achoo

What's "tricky" about it?

Secret evidence is acceptable?

Utterly ignoring the hard-and-fast statute of limitations from Article 17 is OK?

Applying rules enacted after-the-fact in contradiction of Article 25 is proper?

WADA's rules are so important USADA can break them to enforce them? That's kangaroo court.

colombo357

Actually it's not a real court at all. USADA can do whatever they want. UCI can also do whatever they want (to an extent), as they clearly have in the past.

What part of this do you not understand?

Armstrong tried to get the US court system to intervene. He failed.

achoo

OK, it's a witch hunt.

Big surprise.

colombo357

And George Bush planned 9/11.

And the moon landing was faked.

Correction: the moon landing was real, but it wasn't Neil Armstrong who first set foot on the moon; it was Lance Armstrong.

Tell your mom to drive you to Barnes & Noble so that you can read Tyler Hamilton's book. Or ride your bike there. You know what a bike is, right?

sloppy robot

First rule of Lance Discussing: Anyone who uses the terms "kangaroo court" and/or "witch hunt" can be skipped without reading.

mprelaw

You can toss "hearsay" into that mix, too.

atallen223

Okay here are my two cents. After passing every test they gave him and surviving a DOJ investigation he was hit with an investigation from a department that already had it's mind made up and wanted to prove it's relevance in the world. I'm sorry but the only reason USADA went after Armstrong was to make a name for themselves. They were totally shameless. If he doped I honestly don't care because Ullrich, Landis, Zabel, Vinokourov, Pantani all doped. Hell even Merckx was freaking caught. While all of them doped none of them inspired people or worked with charity like Lance did.

jbenkert111

Well said, put me in your camp.

colombo357

Read Tyler Hamilton's book and you'll realize how silly you sound. You can pretend that his book is full of lies, but you'd be ignoring the fact the he testified under oath in front of a grand jury, mentioning the same details he wrote in the book, and those details were likely corroborated by the testimonies of over a dozen other people.

Why single out Lance if everyone doped? Because what he did from 1999 to 2005 went far beyond his own personal doping. His cancer survival story is what got him money and sympathy, a powerful combination, and he used his power to essentially control doping in the peleton... everyone else had to scramble to compete with him and subsequently got caught, while his positive tests in 99 and 01 were brushed under the rug.

Jeff Novitzky didn't drop the investigation. Someone higher up pulled the plug with no explanation. USADA was handed all of the evidence and simply couldn't ignore it. The reason why USADA is going after Armstrong is likely because they can't go after the UCI directly. Dozens of people's testimonies corroborate the fact the UCI is corrupt, and serious changes need to happen with the UCI to clean up the sport. Going after Armstrong implicates the UCI.

Armstrong made a smart move by declining arbitration, but we surely haven't seen the end of it.

Pug

I wonder how long until this stuff makes it to the pro peleton. Sounds better than EPO.

ultraman6970

I bet they tried it years ago already. A brazilian that raced for the lotto back in the 90s died because they got him in a regime of experimental drugs. He never got caught but he got a nasty cancer and died. In a matter of fact had to retire quite young too.

Smirob

Why is it so hard for people to believe Lance is a cheat? OK, let me see if I understand this right, damn near everyone was cheating but Lance wasn't, but Lance kicked their asses seven years in a row. It just doesn't make sense. The simple answer is he cheated too.

colombo357

Yes, thank you, but we're way beyond that at this point...

Snowman219

Lance Armstrong: Could I get a bottle of water. - - Hey, aren't you Peter La Fleur?
Peter La Fleur: Lance Armstrong!
Lance Armstrong: Yeah, that's me. But I'm a big fan of yours.
Peter La Fleur: Really?
Lance Armstrong: Yeah, I've been watching the dodgeball tournament on the Ocho. ESPN 8. I just can't get enough of it. But, good luck in the tournament. I'm really pulling for you against those jerks from Globo Gym. I think you better hurry up or you're gonna be late.
Peter La Fleur: Uh, actually I decided to quit... Lance.
Lance Armstrong: Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and I won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit. So what are you dying from that's keeping you from the finals?
Peter La Fleur: Right now it feels a little bit like... shame.
Lance Armstrong: Well, I guess if a person never quit when the going got tough, they wouldn't have anything to regret for the rest of their life. But good luck to you Peter. I'm sure this decision won't haunt you forever.

Eat it Lance.

Homebrew01

It's simple ... Lance was super holy most awesomest cyclist bike racer dude ever in the whole world ...... That's why he was able to beat the dopers.

Racer Ex 

Some poor reasoning here.

"They are singling out Lance" This ignores all the other investigations and suspensions of top level riders from Lance's era, some of which have concluded quite recently

"It was a level playing field" No, it wasn't. Some riders could not afford the 6 figure payments to "doctors" for the best programs. There's a fairly long list of people who got sick or died trying to keep up on a smaller budget.

And blood manipulation has a natural (and rule based) limiter on how high you can go. This favors people with lower hematocrit who might be able to get a 10% boost vs. riders who might have naturally high hematocrit and only be able to boost 2%.

"They all were doping" No, they weren't. Do some reading and you'll find that a fair number of racers rode clean, stopped doping, or quit the sport rather than subject themselves to PED's. Hincapie's move to BMC, and the interesting fact that he never raced with Lance again by his own statement references moving away from doping.

"This is old news" Lance's last TDF was only a couple of years ago. To a trained eye it was obvious that when the federal investigation was made public, his performance fell off dramatically. Apparently that was also noted in his blood tests.

"Doping doesn't win grand tours" Physiologically, blood doping is much more effective in a 3 week Tour because, unlike a one day race, all the performance components (red blood cells, testosterone, Etc) decline severely over a three week tour without resorting to PED's or blood manipulation. This is well documented as is the ability to restore those levels by PED's or blood doping.

Commodus

It's interesting to see the mental gymnastics that people try to force upon themselves to make this nonsense stick. Make a name for themselves? Shameless?

baj32161

True, but the changes that may result can be a good thing.

Allez3

Not saying Lance is innocent, but have you read the 200 pages? Talk about mental gymnastics.

Allez3

Recovery (EPO) and replacement (MP40X) are two different things.

Racer Ex 

It probably already has.

Racer Ex 

"Basically it's a drug which takes up oxygen and delivers it..."

EPO creates more red blood cells that then deliver (more) oxygen.

For the purposes of a PED, the effect, if this actually works, would be the same.

And it would circumvent all the current EPO markers. You'd have to think it would be easily detectable, once WADA moves on it, lists it, and develops a test. In the mean time people who were using it (again, if it worked), would be riding at the front of the peleton destroying everybody just like in the old Postal days.

wabbit

I think it's sad that someone who was a big hero to so many built his career on a lie. It's sad because he did do a lot to enhance cycling in North America. There are more teams, more people are cycling, the sport has become bigger, it's even on tv more. I think that should continue in SPITE of Lance. He's a jerk and abused people's trust, and frankly, I always suspected him from the getgo. It was kind of the same with poor Pantani, although his doping wasn't on such a huge scale and he probably didn't do it as much as Lance. Pantani was so hugely popular with the fans that, dope or not, he did a lot to make the giro even more popular, him and Cipollini. Fans showed up in droves just to see them because they just LOVED them, especially after Pantani won the tour. That has not changed, because the Giro's popularity with fans has soared since the 90s and all the scandals haven't changed that, for the fans and for people who love cycling in italy. Italian fans seem to be able to forgive anything anyways, when it comes to their sports heroes. While they recognize that Pantani was a deeply flawed and troubled guy, dope or not he was an incredibly talented rider and one of the best climbers of all time. It may be different with Lance, who just refuses to even acknowledge that anyone was affected at all.

Clarabelle

I agree. To me, it was a lot like getting a ticket for running a red light just because they know that you have probably run a light in the past. If he tested clean, I don't see how they can "convict" on that. As far as the others claiming he did, what kind of pressure was exerted to get them to accuse him? The whole thing is a mess.

bgilchrist

The USADA report is a joke. Unfortunately, most who stand by it won't read it in it's entirety and won't take the 5 minutes to read enough to realize there are some serious, serious credibility issues.

Lance quit his fight on what? August 23rd? Because USADA had all these riders who testified to him doping. Read the dates on the affidavits. Most are September/October this year. Yet USADA had this evidence before August 23rd?

Most damning is Michael Barry's affidavit. It's dated October 8th. The 200 page report was released October 10th at noon. Yet quotes and references from Barry's affidavit are fully integrated into the report. That's impossible.

Did Lance dope? I don't know. But I do know that USADA doesn't know either and for some reason is out to throw innuendo and can't support their position or paper with their backup documents.