A sad day for cycling

greg-h

According to french daily lequipe lance armstrong has tested positive foe epo use. apparantly the test is from a frozen batch of urine from his first of seven tours . I can only hope this is false but herein follows a poll

Raam

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-13418656,00.html?f=rss

Armstrong, who beat cancer before winning a record consecutive seven Tour de France titles, said he was the victim of a "witch hunt".

The Texan told his website: "Yet again, a European newspaper has reported that I have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

"A French sports daily is reporting that my 1999 samples were positive.

"Unfortunately, the witch hunt continues and the article is nothing short of tabloid journalism."

Armstrong added: "The paper even admits in its own article that the science in question here is faulty and that I have no way to defend myself.

"I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance-enhancing drugs."

por

Sad day, hardly, more like a great day for the truth….
I cannot see how people would be surprised and saddened if Armstrong was found to have taken banned substances.
I am not a major follower of cycling but I know a couple of things about it.
One is that it has been and is still riddled with drug abuse for years as the findings in 1998 shown.
So how can a man go a win 7 Tours in a row ‘drug free’ in a sport dominated by drugs?
It defies logic.
I look forward to David Walsh being proved correct after his excellent coverage of this cheat.

MrJoeSoap

Nice poll mate, like anyone here is going to know!

Cabaal

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Nice poll mate, like anyone here is going to know!

Maybe he thinks their's a "insider" posting here? :rolleyes:

Creamy Goodness

por wrote:

Sad day, hardly, more like a great day for the truth….
I cannot see how people would be surprised and saddened if Armstrong was found to have taken banned substances.
I am not a major follower of cycling but I know a couple of things about it.
One is that it has been and is still riddled with drug abuse for years as the findings in 1998 shown.
So how can a man go a win 7 Tours in a row ‘drug free’ in a sport dominated by drugs?
It defies logic.
I look forward to David Walsh being proved correct after his excellent coverage of this cheat.

i don't know whether he took drugs or not but i always think of this factor.

lance enters one tour a year, the tour de france.

the rest of the guys are probably doing 5 or 6 tours before the tour de france comes up and that must take something out of them.

lili

i don't even know how we can doubt about it. i thought he would never been caught. to bad we have to seach 6 years ago to show which sort of guy he is. i don't say he is not a champion, he is very strong. but he is a cheater and a hypocrite. he isn't a nice guy. i hope that he will not go out with his usual answers as "i didn't have sex with miss lewinsky".

uberwolf

nothing whatsoever has been proven afaik, this is simply an allegation, allbeit from l'equipe.

the samples referred to were taken anonymously and should not be attributable to an individual. Time will judge, I suppose

Capt'n Midnight

remember Miguel in the rain when he failed a drugs test after winning, but luckily enough for him the substance wasn't banned for another four days (but was already banned by another authority so he should have been stripped IMHO)

Anyone reckon they should put extra samples on ice so new tests can be applied to them in the future in case anyone thinks they can get away because there isn't any current test for whatever.

John_C

Since he came back from cancer he has had a teraputic use exemption (TUE) for pretty much every drug in the book, meaning that he's not tested for them as they have legitimate medical uses. I'm certainly not an insider but I have always held a question mark over Lance because of this.

In a similar example about 1 in 5 French international athletes claim to have diabetes which gives them a TUE for certain drugs. The rate of Diabetes in France is nowhere near 1 in 5.

The system is clearly being taken advantage of.

uberwolf

the rate of asthma sufferers in the pro peleton is even more outlandish afair

Macy

uberwolf wrote:

the rate of asthma sufferers in the pro peleton is even more outlandish afair

Pro sport in total - including football, rugby etc...

wideangle

If all this is true,wouldnt you think Lance would of admitted it by now.
The game is up and all that.
I still have faith in his..I think he doesnt take or never did take epo .He never needed it in the first place did he seven tour wins...because its the only major tour he races every year,and every year it just gets easier for him.

Calina

wideangle wrote:

If all this is true,wouldnt you think Lance would of admitted it by now.

I doubt it to be honest with you. I see no reason for him to change his story as long as he thinks he can plant a seed of doubt in people's minds.

lili

did you see his prestation on CNN?
IMO, he doesn't need to attack l'équipe. what seems important for him is that american people believe his claim. not a big deal finally.

greg-h

yes I watch cnbc news each night and they are saying it is the few french that are against lance . When I posted this pole I was here on this forum and heard it for the first time I was shocked and had an empty fealing. lance is the reason I started cycling the reason I bought a road bike the reason i cycle every day and if he cheatd he has let me and the rest of his fans down in such a big way . but I hope this allagation is proved wrong and his name is cleared--vive le cyclisme-vive le tour et vive le lance

Collumbo

A few reasons for not believing all this nonsense:

France and L'Equipe: Unless we're talking about sports results, pretty much anything written in that L'Equipe rag (and that's what it is - the Weekly Sport probably contains more truth alot of the time) should be taken with a pinch of salt. In France, one can say what they like, about whom they like, with whatever "evidence" they claim to have, sometimes with no evidence at all. You can say it whether it's true or not, and you still can't be sued. Yet, when Richard Virenque lied for 2 years and eventually broke down in tears in court after admitting to having been juiced since 1994, they reported it and that was it. He did his 1 year ban (which is a joke after 7 years of juicing up). The French still loved him. They praised him. They never mentioned anything about this when he won a stage of the Tour in 2004. No mention of the possibility that he might be back on the gear. Yet in a live TV interview in France, he was asked, "if you could take a drug and no you would never be caught, would you take it?". He replied Yes. What the F**** does that say about 1) French honesty 2) The French Media (it didn't even make the news in France). This IS a case of vicious jealousy and is a vendetta against Armstrong.

Biological Reasons for Lance winning bike races...:
I first heard about this Lance Armstrong guy when he was 17. He won a professional (yes, Professional) triathlon at the age of 16. He never really trained either before he turned pro (he'd ride 50 or 60 miles... and still win amateur races). He ate burgers, nachos, drank beer, ate McDonald's food mid-season (an ex-teammate of his told me this on a training camp back in 1995), and he still won stages of Tour de France, the 1993 World Champs at the age of 21, and was wrecking the heads of a lot of the best seasoned pros within weeks of entering the professional ranks. This is before he would either have the money to start doping, nor would he have seen enough to think whether he should be juicing up or not. He was the best part of 12-14 kilos heavier than he is now. After cancer, he lost any meat he was carrying on his upper body. He had been tested in his teens by some sports scientists and doctors, where they discovered that he had the genetic make-up of approximately one in ten million humans. If the guy was ever going to lay off the beer, starting eating properly, train properly, and have some sound fatherly guidance (which came from J. Bruyneel and C. Charmichael), he was going to be as good as they get. Charmichael said to him after a few weeks of fixed gear training that he could win the Tour... to which Lance probably replied something along the lines of "yeah f***in right". That's what happened, and that's why he won his first Tour de France in 1999.

After that, he trained for one race a year: the Tour de France. All other races were entered for preparation purposes. As opposed to the likes of Jan Ullrich, Marco Pantani (RIP), Alex Zulle, De Galdeano, Beloki etc... who were all inevitably over-raced and peaked too early. Lance on the other hand would peak for about 4 weeks of the year... all of which were in July. Nowadays, with the length of the cycling season, you CANNOT hold top form for longer than 6 weeks. The days of a Sean Kelly coming along and winning big races in every month of the season are over. Training is more scientific (for chemical reasons too mind you.... but that's another story). It is hard to see it ever happenning again, where a guy can win the Giro and the Tour in the same year... possibly, but very unlikely.

That's my rant... I'm giving Lance the thumbs up.

lili

hehe.
so armstrong is a bioman?

jeeeez!
so, the last performance in tour de france for a chrono stage was 56km/h.
when people will have a little doubt about doping, when they will be at 70km/h?

Junior

It's just a matter of pointing the finger at Armstrong, if some kid comes along in a few years time with a massive lung capacity, and starts beating people on tours, the first question out of the box is what's he on ?

And as much as I admired David Walsh, he's helping destroy the sport, because you can't look forward or look back at anyone's achievements without going hmm what was he on.. And as a guy who's cycled and raced for 6 years and spent every winter training with Kelly, no matter what you think everyone is painted with the same brush.

Kelly won how many Paris Nice ? Did how many races per year ? Surely to **** he had to be on something.. You know everyone that was great or good didn't suddenly get up one morning and take drugs and turn from average Joe into cycling superstar, there has to be a natural talent, ability and skill there to get to the top level, drugs don't do that ..

The press should leave the drug catchin up to testers ..

lili

listen, if you want to be a believer, you're free. me, i'm not. cycling is a world of hypocrisy and i don't see how it would change if none dare to point the finger where it's hurting.

Mr. Presentable

Of course, to a degree Collumbo is right. The French *are* jealous and are disgusted an American has excelled at what they regard as *their* sport.

If nobody takes performance enhancing drugs in cycling, then what Armstrong has achieved is incredible and amazing. The mere fact that PHD is so prevalent, however, makes what Armstrong has achieved more than incredible and amazing, if he is clean.

Are any of you familiar with Paul Kimmage's book on the subject?

The only ones in cycling who are in my opinion clean are the first seasoners, and the losers. The mere fact that you haven't been caught doesn't make you clean. Consider Carl Lewis, or Flo-Jo in athletics. They achieved results of a standard similar to Armstrong's and never got caught during their careers - but we all now know their truths.

To get to the bottom line, though, if all things are equal, and everybody does take PHDs, including Armstrong, his achievements are still legend.

I just don't believe he is any different from the rest.

lili

of course he was the best, mentaly, physically, tactically, technically. i was the best.
but was he clean as he claimed? i doubt of it.

Junior

I'm not a believer that there's no drugs in the sport, but people simply think that if you take drugs you'll turn into a winner. For instance if Armstrong is taking drugs, it's not as if he sits at home wanders up stairs shoots up and hops on the bike and does the tour. Thats one perception I really hate. It's this idea that all they do is take drugs, hop on the bike and go win races...

Pilloring one man like L'Equipe and David Walsh has done is wrong, it looks like they are trying to make an example/escape goat out of Armstrong. The whole peleton of professional riders from Mark Scanlon, Ciaran Power up to Armstrong should be put under the microscope in the same way, but in doing that they will tear the sport apart.

People say cycling is riddled with drugs, it's no more so than athletics or baseball for that matter, it's just that testing is as aggressive as the manner as which people try to avoid getting caught. I love cycling, I grew up cycling before Roche won the triple crown, I spent many years racing against Ciaran Power, Robert Power, other great cyclists and athletes. Training in the middle of winter with Kelly, riding out from carrick in the pissing rain and him cracking jokes.

I suppose I just believe in innocent till proven guilty, but what has gone against Armstrong is circumstancial [sp?] at best and slander at worst..

Collumbo

And another thing on top of that Junior... it amuses me when jouralists and TV viewer are experts on the whole drugs issue.

"So-and-so wins therefore he's on drugs...."

Except if you're French and the winner is from France of course... :rolleyes:

Junior

Being honest about it - if someone's caught for drugs in sport, I'd ban them for life, but would it work ?

lili

Collumbo wrote:

And another thing on top of that Junior... it amuses me when jouralists and TV viewer are experts on the whole drugs issue.

"So-and-so wins therefore he's on drugs...."

Except if you're French and the winner is from France of course... :rolleyes:

you're jokking or what? why the frenchies are so cynical toward cycling? because all of our best champions have been doped. some have been caught others not.

greg-h

as david millar said its not going to make a mule in to a throughbread race horse.

impr0v

Following that line of argument it would then make sense to legalise the whole raft of substance and let each mule start from the same position.

Calina

Lance Armstrong has set himself up as the shining drug free light of cycling. If the L'Equipe tests are correct - and I'd be very surprised if they were not - then what annoys me more is the hypocrisy. It's one thing to be taking performance enhancing drugs and I am cynical enough to be pretty sure that what is undetectable may be rife. It's another thing to sing and dance about not taking them while taking them. That's what makes Armstrong different in my view. For that reason, I see no reason not to go after him.

I don't know a single person who believes that taking drugs replaces hard training. For that reason I find this statement:

Thats one perception I really hate. It's this idea that all they do is take drugs, hop on the bike and go win races...

very naive. Most people I know wouldn't ever assume that a drug riddled campaign is that easy. Drugs are supposed to give you the edge over your opponent, not make your life easy, right? I could be wrong here but I thought the objective of things like EPO and blood doping were to enhance the benefits you got from training, not remove the need for training.

Professional cycling disillusioned me a long time ago.

Junior

Take a look at any Sun Reader, any person who comes out of the woodwork to watch the olympics , world championship, the arm chair/sofa sports fan. They are the people I'm referring to ..

Trust me if they had soccer pulled apart like cycling is they'd be suprised what's happening in a drug free sport ..

Mr. Presentable

[QUOTE=Junior Trust me if they had soccer pulled apart like cycling is they'd be suprised what's happening in a drug free sport ..[/QUOTE]

Bang on Jr.

You only have to look at the physical transformation of Roy Keane from his last season at Forrest to his second at Manchester. And of course his now famous and frequent hyper-aggression.............