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

U_G

you've negelected to mention all the marvellous work you've done for charities in Bratislava [and all that money you spent on ferrying your mates around in taxis was a legitimate charity expense]

Lols. I've parked my car hundreds of times without getting a ticket, I am the most parked car driver in the world. Everybody who knows me knows I would never park illegally, and I know this myself, which is what counts.

So, no more Phil Liggett then......

“He told me in a private situation, when I wasn’t working as a journalist. I was sat in the bedroom some years ago, and I asked him point blank, ‘look Lance, the way I talked you up on television, I would have to back off and resign if you one day went positive’. And he looked at me and he said ‘man I’ve seen death in the face and I don’t take drugs.’ And that’s all he said. I have no reason to disbelieve him.”

Looks pretty spangled to me..

Bernard Hinauld offers his typically succinct, thoughtful evaluation of the Lance Armstrong affair:

"I don't f*ing care. It's his problem not mine. It's a problem that should have been solved 10 or 15 years ago and that wasn't."**

.

I think they're best off just declaring 1999 - 2005 Tours null and void.

1999

1. Lance Armstrong
   
2. Alex Zülle (‘98 busted for EPO)
   
3. Fernando Escartín (Systematic team doping exposed in ‘04)
   
4. Laurent Dufaux (‘98 busted for EPO)
   
5. Ángel Casero (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
   

2000

1. Lance Armstrong
   
2. Jan Ullrich (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
3. Joseba Beloki (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
4. Christophe Moraue (‘98 busted for EPO)
   
5. Roberto Heras (‘05 busted for EPO)
   
   

2001

1. Lance Armstrong
   
2. Jan Ullrich (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
3. Joseba Beloki (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
4. Andrei Kivilev
   
5. Igor González de Galdeano (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
   

2002

1. Lance Armstrong
   
2. Joseba Beloki (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
3. Raimondas Rumšas (Suspended in ‘03 for doping)
   
4. Santiago Botero (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
5. Igor González de Galdeano (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
   

2003

1. Lance Armstrong
   
2. Jan Ullrich (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
3. Alexander Vinokourov (Suspended in ‘07 for CERA)
   
4. Tyler Hamilton (Suspended ‘04 for blood doping)
   
5. Haimar Zubeldia
   
   

2004

1. Lance Armstrong
   
2. Andreas Kloden (Named in doping case in ‘08)
   
3. Ivan Basso (Suspended in ‘07 for Operacion Puerto ties)
   
4. Jan Ullrich (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
5. Jose Azevedo (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
   

2005

1. Lance Armstrong
   
2. Ivan Basso (Suspended in ‘07 for Operacion Puerto ties)
   
3. Jan Ullrich (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
4. Fransico Mancebo (‘06 implicated in Operacion Puerto)
   
5. Alexander Vinokourov (Suspended in ‘07 for CERA)
   
   

Wouldn't it be better to accept all of those as doping races and let who ever tested clean enough (lance) keep the title anyway?

Thats what they do with the olympics, where any of the sports which require pushing biological limits have universal doping across the board, and everyone knows it. But because everyone is using, it makes it fair. You cannot guarantee anybody is clean, so why not just accept that who ever doesn't test positive at the time of competition to be the legitimate winner? I reckon relying on testimonies is a bad road to go down.

Without the drugs the same people would win, the drugs just step everything up.

^ I was thinking more or less the same earlier.

It's not all about individual choice though, is it?

My biggest problem with Lance is that he seems to have been very active in encouraging, facilitating and enforcing doping in his teams.

you might say 'well everyone was doing it' but 90's show what happens when everyone starts a kind of doping-war, young riders with shit docs dying in their sleep with blood like syrup and fat cunts beasting up mountains faster than scrawny climbing specialists a decade earlier.

It makes for shit viewing, becomes more like WWF and endangers athletes. Armstrong paid Ferrari the most, so he got the victories and the know-how. Fuck him and his titles-they can give them to the guy driving the broom wagon for all I care.

Wouldn't it be better to accept all of those as doping races and let who ever tested clean enough (lance) keep the title anyway?

Thats what they do with the olympics, where any of the sports which require pushing biological limits have universal doping across the board, and everyone knows it. But because everyone is using, it makes it fair. You cannot guarantee anybody is clean, so why not just accept that who ever doesn't test positive at the time of competition to be the legitimate winner? I reckon relying on testimonies is a bad road to go down.

Without the drugs the same people would win, the drugs just step everything up.

The problem with that is that whilst the vast majority did dope, not everyone did. So it wasn't a level playing field amongst all participants, just amongst the top 10 (or whatever).

You could then argue that if everyone knew that you'd be allowed to take drugs, that some of the others we never even noticed (because they weren't at the same level) may have been able to win if they too had taken drugs.

So you still have the hypothetical scenario in which the winner may have been different if everyone had been permitted to take drugs.

There were a lot of good riders around. Not everyone took drugs. Clearly though, the very best did as drugs only give you a couple % advantage but races are won by less than that amount.

"The everyone is doing it so it's fair" argument also falls over as oxygen vector doping/ transfusions used in cycling can have massive benefits to one rider and next to nothing for the next guy with identical power output to begin with but a naturally high blood cell count.

The % weren't small at all, the interview with Johnathan Vaughters on Bicycling gave examples of a >20% improvement in climbing power possible if your blood cell % was naturally low whilst he might have only got a 5% boost as he was already at the 50% limit before doping.

a guilty conscience needs to confess...

The whole 50% hematocrit limit and the way that was flaunted is is shady as fuck.

It's not all about individual choice though, is it?

My biggest problem with Lance is that he seems to have been very active in encouraging, facilitating and enforcing doping in his teams.

you might say 'well everyone was doing it' but 90's show what happens when everyone starts a kind of doping-war, young riders with shit docs dying in their sleep with blood like syrup and fat cunts beasting up mountains faster than scrawny climbing specialists a decade earlier.

It makes for shit viewing, becomes more like WWF and endangers athletes. Armstrong paid Ferrari the most, so he got the victories and the know-how. Fuck him and his titles-they can give them to the guy driving the broom wagon for all I care.

Repped.

The corruption involved – that's cancer Lance.

It's been said before in this thread but the '99 TDF was supposed to be a turning point after the Festina doping scandal of '98 with the teams apparently accepting the arms race couldn't continue and that everyone should just calm it down.

Then US Postal turned up to the party with a keg of EPO and said "fuck this shit you pussies" and the other teams had to react and here we are all now.

Every era is 'the cleanest cycling has ever seen', for a while. God it's depressing.

This business finally says "Nobody, no matter how big, how successful, how influential, can be allowed to dope with impunity."

Lance always seemed to thing "you can't touch me. I'm the 7-times winner." His bluff has been called.

That in itself is fucking important.

They should just award the Maillot Jaune to the Lanterne Rouge in each year.

enters TDF

Every era is 'the cleanest cycling has ever seen', for a while. God it's depressing.

Im sorry, but lets face it....this is amazing!!! Finally he's getting fucked.

Actually I slipped onto the back of the Peloton and rode across Tower Bridge on the grand depart.
I could be in here.

"The everyone is doing it so it's fair" argument also falls over as oxygen vector doping/ transfusions used in cycling can have massive benefits to one rider and next to nothing for the next guy with identical power output to begin with but a naturally high blood cell count.

The % weren't small at all, the interview with Johnathan Vaughters on Bicycling gave examples of a >20% improvement in climbing power possible if your blood cell % was naturally low whilst he might have only got a 5% boost as he was already at the 50% limit before doping.

Damn straight. And 5% is fucking massive regardless.