Originally Posted by Harold74

I feel that it is logically irrational to assume Greg Lamond's innocence. Kind to assume his innocence?? Yes. Fair? Yes. Rational? No, based on these arguments.

1) Pretty much everything that I've read, listened to, or viewed on the history of the Tour de France suggests that it was dirty pretty much from inception until, at the least, the end of the Lance Armstrong era. This included EPO, corticosteroids, beer, plain old train hopping, and who knows what else. What are the odd that everybody before LeMond took PEDs, everybody after LeMond took PEDs, but Greg himself did not take PEDs for that brief moment in cycling history? Not great I would say.

2) One of the reasons that Lance was able to persist in his doping and lying as long as he did is because much of the world insisted upon having incontrovertible evidence of Lance's guilt before condemning him. And look how well that turned out for us? One of the important lessons of the Armstrong episode is precisely that it is irrational to presume PED innocence when the incentive structure overwhelmingly supports PED use. One of the lessons that we should take from Lance's guilt is LeMond's probable guilt. Not certain guilt, probable guilt. Those are different.

3) Attia and San Millan discuss the Indurain case in a way that I feel is salient. My takeaway from that discussion is that they, like me, suspect that:

a) Indurain used PEDs like most everyone before him.

b) No serious attempt has been made to investigate Indurain or anyone before him because would be a public relations nightmare for cycling if the result wound up jus being "Yup, it was always dirty. Cyclists are just despicable".

Since LeMond preceded Indurain, he may have gotten a pass simply based on chronology. Sometime after Indurain, but before Lance, was where the cutoff was deemed to be best placed.

It is possible that Greg LeMond was innocent. I'm not refuting that. And if he was innocent, then the presumption of his guilt by association is a travesty. That said, I don't feel that anyone -- other than Greg -- is well served by denying what is likely the truth of the situation for a lack of incontrovertible truth.