Originally Posted by
rogwilco
Armstrong was never banned for doping, but that's not the same thing as having never failed a test. The 1999 EPO tests couldn't be used against him for purely procedural reasons, not for scientific reasons. That's like a thief who gets acquitted because the police didn't read his Miranda rights. He doesn't go to prison, but he's still a thief.
That's the point: Is it procedural? Aside from the fact that no one has proven the numbers match Armstrong, governing bodies have questioned the ethics of the process as well as the fact that there's no way to know for sure if the tests were done properly against uncontaminated samples. That goes way past procedural.
Thats like saying we have a guys fingerprints, but they may or may not be this guys fingerprints, and we may or may not have gotten them from the scene of the crime.