Lance Armstrong found guilty of doping

I smell a witch hunt. I've read up on it, and I'm sure that Lance Armstrong was doping -speculation on my part-, but this just screams witch hunt. Where is the proof? So far we have a bunch of disgruntled cyclists ratting out Lance. That's all well and nice, but show me the evidence! Show me the evidence! It's all well and nice that these guys are stabbing someone in the back, but where is Lance's pee-pee test failure? USADA got threatened by some higher authority (Jesus, probably) and is reacting in the most severe way possible.

Strip Lance of his titles, coerce his sponsors to drop him, and tarnish his reputation. Sickening!

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Originally Posted by gloomyDAY

I smell a witch hunt. I've read up on it, and I'm sure that Lance Armstrong was doping -speculation on my part-, but this just screams witch hunt. Where is the proof? So far we have a bunch of disgruntled cyclists ratting out Lance. That's all well and nice, but show me the evidence! Show me the evidence! It's all well and nice that these guys are stabbing someone in the back, but where is Lance's pee-pee test failure? USADA got threatened by some higher authority (Jesus, probably) and is reacting in the most severe way possible.

Strip Lance of his titles, coerce his sponsors to drop him, and tarnish his reputation. Sickening!

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read post 72 and the links in it:

http://www.motorsportforums.com/chit...ml#post1073330

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Originally Posted by gloomyDAY

That's all well and nice, but show me the evidence! Show me the evidence!

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Positive retrospective EPO tests on blood samples taken before the EPO test was introduced in 2000.

High EPO levels in a group of samples that include (but are not exclusively for) Lance from the Tour de Suisse 2001 with a refusal by Armstrong to give consent for his own sample result to be specifically made public.

Reduced reticulocyte count in samples from races in 2009 onwards in keeping with autologous blood transfusion.

Read the report. Its all in there.

He didn't test positive because as the report says, he and his team worked out how to get around the testing procedures. As EPO is only detectable for a short time after it's injected, it was just a matter of making sure you weren't tested during that time - which turned out was easy.

Plus the blood doping which went on after the EPO test was introduced is not detectable as its your own blood. It shows as highly suspicious when certain levels in the blood are high after being so far through a race and after previous low readings.

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Well, looks like the bureaucrats have had their day in the sun.

Now, the real work begins.

Who, out of the present group of cyclists, will be able to sustain a chain of wins during a given season, muchless a TdeF win, and do it "clean". The hard part being trying this endeavor in the age of 'social media', where anyone with a smartphone and a youtube/twitter account can become an unofficial reporter.

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Originally Posted by Mark

He didn't test positive because as the report says, he and his team worked out how to get around the testing procedures. As EPO is only detectable for a short time after it's injected, it was just a matter of making sure you weren't tested during that time - which turned out was easy.

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In the report it says clearly that a retrospective retest of the 1999 samples (when EPO testing was not performed and therefore Lance and his team presumably didn't make any attempt to circumvent them) came back as positive. Once EPO testing was introduced from 2000 he and his team took steps not to get caught and therefore there aren't positive samples from that period.

Thats probably the single most damning bit of evidence in the whole paper.

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Originally Posted by veeten

Well, looks like the bureaucrats have had their day in the sun.

Now, the real work begins.

Who, out of the present group of cyclists, will be able to sustain a chain of wins during a given season, muchless a TdeF win, and do it "clean". The hard part being trying this endeavor in the age of 'social media', where anyone with a smartphone and a youtube/twitter account can become an unofficial reporter.

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That will help; yes. It does seem that blood tests alone are no longer sufficient to detect doping, as there are ways around that. So it looks like cyclists and athletes in general will have to accept much closer monitoring.

I think part of the issue was that the people looking for doping - namely the UCI, are the same people who are promoting cycling. Thus a conflict of interest, one shouldn't under estimate the amount of influence someone of the standing of Armstrong had at the time. Anyone standing up to him would find themselves out of a job really quickly, and few are prepared to take that risk.

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Originally Posted by Mark

He didn't test positive because as the report says, he and his team worked out how to get around the testing procedures.
As EPO is only detectable for a short time after it's injected, it was just a matter of making sure you weren't tested during that time - which turned out was easy.

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It is also against the rules to fail to allow yourself to be tested.

Remember the Greek athletes Kenteris and Thanou who (repeatedly?) avoided testing and even faked a car accident
just prior the 2004 Olympics in Athens. As a result they were suspended and not allowed to compete in Athens.

Now I get it, retrospective testing of a 13 year old sample. And we are all sure that the sample wasn't tampered with? Don't know. Do you know it for sure?
Did it take science 13 years to devise a procedure that would change the outcome of the tests? Not sure about that.
Let's admit that the tests are 100% correct (which is not really possible but anyway), were all the other riders tested and retrospectively tested? Will they ban them all? It doesn't look like that to me.
What about those who doped back in the days before Lance Armstrong and were never caught and especially there are no samples to be tested retrospectively? Shall we let them keep their trophies?
Where those the retrospective testing start and where does it stop? Is it Arbitrarily defined?
It looks like game in which some people in key power positions are changing the rules of the game all the time in order to attain a predefined target, or you can just call it a witch hunt.

There are some things in the world that are useless and the USADA's hunt of Lance Armstrong is one of them. If they manage to turn him into a martyr then they will have absolutely failed at their own game.