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Lance Armstrong
It's all starting to look pretty damning. Perhaps football should be glad it only has to deal with diving.
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I think it's as much as the authorities failure to spot it as much as the drugs cheats themselves that makes this all so scandalous.
Anyone hear that guy being interviewed on BBC News 24 this morning? I think he was in charge of the whole doping investigation.
BBC reporter "How could something like this happen for so long?"
"If I could answer that question I would be the happiest man alive, I just hope I will wake up one day and hope it is all a dream"
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It's amazing that he got away with it for so long. He should be locked up IMO it is a disgrace.
I hope all his past sponsors will be issuing legal papers to reclaim the money they paid him in good faith all those years ago. While all this stuff has come out now, he's already made his living from the sport and can quite happily sit back and live the life of a multi-millionaire.
Apparently crime does pay...
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Two "Great Legends" in the field of Charity Fund Raising nailed in the space of a week or so.
So many people I know were inspired by Lance. I feel sorry for them.
Until this year I never had a great interest in Cycling (inc TdF) because there was always so many "cheats" associated with it. #sceptic was a good description.
Sad that it will cause many non Cycling fans to look at what happened with Team GB this year and say Hmmmm (a precis of Dave Brailsford's opinion not mine)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oth...railsford.html
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When L'Equipe gets on your case you're done.They had evidence that LA was doping in the 1999 tour, they made it public and the UCI didn't take a blind bit of notice, I guess because McQuaid wanted an Anglo-Saxo bike hero. The Equipe is never done down,
they're like a yappy dog that bites your ankles and keeps on biting until you fall down,they are also very rarely wrong,mainly because they know where and how to get accurate information. They know about most UK football transfers long before the Sun and the Mirror
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They are stripping him of his Tour De France wins, what are the odds that the guys in second, third, fourth place all cheated too in a vain attempt to keep up with him? Where does this end?
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So that would be what Beloki twice,Heras maybe, Ulrich a couple of times and Zullê amongst others, Beloki was certainly cited in the Puerto investigation but not convicted of dopage, can't remember where Ulrich is on doping but he's certainly been under suspicion a good bit,Heras and Zullê have both been suspended for either positive controls or admitting doping.Originally Posted by Colinjb
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"It's Not About the Bike"
No, clearly not.
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They are so going to have to re-edit Dodge Ball the movie now
Didn't Wiggins finish 4th in the TdF behind Armstrong and Contador a few years ago? I probably feel the most sorry for whoever was 3rd, having to share a podium with those two
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Andy Schleck finished second that year (2009) and while he's never been implicated in drug taking his older brother and teammate Frank got done at this years Tour.Didn't Wiggins finish 4th in the TdF behind Armstrong and Contador a few years ago? I probably feel the most sorry for whoever was 3rd, having to share a podium with those two
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Ullrich was implicated in the Puerto case as was Ivan Basso and both were chucked out of the 2006 TdF.
In some respects although I don't condone what was done I kind of get the fact that at the very highest level at around the turn of the Millenium EPO and blood doping were a sporting fact of life for cyclists. Most of his contemporaries doped or were implicated in doping scandals. Pantani had a haematocrit level of over 60% and was kicked off the Giro for it, Zulle and Virenque amongst others were implicated in the Festina Affair. Amidst all of this was this man who'd survived cancer and who effectively came off his sick bed to win the most gruelling of sporting events. I think people want to believe in modern miracles even though in our hearts we knew something wasn't quite right. The longer it went on the more I think people wanted to believe in the Armstrong story and the 'Livestrong' doctrine with its inspirational stories of survival (or otherwise). My take on the whole thing is that as a cycling fan we always knew that there were issues with regards to doping and that as testing became more sophisticated so would the lengths that riders would go to avoid detection, I think given the back story a lot of people naively hoped he was better than that. Am I surprised? Not particularly. This looks like turning into the biggest sporting fraud of all time and that is the real disappointment. I don't think we'll ever hear an admission from the 'horses mouth' but any sniff of post-comeback doping will put Armstrong right in the mire. Looking at the sport as an outsider it is easy to dismiss cycling as the preserve of the doped up cheat, but it is a question of perspective as pro cycling at an elite level takes place in a very small fish bowl compared to the vast aquarium that football exists in. His 7 TdFs I'd just scrub them from the records.
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I'm wonder if his drug taking caused his cancer?
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How long will it be before rumours (probably unfounded) start about British cyclists...
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I think they started long long ago. Few believed Armstrong dope free no matter what he said, the techniques were available and he used them to his best advantage. So no matter what the British cyclists say the suspicions are already about, same as French Swimmers,Jamaican Sprinters and whatever else have you(another one got caught last week, it's just a matter of time until they haul up a big fish).There's a big investigation going on in Kenya concerning their distance runners at present, one got caught by the patrol and now he's saying, nah most of them are at it. Isn't this what Frankie Andreu and Tyler Hamilton did? Everybody said oh no they're just jealous, surely not Lance, but at the end of the day they were right.
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The French started a little while back with their digs...
Not forgetting those Chinese swimmers wearing flippers in the Olympic pool..
Last edited by ottery st mary; 11-10-2012 at 02:23 PM. Reason: spellin as usual
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Would he have raised the millions for cancer research with out taking drugs & winning the TDF 7 times ?
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It does throw into question the competence and/or motivation of the anti-doping authorities. A pro cycling squad has at least 14 riders on it's roster, each of whom undertakes a mandatory minimum number of out-of-competition drug tests, as well as the tests carried in competition; whether as stage or race winners / podium places, or just as random selections. Across Armstrong's 7 successful seasons, how many of his colleagues failed a test ? ( Very rough maths: 14 riders * 7 seasons * 36 tests ( probably underestimated ) on average per year ).
On top of that, squad members, whether riders or 'back room' staff come and go, so how many people were 'in' on the scam, and why did they keep shtum, even after leaving the team ?
As for the USADA document - whilst it does appear damning, it currently lies untested and unquestioned in a public court - there has been no cross examination of the 'witnesses', ( all of whom seem to have plea-bargained their own cases and given statements in exchange for leniency ), and no independent verification of any drug test results.
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Well as perjury charges are now looking like a distinct possibility we might even get to find out whether the USADA's case stands
up in a public court. Marion Jones went down for 6 months for perjury, Armstrong might even get a couple of years if found guilty.
He made a lot of money from a 2005 court case where he stated categorically that he'd never doped and didn't know anything about doping in his teams. If he perjured himself and it was proven he's in big big trouble.
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Well Nike are standing by him.
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Of course, doping being a far lesser crime in the U S of A than cheating on your wife and getting smacked with a golf club for it.
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And he is perfectly at liberty to defend himself against any accusations, he's just choosing not to.
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Roger Hammond, British team mate of LA 2005/2006, ( 2005 was the year of Armstrong's last TdF win ):
"I was in Lance Armstrong's team for two years and I was never asked, was never given any idea of any doping, I saw nothing at all, but then Usada never asked for my opinion."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19910165
Last edited by badgerx16; 12-10-2012 at 05:22 PM.
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This gives you a taste of opinions. Many posters on this site are from the US and I believe it is hosted in Australia. It has a very anti-Sky agenda and there is a lot of suspicion amongst those who post about Wiggins, Froome and Brailsford, who in some posts is portrayed as an evil Svengali figure manipulating both Sky and the British Cycling team through misdeeds. The reality is that Sky Pro cycling made some pretty bold statements at its launch with regards is stance on doping which in hindsight were probably not achievable given the period that cycling had been through in the previous ten years. Now to some extent cycling is in a position where riders from the doping era are now heavily involved in today's teams. Sean Yates roomed with Armstrong and worked with him on the Discovery Channel team. Bobby Julich allegedly has a history also works for Sky. You have Johan Bruyneel, until the brown stuff hit the fan a couple of days ago at RNT. Both Rolf Aldag and Brian Holm formerly DS's with Columbia/HTC/High Road and architects of the majority of Mark Cavendish's stage wins at the TdF including his Green jersey in 2011 admitted using EPO in the 1990s. I could go on, Jonathan Vaughters at Garmin was a USPS team member in the Armstrong era, so whether there is a doping past or not the sport finds itself in an invidious position at the present time because of its recent history and Sky and its British riders are a victim of the hangover of suspicion.
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=18802
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthr...17412&page=647
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Anyone else getting bored with today's wall-to-wall coverage on BBC News this morning? It's only cycling FFS. In other really important news....hedgehog comes out of hibernation 5 weeks early....
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The whole thing leaves a bad taste, including that interview. Cynical manipulation on LA's part, but hey what a surprise, it's not like he's done it before.
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Think you might have to sit tight for a bit, Trews. This is surely only the start of it. If there's any justice there'll be criminal trials to follow.
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saw this on facebook earlier, made me laugh...
"hats of to lance Armstrong. The last time I was off my face I couldn't even find my bike"
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