Lance Armstrong... greatest doper there was or ever will be

We know that Lance took EPO and steroids to recover from chemo. I've no idea how long for or how long it stays in the system, nor how big an amount was found. All we know is that at the moment official tests do not show Armstrong to be a doper, and yet people hate him for it.

The official tests conducted by the UCI have been shown to be worthless in the recent past. All the big names caught doping have pretty much been caught because of judicial investigations into organised doping rings involving criminal activity. The UCI have recognised this and finally tried to do something about it with the biological passport scheme but their 15-20 years of inactivity and tacit acceptance of doping is going to take some time to recover from.

Many legendary Tour de France winners were using drugs - Eddy mercx tested positive three times. Francesco Moser admitted doping, Jaques Anquetil even had a drug cocktail named after him. Simpson died in the saddle doped up to the eyeballs on speed. Do we reserve the same level of hatred for these people? No: we call them heroes.

Have you heard of moral relativism? You are judging the behaviour of the past on today's norms. When Anquetil and Simpson rode drug controls were non-existent, in fact it was Simpson's tragic early death which led to their introduction.

Anyway, the drug used up until the late 1980s were mainly psychological in effect not physiological so the best guys still won. Greg Lemond is exceptionally physically gifted with a V02Max of 92. Armstrong has one of 82 yet can produce approx 20-20% more power than Lemond. That kind of performance enhancement is only possible through the use of blood doping and other blood boosting doping techniques and these were introduced into the pro peleton in the early 1990s by the likes of Prof Francesco Conconi and his protege, Dr Michele Ferrari, who just happens to have worked with Armstrong.

Lance does act like a a tool too, but that doesn't excuse Lemond's behaviour - it's like he's on a personal vendetta against him.

Excuse me? So Armstrong using his influence on Trek to drop the Lemond brand, which they'd licensed from Greg Lemond, means Armstrong doesn't have a personal vendetta? You must be blinded by the PR.

I don't need to defend Lemond, he can do a perfectly fine job of that himself.