that don't dope more, whomever that lonely Cat 5 may be. ;-),

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Styrrell

But if they had all that testimony from Hincapie, Leip and DZ then wouldn't the Feds have been able to prove exactly what they set out to prove in the first place. So why didn't they prosecute.

time will tell

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Why do you say Lance is a jerk?