Reid Rothchild

You really don't have any idea of what evidence is.

Evidence is analogous to a rope, not a chain. You add threads of evidence and the more threads are added, the stronger the rope is. Evidence is not like a chain where you throw out the chain with one broken link. Do you think the burden is to recreate crimes in real time, with all the pieces intact. 5 or 6 pieces of physical evidence is a huge amount. Most people are sent to prison on cases that are almost entirely circumstantial and circumstantial evidence can be very strong. Ted Bundy was sent to prison the first time on a microscopic fiber that he said was planted in his trunk. He was sent to death on somewhat equivocal, novel, bitemark evidence and a sole eyewitness id, in a dark hallway. Eyewitness id has the reputation of being very weak.
When someone testifies against you in court, that is evidence. Witness statements are evidence.

When the majority of Armstrong's team subsequently is banned for doping or admits to it, THIS IS EVIDENCE.

There is the evidence of Pharmstrong's long association with Ferrari which was a secret for almost 6 years.

There is direct evidence like LA testing positive for corticoids and checking off none on the form where they ask him if he has a TUE. You've either believed the Armstrong mythology about the saddle sore or got some second hand information here, but Armstrong was confronted by a LeMonde reporter at the time of the positive and asked why he denied having a TUE for 2 weeks. That's when all this French tabloid gutter press nonsense started appearing. Pharmstrong's response to the LeMonde, reporter's question was, "Mr. LeMonde, are you calling me a doper or a liar"?

The six EPO positives from '99.

The statements against Pharmstrong who have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose.

There's tons of this stuff.

Some of these pieces of evidence may be dismissed individually, but in totality they add up to a damning case that Armstrong was jacked to the sky.

The whole idea that there is a "smoking gun" out there somewhere is absurd.

IF the standard for guilt was as high as it seems you need it to be NO ONE WOULD EVER BE CONVICTED OF ANYTHING.

Your take on the situation that there is no evidence is so naive it's absurd.

I'm not a fan of pro cycling. I posted that in this thread. It's currently a drug infested cesspool and apparently most are ok with that.

I had talent and I'm relatively honest. Why would I be a fan of guys who are cheating? You're in grad school? Is it ok to plaguerize and cheat and steal other people's work? Your school has a code of conduct, doesn't it

Parkin was on ADR's B team, LeMond's team, but never rode with him. His talent was light years less than LeMond's yet you choose to smear LeMond and others with the broad brush that everyone doped because it took place in some Belgian back alley of cycling. Parkin was in the minor leagues of cycling.

Paul Kimmage made it to the big time and wrote "Rough Ride." He's Irish and exposed Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche. You think he would have hesitated a second to indict LeMond if there was any evidence or talk he doped? In fact he's friends with LeMond now, because there is nothing on LeMond from anyone, except the Pharmstrong threats, which never materialized. There's nothing on Bassons or Charly Mottet, who was the number 1 rider in the world for a time in the 80's.

I don't think you understand at all that it's complete bs to say, "they all do it." They don't and the fact that you believe it's necessary to do drugs says a lot about you in many ways.

Here's an excerpt from Willy Voet's book, Voet was the guy who was stopped at the French border in the Festina scandal of '98.

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/catalog...ata=0224061178

Mottet: one clean cyclist

In 1989 Voet joined the RMO team. A year later the French rider Charly Mottet,who twice finished fourth in the Tour de France, joined the team.

The arrival of Charly Mottet helped to clean up the team. He was the teamleader, he had more influence than anyone on the way his teammates thought andhe never wanted to know about drugs. When he arrived at RMO, we knew hardlyanything about him. We knew he had the ability to win the Tour de France, but wedidn't know what means we had to put at his disposal to help him get there. Itwas only as the races went by and we ate with him and spent time with him thatwe worked out what kind of a fellow we were dealing with. This was one cleancyclist. An iron supplement or an injection of an anti-oxidant (Iposotal) andthat was as far as he went.

You could honestly say that Mottet was a victim of drug-taking right through his career - of other riders' drug-taking. If he had used some stuff to help him recover, perhaps only now and then, the list of races which he won - already a long one - would have been considerably longer. Who knows if he might not have won the Tour? As it was, he was a rider who was said to fall apart in the final week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charly_Mottet

During his professional cycling career, Mottet had a reputation within the peloton as being a totally clean rider who never used performance enhancing drugs[1][2].

The guy came in 4th in the Tour and 2nd in the Giro in '90 without any PED's. Then Indurain and EPO came along and swept Mottet, LeMond, and any other clean rider out of the competition.

You missed my point about an 8th grader lacing up his shoes and running 4:40 for a mile. If you don't have the talent, no amount of drugs is going to enable most people to do that.

Facts are important. You should get yours together and stop making up narratives to suit your wishes or prejudices.

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

The Boxer
Simon and Garfunkel.