Lance Armstrong Doping Charges: USADA To Ban Cyclist For Life, Strip Him Of 7 Tour De

TurtleDude said:

the head of the USADA was scorched by the district judge who dismissed Armstrong's suit on jurisdictional issues. It appears that the clown running USADA has a personal vendetta.

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and Lots of Euros blast Armstrong because they didn't like him beating them in a sport they thought they owned.

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as to former teammates who wanted to testify against him-hard to say if they were being truthful.

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PeteEU said:

Welll..



Bull****.. that is the excuse Armstrong and his posse used time and time again to deflect doping accusations. It is actually quite typical American deflection tactic. Marion Jones used the same one.



What on earth would they have to gain from outing him? Most of them were cheats themselves, which in it self is quite damaging to Armstrong. You cant tell me that with all the former team mates getting busted for doping that Armstrong was the only one on the team that was not doped... this was systematic doping. He was their leader and their dealer.

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TurtleDude said:

cycling is incredibly corrupt-like Olympic boxing was back in the cold war days except it was the judges who were crooked. The best argument against Armstrong was his winning percentages against others who clearly were cheaters.

Its like Poker-if you constantly beat people who are marking cards etc, its almost a guarantee you are better at cheating than they are.

I don't have much use for people who got caught trying to take down someone who didn't. IT just smacks of sour grapes.

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MaggieD said:

This is just such a shame. I don't know what evidence they have, but apparently Armstrong has stopped fighting it. I think it's fair, though. What about the guys who tried and tried to compete with him? It's not fair to them.

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nota bene said:

I want so much to believe that Armstrong didn't cheat. Cheating is what it is. I'm not sure whether the jig is up or if Armstrong's been persecuted or what, but when I read his official statement, I found it compelling: Lance Armstrong issues statement over USADA doping charges - The Washington Post

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I made myself available around the clock and around the world. In-competition. Out of competition. Blood. Urine. Whatever they asked for I provided. What is the point of all this testing if, in the end, USADA will not stand by it?

From the beginning, however, this investigation has not been about learning the truth or cleaning up cycling, but about punishing me at all costs. I am a retired cyclist, yet USADA has lodged charges over 17 years old despite its own 8-year limitation. As respected organizations such as UCI and USA Cycling have made clear, USADA lacks jurisdiction even to bring these charges. The international bodies governing cycling have ordered USADA to stop, have given notice that no one should participate in USADA’s improper proceedings, and have made it clear the pronouncements by USADA that it has banned people for life or stripped them of their accomplishments are made without authority. And as many others, including USADA’s own arbitrators, have found, there is nothing even remotely fair about its process. USADA has broken the law, turned its back on its own rules, and stiff-armed those who have tried to persuade USADA to honor its obligations. At every turn, USADA has played the role of a bully, threatening everyone in its way and challenging the good faith of anyone who questions its motives or its methods, all at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. For the last two months, USADA has endlessly repeated the mantra that there should be a single set of rules, applicable to all, but they have arrogantly refused to practice what they preach. On top of all that, USADA has allegedly made deals with other riders that circumvent their own rules as long as they said I cheated. Many of those riders continue to race today.

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PeteEU said:

No they never caught him.. big difference. He is an American athlete hence it is his national organisation (USADA) who has to most of the testing. Lance Armstrong only got tested during his racing in Europe, and often he did not figure in the top of the race, so hence a random check would be required. Now in the races he went to win, he of course came clean because he knew he was going to be tested.

Add to that, the $$$$$ value of having Armstrong in your race and the suspicion that anti-doping organisations in the countries involved might have been a bit lax.. well.



They dont have an axe to grind.. they have a reputation to fix. Marion Jones, and the BALCO scandal revealed decades of cheating by US sportsmen and women and the USADA/the system either allowed them or were blind.



The evidence against him is quite a lot. He is just finding an excuse imo so that he can go around fundraising claiming he was never doped because he was never tested positive. Once he goes through a trial like this, and looses, then he will forever be labled as a cheat and his fundraising ability would collapse.

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PeteEU said:

Welll..



Bull****.. that is the excuse Armstrong and his posse used time and time again to deflect doping accusations. It is actually quite typical American deflection tactic. Marion Jones used the same one.



What on earth would they have to gain from outing him? Most of them were cheats themselves, which in it self is quite damaging to Armstrong. You cant tell me that with all the former team mates getting busted for doping that Armstrong was the only one on the team that was not doped... this was systematic doping. He was their leader and their dealer.

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bicycleman said:

I forget the year Floyd Landis won the Tour, but he got tested positive for banned substances and had his title stripped from him. He has been trying to get back some credibility and claimed that he saw Lance taking illegal substances, but then again, he wants his name back, and I believe Landis would say anything. Maybe the whole team did take drugs, but it was a group thing and was fine as long as nobody knew, and they were winning. Now, that they are caught, he wants to make sure that everybody else is punished as well. There is no honor among thieves, and it would appear the same for professional athletes as well.

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Amigo said:

Not all of them were dopers. Otherwise the gaps in the general classification would have been much closer. The concept that "all cyclists dope" is ludicrous.

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sawyerloggingon said:

First I have heard of that, do you have some source for it?

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Back in 1999, Armstrong was associated with a positive urine sample held by a French lab which tested positive for EPO. Armstrong claimed that it was a French conspiracy and that sample wasn't his. A simple DNA test would have cleared it up but instead the Armstrong camp took the public relations route and the idea that the French didn't like the American took hold in the United States. Armstrong's camp essentially dismissed the sample and his Livestrong empire grew.

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Middleground said:

Someone I dated did the Tour de France about 5 times in the late 80s, early 90s. He was told to dope or else lose his spot on the team. I asked him why he didn't change teams and he laughed at my naivety. He then told me that all of the teams were a bunch of dopers, he had no choice.

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TurtleDude said:

not getting too personal but did er the effects of doping were they evident?

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Middleground said:

I'm not sure what you're asking, TD.

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TurtleDude said:

A young lady I knew was an alternate on the 88 Olympic team-she was 17 times All American in swimming and her best friend was an Olympian and a model who got picked up by Sly Stallone one night at the same bar where William Kennedy Smith hooked up with Patty Bowman (the rape charges). well she came back after a couple hours with Sly and said the poor guy had to use a pump to get it up because of all the testosterone and "roids" he had taken.

My Surgeon was an olympic team doctor and the doctor for the Bengals Football team and he said the same thing-guys who abused those anabolic steroids and testosterone often become akin to being chemically castrated from the side effects

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Middleground said:

He had a few issues, let alone being in Tucker territory. If ya know what I mean.

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TurtleDude said:

Ah the poor guy. Didn't have a log big enough for our lovely beaver :mrgreen:

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Middleground said:

:lamo:lamo:lamo

dam right!

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TurtleDude said:

I have also been told by respected doctors that too much time on the bike saddle can cause "nerve damage in the Nether regions"

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MaggieD said:

This is just such a shame. I don't know what evidence they have, but apparently Armstrong has stopped fighting it. I think it's fair, though. What about the guys who tried and tried to compete with him? It's not fair to them.

If they can't find doping with a blood test before the race, though, then they should just let everyone do it, in my opinion. What's the point of having drug tests if, even though you pass, they're going to nail you on down the road?

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RadicalModerate said:

As someone who couldn't care less about sports and has almost zero knowledge of sporting trends and whatever, and I say this in the interest of full honesty and disclosure...

...why does anyone care about doping in sports, in any manner? Seriously, I don't get it. Why should I care if Armstrong used growth hormones or whatever to win a race? Why are MLB players being hauled in front of Congress? Why is any of this in any news source outside of SportsCenter?

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DiAnna said:

They have no actual evidence, just hearsay witness statements... jailhouse informants, as it were... who may have been coerced to come forward with statements now, after all the years, over a decade really, of being unable to "catch" him while he was competing.

Armstrong has even suffered the indignity (more than once) of having his hotel rooms broken into and searched for drugs. None was ever found. Hundreds upon hundreds of drug tests... he passed every damned one.



For some reason, International racing officials have singled Armstrong out with an obsession to prove he was doping, and for no other reason than as long as he was competing, he was winning. It's like the snippet from that silly Borat-like movie that shows a runner pulling out a gun and shooting his competition, then sailing triumphantly across the finish line. If you can't beat the competition, take them out. I've watched this single-minded witch-hunt for years. Screw them. Armstrong was, is and always will be the best of the best. Nobody can take his achievements away; all they can hope to do now is taint them... and for no other reason than petty vengeance, that's just what they've done.

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lpast said:

Why isnt he fighting the results...with so much at stake

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Henrin said:

At some point you get tired of fighting. They have found nothing over and over again on him throughout the years and they are STILL after him. At some point you sit back and say, **** it, I don't want to do this anymore. Have your way and **** yourself.

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