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Tour De France: The Cheating Continues

JasperL said:
- Not everyone else got off scott free.
- Contator had his 2010 TDF title stripped, so didn't get off scott free.
- Lance viciously attacked people for telling the TRUTH about his doping, tried and succeeded in ruining some of their lives, and deserved to be banned because he's a cheating sociopath. I don't know how you can know what he did, and especially the tactics he used to silence his HONEST accusers, and defend the guy with "everyone did it." They didn't. That's the story the self serving, lying sociopath tells.
- Froome might have cheated - I don't know - but you alleging an apples to apples comparison to the years long doping program Lance was involved in doesn't make it true.
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-Contador didnt get banned, even though he was using the exact same system as Lance did.
-Yes, Lance did attack others, but I bet if the other cheaters had the same money and power he had they would have done the same.
-As far as Froome goes, you either cheat or you dont. There's no levels of cheating. And Froome's money and influence is very close to Lance's now when he was winning his tours- and thats why they let him ride.

SouthernDemocrat said:
Right, but he switched from EPO to blood doping.

Froome's vo2 max is high, but not particularly high for the elite level of cyclists. His HCT is in the normal range as well.
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Like I said, the dopers are well ahead of the game. But the fact that he tested positive for excessive levels of an asthma drug should be enough to suspend him from the tournament until a full, independent investigation is carried out, but the Tour organizers were too chicken to stand their ground.
 
PoS said:
We dont know that for sure. Lance was always clean in all of his tests, and it wasnt until they developed a new type of testing did they get a positive on an old sample. The doping scene is always a step ahead since they know how the tests work. Lance stopped using EPOs after his 2nd tour win.
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LOL. He's admitted to doping for basically his entire career and a parade of people have testified to that.
 
PoS said:
-Contador didnt get banned, even though he was using the exact same system as Lance did.
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You said everyone else got off "scott free" and explicitly said Contador did. That's clearly false - a bunch of dopers including Contador from that era had their titles stripped and were forced out of the sport. Now you're moving the goal posts to "didn't get banned like Lance." Noted.

-Yes, Lance did attack others, but I bet if the other cheaters had the same money and power he had they would have done the same.
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Even if true - so what. He tried his damnedest to ruin the lives of dozens of people who were TELLING THE TRUTH, all the while maintaining his own purity and innocence to the public, which was a damnable lie. Imagining an alternative reality where other people act like sociopaths and thugs doesn't absolve Lance's ACTUAL conduct even a little bit. He's deserving of nothing but scorn.

-As far as Froome goes, you either cheat or you dont. There's no levels of cheating. And Froome's money and influence is very close to Lance's now when he was winning his tours- and thats why they let him ride.
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The only thing missing is evidence that's why they let Froome ride.

Like I said, the dopers are well ahead of the game. But the fact that he tested positive for excessive levels of an asthma drug should be enough to suspend him from the tournament until a full, independent investigation is carried out, but the Tour organizers were too chicken to stand their ground.
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Fine, you have an opinion. I don't know enough about his specific case to argue Froome's innocence or guilt. I just object to the idea of defending Lance Armstrong as a way to condemn Froome based on flimsy evidence.
 
JasperL said:
You said everyone else got off "scott free" and explicitly said Contador did. That's clearly false - a bunch of dopers including Contador from that era had their titles stripped and were forced out of the sport. Now you're moving the goal posts to "didn't get banned like Lance." Noted.
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Yeah, Contador did get off scott free- he wasnt banned- he continued to ride. Thats what I said right at the beginning. Its not my fault if you misunderstood it.

Even if true - so what. He tried his damnedest to ruin the lives of dozens of people who were TELLING THE TRUTH, all the while maintaining his own purity and innocence to the public, which was a damnable lie. Imagining an alternative reality where other people act like sociopaths and thugs doesn't absolve Lance's ACTUAL conduct even a little bit. He's deserving of nothing but scorn.
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Newsflash: every player maintained their innocence and fought tooth and nail until they were threatened by the government with jail time- only then did guys like Frankie Andreu turn witness against Lance.

Yeah so Lance was an a-hole, but was he banned for being an a-hole or for cheating? His other teammates did the exact same thing except maybe for the a-hole part (Floyd Landis is the exception). Frankie Andreu and Lance are both cheaters, yet one got banned and other didnt.

Fine, you have an opinion. I don't know enough about his specific case to argue Froome's innocence or guilt. I just object to the idea of defending Lance Armstrong as a way to condemn Froome based on flimsy evidence.
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Like I said Im not defending Lance- I dont deny he cheated. Im just curious as to why people are so hypocritical about cheating.
 
PoS said:
-Contador didnt get banned, even though he was using the exact same system as Lance did.
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He was banned for 1 year, and lost 2010 Tour de France and 2011 Giro wins. He was also suspended for several months while appealing the findings.

He did not test positive for EPO. He tested positive for clenbuterol, which is a very different drug. There's no indication that Contador forced his teammates to dope.


-Yes, Lance did attack others, but I bet if the other cheaters had the same money and power he had they would have done the same.
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That seems a tad unlikely. Lance was a singularly vicious individual, and few other athletes reacted to doping allegations the same way he did.


-As far as Froome goes, you either cheat or you dont. There's no levels of cheating. And Froome's money and influence is very close to Lance's now when he was winning his tours- and thats why they let him ride.
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Again, numerous other riders with just as much money and influence -- and far more popularity, I might add -- were busted. The conspiracy theories can't explain why Contador or Basso or Valverde or Rasmussen got nailed.

Anti-doping rules are not exactly nuanced, but they do give national sports federations some latitude over punishments. I may be wrong, but I believe that athletes busted for too much salbutamol have received slightly less harsh punishments than for EPO or steroids -- e.g. a 1 year suspension instead of 2 years.


Like I said, the dopers are well ahead of the game. But the fact that he tested positive for excessive levels of an asthma drug should be enough to suspend him from the tournament until a full, independent investigation is carried out, but the Tour organizers were too chicken to stand their ground.
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The UCI spent months working on this; from what I can tell, WADA was involved as well.

It should also be clear from examples like Landis that third parties will be vilified just as much as the anti-doping agencies. E.g. Landis and his fans spent months attacking everyone involved, including the LNDD, the Chatenay-Malabry lab, the UCI, WADA, ASO, the CAS, USADA, the design of the test, Greg Lemond, L'Express, the French...

I for one am skeptical that bringing in a 3rd party will ultimately improve confidence. If that 3rd party produces a finding that someone doesn't like, they will be blasted as "biased."

Ironically, 10 years ago the attacks would be if they proved that the rider doped. Today, the attacks are when it clears the rider. My, how times change....
 
Contador was banned from February 2012 to November 2012.

The problem for many years was that national anti-doping agencies had quite a bit of power when it came to sports. In the case of Lance Armstrong, the US anti-doping agency basically sacrificed him to save their own ass. After BALCO scandal, doping in baseball and suspected doping Gridiron.. the anti-doping agency was the laughing stock of the world. Add to that, that more and more old US sports stars admitting directly or hinting mass doping in the 1970s to 1990s at least, and you had a PR nightmare brewing. Busting Lance was a very successful attempt to distract from the corruption of the US anti doping agency. After all who tested him the most... or was supposed to do so? The national anti-doping agency.

As for Froome.... he is part of Team Sky, who's former captain Bradley Wiggins all but admitted doping. The investigation is on going but it ain't looking good as Wiggins doping goes back to at least 2011..and who came after Wiggins? Frome.

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PoS said:
Yeah, Contador did get off scott free- he wasnt banned- he continued to ride. Thats what I said right at the beginning. Its not my fault if you misunderstood it.
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Correct, I wouldn't call a temporary ban and having titles stripped getting off "scott free." Same with many other riders of that era.

Newsflash: every player maintained their innocence and fought tooth and nail until they were threatened by the government with jail time- only then did guys like Frankie Andreu turn witness against Lance.

Yeah so Lance was an a-hole, but was he banned for being an a-hole or for cheating? His other teammates did the exact same thing except maybe for the a-hole part (Floyd Landis is the exception). Frankie Andreu and Lance are both cheaters, yet one got banned and other didnt.
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Defend the lying sociopath if you want. We'll never agree on that because I don't consider making extraordinary efforts to ruin the lives of people telling the truth merely being an "asshole." And he got banned for life for a lifetime of cheating and lying and then his own decision not to fight the charges, which made his ban permanent.

Like I said Im not defending Lance- I dont deny he cheated. Im just curious as to why people are so hypocritical about cheating.
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But you are with the "everyone did it" excuse. It's just not true. Not everyone filed multiple, perhaps dozens, of lawsuits against people telling the TRUTH about what he did, and engaged in coordinated and well financed smear campaigns against little people who testified TRUTHFULLY about his cheating. Clearly everyone at the top of the sport for a while engaged in doping of one sort or another, but that's just a PART of the case against Lance Armstrong.

You're essentially excusing Armstrong for cheating with the "everyone did it" excuse, but of course when the guy at the pinnacle of the sport, on the most powerful team, with the most money and backing is cheating (i.e. Lance Armstrong) he is himself setting the table in a way that all his competitors have to cheat to have a chance to keep up. To be on his team meant to agree to doping. I have a lot more sympathy for the middle pack people trying to scratch out a cycling career than I do for the public face of cycling spending a career lying and cheating about how he got to the top, and trying to destroy those with less power simply telling the TRUTH. People with his kind of power and influence can use it for good or harm, and at every possible step, he chose the latter. He was at every step a malignant influence on the sport he supposedly led.
 
JasperL said:
Correct, I wouldn't call a temporary ban and having titles stripped getting off "scott free." Same with many other riders of that era.



Defend the lying sociopath if you want. We'll never agree on that because I don't consider making extraordinary efforts to ruin the lives of people telling the truth merely being an "asshole." And he got banned for life for a lifetime of cheating and lying and then his own decision not to fight the charges, which made his ban permanent.



But you are with the "everyone did it" excuse. It's just not true. Not everyone filed multiple, perhaps dozens, of lawsuits against people telling the TRUTH about what he did, and engaged in coordinated and well financed smear campaigns against little people who testified TRUTHFULLY about his cheating. Clearly everyone at the top of the sport for a while engaged in doping of one sort or another, but that's just a PART of the case against Lance Armstrong.

You're essentially excusing Armstrong for cheating with the "everyone did it" excuse, but of course when the guy at the pinnacle of the sport, on the most powerful team, with the most money and backing is cheating (i.e. Lance Armstrong) he is himself setting the table in a way that all his competitors have to cheat to have a chance to keep up. To be on his team meant to agree to doping. I have a lot more sympathy for the middle pack people trying to scratch out a cycling career than I do for the public face of cycling spending a career lying and cheating about how he got to the top, and trying to destroy those with less power simply telling the TRUTH. People with his kind of power and influence can use it for good or harm, and at every possible step, he chose the latter. He was at every step a malignant influence on the sport he supposedly led.
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For the fifth and last time, I am not defending Lance- Im merely questioning why he got banned and the others didnt.

What you are saying is that its okay to cheat, as long as youre being nice about it.

Armstrong's teammates werent slaves, they could have quit if they didnt want to be part of the program but they stayed and took the same amount of drugs he did. If anyone is excusing anybody its you excusing their actions.
 
PoS said:
For the fifth and last time, I am not defending Lance- Im merely questioning why he got banned and the others didnt.
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Nr. 1 reason.. he was not the money machine he use to be!
Nr. 2 reason.. US anti-doping needed a scapegoat!
 
PoS said:
For the fifth and last time, I am not defending Lance- Im merely questioning why he got banned and the others didnt.
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Yeah, whatever. "Everyone else did it too" is a defense of the guy. They didn't.

What you are saying is that its okay to cheat, as long as youre being nice about it.
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Nope, I'm saying there's a reason why someone who spent a career involved in a very high level program of cheating and who lied about it for years and smeared everyone who honestly accused him of being a doper, committing perjury in multiple lawsuits and before likely dozens of hearings, earned his lifetime ban, especially because the "lifetime" ban came about because he CHOSE not to contest the final charges.

It's like you're confused why someone might get 1 year for robbery of a single house, and another person caught robbing people for a decade and who committed a bunch of other crimes along the way and ran a criminal house robbing enterprise might get 5 years or 10 years.

Armstrong's teammates werent slaves, they could have quit if they didnt want to be part of the program but they stayed and took the same amount of drugs he did. If anyone is excusing anybody its you excusing their actions.
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And they were correctly punished.
 
PeteEU said:
Nr. 1 reason.. he was not the money machine he use to be!
Nr. 2 reason.. US anti-doping needed a scapegoat!
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I agree with the sentiment I think but using the term "scapegoat" implies he was somehow wrongly given a lifetime ban, and I can't agree with that.

He was guilty as charged, and earned his lifetime ban fair and square with a career of cheating, encouraging and forcing others to cheat, and using elaborate and frequently vindictive methods to cover it all up. Maybe saying they needed a high profile 'conviction' or 'trophy' might be a better way to phrase it.

But, yeah, the anti-doping agencies all knew he was cheating and didn't care because he was making everyone a lot of money, and putting a trophy like Lance on the wall was likely an attempt to regain some small bit of credibility.
 
JasperL said:
I agree with the sentiment I think but using the term "scapegoat" implies he was somehow wrongly given a lifetime ban, and I can't agree with that.
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No it was not wrong.. however who the **** cares? He was not and aint gonna be in the sport anyways.. he was retired!! and old!. So giving him a lifetime ban is stupid.

He was guilty as charged, and earned his lifetime ban fair and square with a career of cheating, encouraging and forcing others to cheat, and using elaborate and frequently vindictive methods to cover it all up. Maybe saying they needed a high profile 'conviction' or 'trophy' might be a better way to phrase it.
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He should have been put in jail..
 
PeteEU said:
No it was not wrong.. however who the **** cares? He was not and aint gonna be in the sport anyways.. he was retired!! and old!. So giving him a lifetime ban is stupid.
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I thought it appropriate to expose that lying POS for what he was, a lying, cheating, vindictive, POS.

He should have been put in jail..
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OK!
 
JasperL said:
I thought it appropriate to expose that lying POS for what he was, a lying, cheating, vindictive, POS.



OK!
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Well POS is POS...

And you do realize that Armstrong was dealing in drugs...last I looked it was illegal.

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RabidAlpaca said:
Don't we as sport fans deserve to see the absolute best performance the human body with modern science and chemicals can achieve? I say let everyone juice up and improve the viewing quality for all of us.
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Alright! The Juiced Olympics! Everything goes- drugs, clones, genetic mutation, gender transfer, all that's needed is a minimum of human DNA.
I see a ratings sweep like never before.
 
JasperL said:
And they were correctly punished.
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Slap on the wrist for nice cheaters eh? Oh well, thats you. For me, either they all get lifetime banned or they get ignored and drugs are allowed.
 
Visbek said:
~ However, at this time the evidence against Froome is insufficient. It's so thin that it shouldn't have even been released to the public.

I'm convinced that people just don't like Froome, and will latch onto anything to take him down ~
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Even in the UK, Froome has never had the same public recognition and accolades that other riders have had. Sky the organisation is disliked here too but people buy their services because there are few alternatives. (The dislike is because of Rupert Murdoch and his repeat attempt to buy over the rest of the organisation)
 
No, he was performing well above a two balled human being. But, as I always say, so was everyone else. Lance was the best on an even playing field.


RabidAlpaca said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't Lance's testosterone levels within the limits of a normal, two-balled human being? My understanding was he only used roids to get up to that normal level, and if that's the case I personally don't see the problem considering his situation.
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Infinite Chaos said:
Even in the UK, Froome has never had the same public recognition and accolades that other riders have had. Sky the organisation is disliked here too but people buy their services because there are few alternatives. (The dislike is because of Rupert Murdoch and his repeat attempt to buy over the rest of the organisation)
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The Murdoch angle is not as well known "on the continent" but by all accounts Froome has been boo-ed at just about every finish line that he crossed so far.

Temperatures being what they are right now, I chose to watch today's stage (rather than drive to the beach) and in one instance saw a spectator actually hit Froome on the back of the head in the climb up to Alpe d'Huez (where reduced speed of riders makes that possible).

I hope the gendarmerie apprehends that bugger and nails him to the nearest barn door.
 
TobyOne said:
No, he was performing well above a two balled human being. But, as I always say, so was everyone else. Lance was the best on an even playing field.
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Even where others doped as well, the playing field was far from level. Armstrong actually had the best dope, the most criminal energy in applying it and the greatest skill in creating the Mafiosi set-up that allowed him to bully the whole US Postal team to follow suit so as to be able to best support him.

And when he wasn't cycling he was threatening anyone who dared suggest he doped with lawsuits and other forms of retribution, some of them well outside the law.

He is a despicable specimen, a disgrace to sports in particular and to the human race in general.
 
Chagos said:
The Murdoch angle is not as well known "on the continent" but by all accounts Froome has been boo-ed at just about every finish line that he crossed so far.

Temperatures being what they are right now, I chose to watch today's stage (rather than drive to the beach) and in one instance saw a spectator actually hit Froome on the back of the head in the climb up to Alpe d'Huez (where reduced speed of riders makes that possible).

I hope the gendarmerie apprehends that bugger and nails him to the nearest barn door.
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Froome deserves the criticism he's getting. If he was honorable he should have not cycled in the tour and asked for an independent investigation.
 
Chagos said:
The Murdoch angle is not as well known "on the continent" but by all accounts Froome has been boo-ed at just about every finish line that he crossed so far.
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I genuinely feel sad for him if he is clean but I suspect he will use that as a motivation to rub the partisan public's nose in yet more victories.

Chagos said:
~ I hope the gendarmerie apprehends that bugger and nails him to the nearest barn door.
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Agreed, no sportsperson deserves that while in competition.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
I genuinely feel sad for him if he is clean but I suspect he will use that as a motivation to rub the partisan public's nose in yet more victories.
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Froome is definitely not clean. He himself admitted he tested positive. The UCI dropping their investigation is a travesty, and it shows nothing has changed in that sport.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
I genuinely feel sad for him if he is clean but I suspect he will use that as a motivation to rub the partisan public's nose in yet more victories..................................
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Yesterday's stage shows his team mate Geraint Thomas besting him for the second time in two days. Thomas shows to be extraordinarily strong, having not only out-cycled Froome in the last two mountain stages but everybody else as well, thus winning both. He's the first Brit to ever have won Alpe d'Huez.

No idea whether Sky is going to continue allowing him to upset the "stable order" (everyone rides for Froome), but it wouldn't be the first time the hierarchy gets re-shuffled in favour of the clearly stronger rider.

Froome became captain when Bradley Wiggins showed to be clearly weaker.

Of course there'll be those jeering over how Froome must have drawn back on the dope and passed it (and the related attention) on to Thomas, but Froome is doing very well in his own right. He's simply second and would thus still be in the yellow jersey now if not for Thomas .

The Pyrenees will tell.
 
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