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

bert and lance, sitting in a tree...

"My relationship with Lance is non-existent. Even if he is a great champion, I have never had admiration for him and I never will"

Met Lance last night at a post-race cocktail party/livestrong art exhibition. He arrived at around 9.30 PM surrounded by a throng of security guys + important peeps, was ushered in a room of the art gallery for a while, with Tom Sachs, Ed Rusha and other artists, then came and mingled with us. I took him aside and asked him if he'd want to play polo. He said he's seen pictures of it, and thought it was interesting. I reminded him about his tall bike antics and he said something like "as long as it's got two wheels and handlebars I'll ride anything..."
Anyway he was really nice and seemed pretty open minded.
We all drank tequila shots from Tom Sachs' Lance Tequila Bike For Girls

Superted was drunk.

yorgo

Not a bad expo that ...but why did they put all the cool bikes in the garden?

yeah the Marc Newson bike in the garden looked pretty nice, would love to see that disc wheel spin - apparently it does something funny.
were you there?

Some of the old posts in this thread are hilarious. Its like when someone disses Steve Jobs and all the Apple fanboys leap to his defence.

"A champion is also measured on how much he respect his teammates and opponents," wrote Armstrong on his Twitter feed"

shame that didn't extend to Simeoni then.

he's a cockmuncher extraordinaire who believes his own bullshit.

hahaha, just read last few posts, will go back and have a look see.... but

@ mrsmyth...cockmuncher extraordinaire, hahaha, farkin funny that comment...

http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=8691

read the above article. it's not so funny

Exactly, which is what made his apparent surprise all the stranger. I have to admit I am no fan of Millar - and wasn't before his positive - and have never been as impressed with his 'intelligence' as some people.

+1

Police reports when he got busted made me laugh, he denied everything, completely.
Until they showed him the phone taps...

Lance is so kind hearted he had someone sift through his 1.4m followers on Twitter to block the account of the website who do a comic strip that takes the piss out of him.

lol
"i figured you'd be a cancer lovin douche"

So, do I love or hate him - neither he is a public figure I do not know and until I meet him personally only his bike riding, cancer recovery story and good works are what I judge him on. On the last 2 he is amazing and bully for him to both capitalize on and help so many with his story.

On the bike he also is amazing, is he as amazing as the Cannibal or the other greats who rode everything all year long and did the hour? I don’t think so.

Did he dope? I like to think that if you almost die of something that could come from the environment you are not going to ingest things that may make it happen again (he might have taken stuff as a tri-athlete teen and learned his lesson). Italian doctor Michele Ferrari could have doped others and just been a very good doctor for Lance (OK that may be naive but possible).

Lastly I do not trust Lemond because I think that in his first winter as a pro he took steroids to bulk up and never did it again and became a holier than thou whiner and can not believe Lance could do it with out.

There I’ve said it and I hope its clear who I like and how much cause I wouldn’t go to bed with any politician, celebrity, musician, bikeridin fool like Hippy!

"A champion is also measured on how much he respect his teammates and opponents," wrote Armstrong on his Twitter feed"

shame that didn't extend to Simeoni then.

Exactly. That was cunty.

Did he dope? I like to think that if you almost die of something that could come from the environment you are not going to ingest things that may make it happen again (he might have taken stuff as a tri-athlete teen and learned his lesson). Italian doctor Michele Ferrari could have doped others and just been a very good doctor for Lance (OK that may be naive but possible).

You know he rode the tour 4 times before Cancer. He was pretty unspectacular (withdrew 3 times - although he did win a couple of stages). So why would you think he only doped as a triathelete teen?

Its just so coincidental that most of Ferrari's clients are caught or admit to doping later. Also most of his old teammates have admitted to it. It seems out of step that they'd all be doing it and he wasn't and he had to have known they were doing it, in which case he's complicit and thus not deserving of his victories.

I don't know about the complicit if the teammates were doing it... I was not always aware of what my teammates did.

As to his early career, like all crossovers (Eric Heiden took 2 years and had to shrink his thighs from 27 inch to 23s before having any good results), he might have done better if he had doped?

But all of this is just speculation and although I would like him to be a clean rider I would be naive to think that he is a pure as driven snow.

Ferrari was convicted of supplying doping products to cyclists, although he successfully appealed against his conviction on a technicality. No-one goes to him for 'training plans', they go to get access to the knowledge he has on being able to run a doping program that a) improves performance and b) avoids detection. He is believed to charge 10% of a rider's income for his services, so something like $1.5 million dollars per annum for Armstrong.

but lance has been tested positive. there is a link that i posted somewhere in this thread about an australian scientist who retested samples given to him by the uci with just numbers to identify each sample, a journalist then managed to get hold of the names linking to these numbers.
Lance was directly linked to samples testing positive but the uci did nothing and the press said very little.

I know, read this for a fairly Armstrong-centric view;

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong_accused_of_EPO_doping

The Vrijman report was publically condemned by WADA;

http://www.redorbit.com/news/sports/524948/wada_blast_as_farcical_report_clearing_armstrong/index.html

but lance has been tested positive. there is a link that i posted somewhere in this thread about an australian scientist who retested samples given to him by the uci with just numbers to identify each sample, a journalist then managed to get hold of the names linking to these numbers.
Lance was directly linked to samples testing positive but the uci did nothing and the press said very little.

Well that's that then, that sounds like a well organised test.

The reason Armstrong got off is due to technicalities, namely as the test was being conducted as research, to test the EPO urine test, then it didn't follow the correct anti-doping procedure, especially with regard to a and b samples. However, the science behind the test cannot be doubted, there was traces of synthetic EPO in the urine.

Damien Ressiot, the journalist who wrote the story, had access to the numbers on the samples. He then requested that the UCI provide him with the details against those numbers and, from this, deduced who they belonged to. There is no doubt they were Armstrong's.

So we have Armstrong's urine with EPO in it. No case was bought because the UCI, led at the time by Hein Verbruggen, effectively washed their hands of it.

Why do the other blokes get caught.. Rico, Schumaker, Kohl, Rebellin, Di Luca, etc. How are some of these guys continually avoiding being caught when others who should have enough money for it get busted?

So we have Armstrong's urine with EPO in it.

speak for yourself, I'm more of a Grolsch man at the moment

Grolsch? I'd rather Urine d' EPO :P

i'll set 'em up, you knock 'em down

Knock 'em back? :)

Why do the other blokes get caught.. Rico, Schumaker, Kohl, Rebellin, Di Luca, etc. How are some of these guys continually avoiding being caught when others who should have enough money for it get busted?

No-one knew CERA could be traced by the testers until after they caught Ricco. Then Schumacher, Kohl and Rebellin were caught shortly after, so I assume they thought they could get away with it.

How many of the top names are caught due to criminal activity rather than tests by the anti-doping authorities? The likes of Basso, Ullrich, Scarponi and Valverde were caught because there was paper evidence that they'd been doping, i.e. money changing hands and their blood being stored by a gynaecologist in Spain.

Pierre Bordry has said this week that he thinks there was autologous blood doping at the Tour, for which there remains no reliable test, and that there were new drugs, some of which are still in clinical trials, being used;

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/afld-president-suspects-new-drugs-in-peloton

How can the testers stay ahead of the dopers if they have access to products that are not even commercially available yet?