79pmooney

Have to agree with mprelaw. Without EPO, LA would never have won the Tour. He showed absolutely nothing in his pre-cancer years to suggest he was a potential Grand Tour winner. But, as a rider with a naturally low hematocrit, he stood to benefit hugely form the effects of EPO, especially after UCI place a maximum on the "allowable" HCT. After that was in effect, riders with naturally high HCTs could not take EPO with riding going over, but those who were low could take massive amounts and still pass the test. And funny, a rider who never showed Grand Tour potential but who had a low natural HCT suddenly started winning. And by the time UCI started tightening up the testing and rules, there was so much complicity between that rider and his team and UCI that he was granted 20 minutes of advance notice before out of competition tests. (And delayed those testers as much as an hour at times.)

This same rider could make calls to UCI that so and so was doping and the next day, that rider would get busted with an out of competition test. This happened several times with riders who had a real possibility of upsetting Armstrong and breaking his Tour run.

So, no it was not a level playing field. Yes, the vast majority of the riders did banned drugs, but no, the best rider (in a drug free peloton) did not win those seven Tours. To strip that rider of his titles, probably justified on that alone. To strip such rider who in addition jeopardized other riders', journalists' and women's careers who spoke the truth with threats, influence, lawsuits and behaviors that would land most of us in jail; totally justified in my book.

Ben