He must be using performance enhancing drugs. Aint no way a cyclist can win 6 TDFs and a triathlete can do IM Lake Placid in 8:23:12 without PEDs. NOT!!! Great job Simon and Lance! After all the accusations on here about Lance and PEDs I am surprised nobody has accused Simon yet. I think it’s just another fine example that hard work pays off.
I like the presumption of innocence but that list that Francois typed up is more than a red flag in my opinion. Why the hell would he associate with Ferrari anyways - he must have known that the public would put 2 and 2 together. Perhaps the doctor knows more than how to mix a good potion - but surely Lance could have made a better choice if drugs were not his driving reason.
Another thing - I remember watching one of the last TDF’s or the last TDF that Indurain won. I remember the TT stage in particular. Lance was in it then and he had already won the World Cup. I remember vividly the scene of Indurain catching and not only passing but blowing by Lance in the TT. The camera man did not pay much notice to Lance because he had not made a name for himself in the TDF. The reason I bring this up is that it raises strong questions in my mind as to what could have caused him to make such a dramatic leap in performance. I would really like to believe him and I know I will get blasted for being skeptical of dear old Lance - but hey, I am not one of the over-zealous groupies that seem to follow without questioning the evidence. Sometimes this appears to be the OJ case. Compelling evidence but dare not think guilty of such a great athlete.
If he is not guilty, I believe he owes his fans a proper explanation as to:
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Why he consults with Ferrari
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Why his team van drove a few miles to drop garbage bag with Actogevin empty boxes in it
In addition, I read Hampsten’s write up a few days ago and I tend to side with LeMond and Hampsten more than most people on this forum.
Blast me if you will but I too would like to think LA is innocent. I just have a hard time ignoring the evidence and trying to convince myself that not only is LA more genetically gifted that all the world class cyclists in the peloton but he doesn’t need to take performance enhancers to stay ahead of them.
(1) Ferrari is a hell of a good coach/physiologist.
(2) No answer.
If the day ever comes where Armstrong is discovered with PED’s or admits to having taken them, it will be the blackest day ever in cycling. Such news would be devastating for the sport, so it’s no surprise that people might be reluctant to come forward and admit what they know.
I remember vividly the scene of Indurain catching and not only passing but blowing by Lance in the TT. The camera man did not pay much notice to Lance because he had not made a name for himself in the TDF. The reason I bring this up is that it raises strong questions in my mind as to what could have caused him to make such a dramatic leap in performance.
- Position improvements.
- He may have already been burnt up from the day before.
- He had a bad day.
- Indurain was kicking ass that day.
- He knew he wasn’t going to win the TdF or place well, so why go 110%?
Any or all of those could be a totally reasonable explanation outside of PEDs. Haven’t you ever had a bad day where you just can’t seem to hit your target speed? When I am pushing it I can usually average 34-35mph through this one 2 mile section on my standard 20 mile TT course, but yesterday I was struggling to make 28mph for no apparent reason. This is not intended as a flame, just there are probably a thousand reasons why Indurain passed him that day.
On topic…Lessing kicked some serious butt!
I remember watching one of the last TDF’s or the last TDF that Indurain won. I remember the TT stage in particular. Lance was in it then and he had already won the World Cup. I remember vividly the scene of Indurain catching and not only passing but blowing by Lance in the TT. The camera man did not pay much notice to Lance because he had not made a name for himself in the TDF. The reason I bring this up is that it raises strong questions in my mind as to what could have caused him to make such a dramatic leap in performance.
(I assume you mean World Championships two years earlier)
Below are the results from that TT. You wonder how Armstrong could make such a “dramatic leap in performance”. He lost 5 minutes to arguably the most dominant TTer in Tour history (Indurain), Armstrong included, and to Mr. 60% (Riis), but still came in 19th. Rominger, Berzin, Mauri, Jalabert, Zulle, Breukink and others ahead of him were outstanding TTers (and some World TT Champs, to boot) and he lost only one or a couple of minutes to some of them. This was at a time when he was a young one day racer, not the stage racer or climber or TT expert that he became.
He then had this little bout with cancer, but you know that story. Hope this answers some of the questions in your mind about this particular TT.
- Miguel Indurain (Spa) 1:04.16’
2. Bjarne Riis (Den) + 0.12’
3. Tony Rominger (Zwi) + 0.58’
4. Jevgeni Berzin (Rus) + 1.38’
5. Melchor Mauri (Spa) + 2.16’
6. Laurent Jalabert (Fra) + 2.36’
7. Johan Bruyneel (Bel) + 3.01’
8. Bruno Thibout (Fra) + 3.33’
9. ERIK BREUKINK + 3.48’
10. Alex Zulle (Zwi) + 3.56’
11. Ivan Gotti (Ita) + 4.04’
12. Vicente Aparicio (Spa) + 4.17’
13. Zenon Jaskula (Pol) + 4.25’
14. Mariano Rojas (Spa) + 4.34’
15. Alberto Elli (Ita) + 4.53’
16. Armand de las Cuevas(Fra) + 4.58’
17. Yvon Ledanois (Fra) + 4.59’
18. Claudio Chiappucci (Ita) + 5.06’
19. Lance Armstrong (VS) + 5.09’
- no team that drive a few miles to drop garbage bag with Actogevin empty boxes in it
Wasnt Actogevin not banned at that time?
what do you have on Lessing?? nothing
What do you have on Lance? And remember association does not equal guilt. I would love to see some DIRECT evidence against Lance. Except that there isn’t any.
Gosh, do you suppose at some point in his life Lessing had a conversation with someone about doping. I’m sure he did, so he must be guilty!
Chris
I tend to agree. I don’t get why people say LA came out of nowhere. He won the Tour DuPont twice before he got sick and that’s not the TourdeFrance but he raced against teams like Once, Rabo, and Mapei and it proved he had the talent to win a multistage event. It’s hard to make much out of him blowing up on a single TDF TT. Indurain didn’t look so well himself in the 96 race on the slopes of Hautacam I think it was.
It took Mark Allen 5 or 6 shots at Kona before he figured it out but once he did he had a death grip on the race. And speaking of Indurain, I believe he paid his dues at the Tour as well before beginning his era of domination.
with respect to time gaps on GC, I think Lance faced some pretty thin fields from 99-04…Pantani, Ullrich and the Swiss dude were his main competition and they all had inconsistent performances. The 03 race was the most competitive and it was close. I think the time gaps just speak to his level of preparedness relatively to all the others lack of it. Who came to race at the Tour this year besides Lance and Basso?
People who say Lance came out of nowhere were probably not following pro cycling from 1989-1997 and didn’t see an athlete who was developing in an appropriate pattern.
indeed it wasn’t banned.
Because it was unknown to be a PED. Yet, the following year it was added to the list as a blood booster…
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No - it’s a blood thinner, and isn’t a PED per se, but is used to hide the evidence of blood boosters like EPO. Hence its current status as a banned substance.
and why would you use a blood thinner in a sporting event? 
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Well, yeah - the actions would tend to speak for themselves, EXCEPT . . . the only evidence for this whole ‘incident’ is the word of some French TV cameramen from a station that has been trying to find something on LA and USPS for years . . . they’re hardly impartial. As far as I know their claims have never been corroborated and verified as fact. I don’t think they even produced the stuff that they claim to have found.
If someone knows differently I’d love to see the evidence . . .
but the USPS guys SAID they used Actogevin…
I forgot what the reasoning was, but they explained also why they dropped the bags far from the hotel…
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Really? Wow. Do you have a link? I’d love to read more . . .
TriathRon 'head not in sand . . . trying to keep eyes open while also believing (hoping?) LA is clean . . ’ G
I’ll have to search bit. but I remember clearly them aknowledging the use of actogevin which was legal at the time…yet, why would you use that anyway/?..
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Let’s establish that they in fact admitted such, before we ask why they did it. Otherwise it’s kinda like asking ‘are you still beating your wife?’
I just did a quick web search (on ‘actogevin’) and nowhere did I find any such admission, even though I did find several links in several languages to the cited incident (which, as I said, has only the word of the team from France 3 to support it). The only stmt from USPS that I found relating to those charges was that they have not used any prohibited substances. You could put that together with the fact that Actogevin wasn’t banned at the time and see it as an admission, but that doesn’t make it so.
Several stories also claim that Actogevin has ‘effects similar to EPO’, so I might be wrong that it’s a blood thinner. I’ll have to investigate further.
I agree that past TT performances are not an indication that a rider has started doping. Personally, I think it is more likely that he was on something THEN rather than NOW, which would make his progression even more impressive.
yes, indeed, Chiappucci (ahead of Armstrong in that TT) was one of the best TTers of all times (I am being sarcastic, if you did not notice).