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Lance Armstrong Charged
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Well he hasn't been charged for seven Tours de France
He's put out a statement
AUSTIN, TX -- June 13, 2012 -- I have been notified that USADA, an organization largely funded by taxpayer dollars but governed only by self-written rules, intends to again dredge up discredited allegations dating back more than 16 years to prevent me from competing as a triathlete and try and strip me of the seven Tour de France victories I earned. These are the very same charges and the same witnesses that the Justice Department chose not to pursue after a two-year investigation. These charges are baseless, motivated by spite and advanced through testimony bought and paid for by promises of anonymity and immunity. Although USADA alleges a wide-ranging conspiracy extended over more than 16 years, I am the only athlete it has chosen to charge. USADA’s malice, its methods, its star-chamber practices, and its decision to punish first and adjudicate later all are at odds with our ideals of fairness and fair play.
I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one. That USADA ignores this fundamental distinction and charges me instead of the admitted dopers says far more about USADA, its lack of fairness and this vendetta than it does about my guilt or innocence.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Well having dope testers wait outside his hotel until it was convenient for him to take the test is probably a great way never to have failed a dope test.
And 'no spike' ... really? A 97th place abandonment pre-cancer and then seven victories post-cancer sounds like a spike to me!
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Lance Armstrong Charged
I've got mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand , and it is my first and dominant feeling, I want LA to be caught and exposed, if he did it - and I think he did.
But what then? - If they strip him of his TdF titles, who are they going to give it to?
Fat Jan was second a few times , and he hasn't exactly been a shining star of clean living.
How far do you go down the lists before you reach a truly clean rider during that period, and who decides?
Of course you could leave those years void of a winner; but again who deserved to be second etc.
Yes , do him; but be careful with the punishments.
He will lose shitloads of sponsorship deals and public appearances will be fun - but actual true retribution may be too late.
I see the Ironman "image" people are very concerned about this, and his desire to do the Kona may not happen, as he needs the qualification runs - but you know Lance, tough luck.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Have any serious/respected people said something along the lines of: "the cat's out of the bag, it's been proven that many cyclists have doped, and suspicions that others have, so let's consider allowing performance enhancing drugs, since it's apparent that almost everyone is doing them anyway?"
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Lance Armstrong Charged
i think that would be a good way to kill the sport off for good. would you allow your kid to take up a sport that would encourage them to take drugs so they could push their body beyond its natural limits, at great cost to their health, just because the sport's ruling authority can't be bothered to police drug cheats?
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Lance Armstrong Charged
By definition nobody serious has made the proposal; and they won't be long respected
As the great Michael Hutchinson pointed out, it's only marginally more sensible than keeping your hands warm by setting your pubic hair on fire. Obviously some people will still want to compete clean; but others will profit by competing as clean, while doping. So you aren't even eliminating the moral/cheating aspect. Meanwhile, as garcia says, you ruin both the healthy image of the sport, and the health of the leading participants.
As well as all this, the peloton is almost certainly cleaner now than at any point in the last forty years, and cleaner than most endurance sports. The strategically targeted testing introduced under Anne Gripper in the last 5/6 years effectively decapitated the dopers at the top.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner is starting to investigate the Office of National Drug Control Policy's funding of USADA and basically accuses USADA of a witch hunt.
May be worth noting that Trek is based in his Congressional district...
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Lance Armstrong Charged
VTTBoscombe wrote: I've got mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand , and it is my first and dominant feeling, I want LA to be caught and exposed, if he did it - and I think he did.
But what then? - If they strip him of his TdF titles, who are they going to give it to?
Fat Jan was second a few times , and he hasn't exactly been a shining star of clean living.
How far do you go down the lists before you reach a truly clean rider during that period, and who decides?
Of course you could leave those years void of a winner; but again who deserved to be second etc.
Yes , do him; but be careful with the punishments.
He will lose shitloads of sponsorship deals and public appearances will be fun - but actual true retribution may be too late.
I see the Ironman "image" people are very concerned about this, and his desire to do the Kona may not happen, as he needs the qualification runs - but you know Lance, tough luck.
Is there an arbitrary year drawn between cyclists in the past who've tested positive and are allowed to keep their titles and cyclists who are to be stripped?
Eddy Merckx tested positive for stimulants three times (admitting to two), why then is he not being stripped of his titles? Dutchman Joop Zoetemelk won the TDF in 1980 despite testing positive twice in 1977 and 1979 and subsequently in 1983.
These are only two examples, there are many more and I am puzzled as to the stripped/not stripped aspect. Can anyone clear it up?
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Lance Armstrong Charged
I'm no huge fan of Lance's, and my gut tells me that he probably doped. But to be stripped of victories on testimony of others and no physical evidence seems wrong to me, especially when the sport's organizing body is not the one handling the investigation, and that the USADA seems to be interested in scoring major publicity and uses selective leaks to build media opinion against those they are investigating.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Well, they say they have ten former team mates as witnesses. I think there has to be a point at which you have enough witnesses to override any lack of physical evidence. That happens in regular criminal prosecutions.
I don't know enough about the USADA and their motives for this, to comment on that side of things, and whether he should be stripped of his titles is the big question I think (as others have implied, it's not like he doped to beat a race full of clean cyclists.) But it seems like his guilt can no longer really be questioned. He's basically admitted as much by dropping the fight.
BTW - How can the USADA strip him of his Tours de France? Surely the only people that can do that are the race organisers?
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Lance Armstrong Charged
I'm tyring feel sorry for the guy and consider him a victim of the system rather than an out and out cheat. However, when I think of what he did to Simeoni and Bassons and I hope they throw the book at him. The key here for me is that USADA are singling him out as a "ring leader" in doping. This is much, much worse than simply doping.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
If you retrospectively pick out all the people who've subsequently been caught out for doping, and just leave in the guys who were clean (I know this makes the assumption, possibly unfairly, that if they got caught later they were probably at it all along) I think the TdFs of the Armstrong years now belong to:
1999 Fernando Escartin (3rd)
2000 Joseba Beloki (3rd)
2001 Joseba Beloki (3rd)
2002 Joseba Beloki (2nd)
2003 Haimar Zubielda (5th)
2004 Andreas Kloden (2nd) or Jose Azevedo (5th)
2005 Francisco Mancebo (4th)
This excludes Armstrong, Zulle, Ullrich, Vinokourov, Hamilton and Basso; the finger was pointed at Kloden in the same way it has been at Armstrong but I don't think he was ever charged with anything?
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Kloden is currently being investigated by the German anti-doping agency for possible doping.
Mancebo was implicated in Puerto, if you look at the GC of the 2005 Tour the first rider with no doping association is Cadel Evans, who finished 8th.
I don't think all this is the end, it'll all end up at CAS in a year or so with Armstrong challenging the USADA's jurisdiction in the case. Which will also allow him to bypass any inconvenient evidence at this stage.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
If Beloki was clean, then, he looks like the biggest loser in this (if Armstrong and Ullrich were indeed doping ahead of him)? With three TdFs he would have been one of the all-time greats.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Incandenza wrote: I'm no huge fan of Lance's, and my gut tells me that he probably doped. But to be stripped of victories on testimony of others and no physical evidence seems wrong to me, especially when the sport's organizing body is not the one handling the investigation, and that the USADA seems to be interested in scoring major publicity and uses selective leaks to build media opinion against those they are investigating.
Also, the UCI just don't have any credibility on this, on doping in general but Armstrong in particular.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
The thing with cycling (or at least Tour-cycling), is that the tactics and process (for want of a better word) that goes into winning, seems to me to mean that just promoting the next person to the number 1 spot when someone gets caught, is not exactly a judgement of their ability to win the race. If Beloki had been in the lead in any of those races, his Tour would have been a vastly different thing, and he may not have ended up winning.
I sort of feel they should just leave tours "won" by people subsequently busted for cheating, with no winner.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Rogin the Kitten Minder wrote: If Beloki was clean, then, he looks like the biggest loser in this (if Armstrong and Ullrich were indeed doping ahead of him)? With three TdFs he would have been one of the all-time greats.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Rogin the Kitten Minder wrote: If Beloki was clean, then, he looks like the biggest loser in this (if Armstrong and Ullrich were indeed doping ahead of him)? With three TdFs he would have been one of the all-time greats.
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Lance Armstrong Charged
Hofzinser wrote:Originally posted by Rogin the Kitten MinderIf Beloki was clean, then, he looks like the biggest loser in this (if Armstrong and Ullrich were indeed doping ahead of him)? With three TdFs he would have been one of the all-time greats.
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