Originally Posted by Trevor98
I believe the presumption is "innocent until proven guilty." So far there is no proof of guilt on Armstrong. The Tour is the last chance to get that proof. No one has ever met the burden of proof- rumors are easy to start, suspicion needs no facts, and allegations do not need to be grounded.
Mcgwire didn't test positive either, the only witness against Mcgwire is a self promoting former player with a new book out. The witness is suspect.
I am not saying that either one of these former athletes were clean, but as we do not have evidence showing otherwise we must give them the benefit of the doubt.
there's lots of "evidence" it's circumstantial and indirect but it is there an it is grounded and factual... so i'll respecfully disagree with your assessment there. It just happens that in this case the UCI requires a smoking gun or in this exact case a smoking vein (and i wouldn't actually have it any other way). but in murder trials, circumstantial and indirect evidence is used every day to convict individuals... look at Scott Peterson.. there was no direct evidence that he had a hand in his wife's and unborn child's murder just a mountain of indirect evidence.
As for Armstrong there is at least enough indirect and circumstantial evidence to have a few discussions on a BBS about. Everyone has their own threshold of how much indirect evidence it takes to raise and eyebrow, say he's probably guilty, say i have very little doubt that he's guilty etc. I would be very surprised if: Armstrong, working for years with a doctor covicted of sporting fraud in Italy for his involvment with performance enhancing drugs, the Actovegin USP incident and the corticosteroids test and his weird performance curve (i.e. going from good single day/classic rider to greatest TdF/stage race rider in the history of the sport) isn't at least enough to raise an ebrow?