xfimpg

Hmmm... does this mean that Ulle may be potentially inheriting 3 TDF wins?

collegeskier

I doubt he will be stripped of them not matter what the outcome of the court case is. It is probably in Lances best interest to just prolong this as far as that goes. Remember that Barne Riis has admitted to doping during his Tour win, they initially just removed his name from the record books and left it blank for a year before reinstating him as a winner with a note that he doped.

AzTallRider

He can go to prison for fraud, and still not be stripped of his titles. That would require a UCI, Wada (or whichever acronym is applicable) determination.

bellweatherman

I hope that they leave him with an asterik to show that it wasn't a win, to show that it was obtained through cheating, and as a reminder of what was done.

I think that they will just award it to the next available rider down in the standings from Armstrong. Would prefer to asterisk thugh so history can remember the 7 years of cheating, not winning.

I_like_cereal

I do not know much about this, but how do we know that he really doped?
We have old blood draws and the chance that something he ate prompted the bad test (Contador)

Just looking at sports from the outside I see the 1% athletes come under the greatest scrutiny. However the other 99% are free to dope and cheat. Why are the 1%s treated differently.

Did this "blood enhancer" really contribute to the overall win? Did it make him superhuman? I really doubt it. We aren't talking the baseball steroid thing here where guys are crushing balls 500' and gain massive size.

Could it just be that professional cyclists are jealous and covetous of what he accomplished?

I know that Cytosport Muscle Milk had similar problems in the NCAA. The properties in the product broke down in body and turned up as banned substances. They corrected that with a Collegiate formula.

I do not know anything about Lance. He has money and money buys miracles, Christopher Reeve is a good example. He survived cancer and still managed to train himself to do what he did.

Unless and until they start testing everyone that races, regardless of placement, in the pros and determine how certain things are broken down and the by products that breakdown produces testing is useless.

FlashBazbo

If Lance is stripped of his victories, they need to leave the record blank. Otherwise, they're just awarding them to the 2nd-place doper.

SouthFLpix

I do not believe the US has the authority to strip his Tour victories, but if they are stripped by the UCI (which would shock me), I would be in favor of leaving '99-05' without a winner, with an asterisk explaining the doping scandal.

luxroadie

Probably the smartest thing ever said on BF. I'll go check ... could also be the first smart thing ...

DiabloScott

The only long-term solution is to stop keeping track of who wins anyway.

K.Katso

Yep. Every second-placed rider from 1999-2005 was either implicated in a doping case or was strongly suspected of being involved. Pretty much every one of them shows up in the Operation Puerto investigation. The 1999 winner even admitted to using EPO while riding for Festina in 1998. Basso even served a ban. Are they going to to back and re-test every B-sample from every rider from 1999-2005 to try to find the cleanest rider to award the win to? Good luck finding that guy.

rogwilco

Because despite his lies of having been tested 500 times without testing positive, he has actually tested positive a number of times. That in addition to the mounting testimonial evidence that he was a habitual PED user.

Firstly, Contador is obviously (to me) lying about that too, and secondly, not to many cows being treated with EPO (if that even transfers through meat).

That's a good question actually, since there seems to be a class of riders that are protected from testing positive by the UCI and others who are offered to the public as sacrifical lambs.

Yes, absolutely, it is that effective.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

They are testing pretty much everyone, even outside of races, but you are half right that the testing is useless. Where you are wrong imo is in thinking that the sheer number of tests is the problem, while I think that's only part of it. A bigger problem is the corruption in the UCI and how they select which riders they allow to be tested positive and which riders are protected. And that doesn't just go back to Armstrong, you can see something very similar with how Contador's positive was handled.

telebianchi

I like this idea. I think think it would be the best way for TdF to show that there truly was a clean rider/winner of the great race. And while it may take a while to get through all of the testing, it will then become clear that the actual winner of the 2004 and 2005 TdF was:

telebianchi


Yay!!!!!! WhooHooo!!!!!! I won without doping!!!!!

jeffpoulin

There's no reason for the UCI to strip all 7 victories. AFAIK, the only physical evidence of LA doping was during the '99 tour and it was only discovered years later when they had an effective test for EPO. Not saying that he didn't dope for the other tours, just that there's no physical evidence of it. Without that, or an admission of guilt, there's isn't much anyone can do. This isn't like asking Rasmussen to leave the tour in 2007 due to strong suspicion of doping (or lying about his whereabouts during out of competition training). You're talking about rewriting history here, and if the UCI does that for Lance, they'll have to do it for almost every TdF winner going back 60 years.

daveF

110th place was injecting EPO. An asterisk is useless unless the entire peloton is given an asterisk. Wasn't just the podium or top ten, it was entire teams.

Hairy Hands

You seem to have a serious bone to pick with Lance based on many of your posts. I notice you are from the same city Austin. I'm curious as to what he did to you? Outside the obvious doping issues that are being discussed.

Malloric

As far as I can tell, the doping rules are just there to catch the most egregious offenders. As long as you limit your doping to the plausibly deniable (such as "contaminated steaks with a side of plasticizers" and half of cyclists taking prescription asthma bronchiodilators), you're good to go. Most of the riders getting caught are the ones whose bio passport levels are beyond genetically mutated freak of nature category. Obviously, they were doping to get there, but often they never get caught doping.

I think we're in a new era of managed doping now. It's obviously impossible to detect doping in most cases. Catching and banning a few riders because they randomly screw up or get unlucky while the rest of the field continues doping isn't really fair and doesn't achieve anything either. Instead, the focus is shifting to analytically measuring certain indicators so that the rampant and unstoppable doping is at least done relatively safely and consistently throughout the field.