Tour de France 2009

peronally, having been involved in relatively high level sport, ie to a level where, although personally i was never tested it was entirely because my name didn't happen to come out of the hat, i think its wrong to lable some1 a drugs cheat if they have never been "convicted".

There are procedures inplace, granted somewhaat unsuccessfully in cycling, if we don't trust them then any disscussion about drugs is pointless because you'll never be convinced. If you don't trust the system you might as well lable eveyone a cheat as none of there tests are valid.

I dont think he cheated, no, and regardless he's an exceptional athlete and one of the most proffessional sports people in the world

I'm sorry but your viewpoint is incredibly naive.

Take EPO as an example. It first started being used by cyclists in the late 1980s without medical supervision. Fifteen Dutch and Belgian amateur cyclists died due to taking it in large doses but the performance gains were such, around 15-30%, that usage became widespread, albeit with stricter medical supervision. I'm certain that every single rider who won the Tour from 1991 onwards was using it. There was no test to detect it until the Sydney Olympics in 2000 so a whole generation of professional cyclists got into the habit of using a banned substance, mainly because it couldn't be detected. Many of those same riders, i.e. Bruyneel, Riis, Aldag, Gianetti, are now running teams.

The doping method of choice now is to draw out some of your own blood and re-infuse it during a stage race to give a performance boost, i.e. more red blood cells mean more efficient oxygen uptake. There is no test for this but it remains banned by the UCI.

Professional road cycling is an incredibly seedy, sordid sport where cheating is seen as being part of the game by many. Some teams, mainly the French ones and Garmin, have moved to stand against this and are vocal in their anti-doping stance and are transparent and open to journalists and fans alike. They are the ones who should get support, not the likes of Riis, Bruyneel and Armstrong whose cheating, bullying and lying make them beyond contempt in my view.