Lance folds on drug charges

Just caught a bit of telly news which said Lance Armstrong is going to be stripped of his 7 tour titles.

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Comments

  • Not sure if that is certain yet. He has said he has had enough and is going to stop defending himself against the charges, but I assume that the case still needs to be proven.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭

    I'm not sure what I think about this. He maintains that he has never failed a drugs test in his career and his misgivings of the USADA process do seem to make sense (to me). However, if he is guilty he should be stripped but how do you prove it conclusively after the event?

    On the other hand, even in the Tour of Spain that is going on at the moment, there are some big riders that have come back from recent doping bans, and it really does taint the sport. I.E., I'm watching Contador racing and on one hand I'm amazed at his attacking riding in the mountains, but on the other hand I know he has just come back from a doping ban and was stripped of a TdF victory!

  • He says he won't take part in the proceedings so it will be interesting to see what happens next.  Reductions at Evans?

  • The USADA don't have the authority to strip the titles from Lance. It would be the UCI along with Tour officials. The whole USADA thing is the fact that they have broken their own rules in persecuting Lance. (ie going back 17 years when their own rules state they can only go back 8, and not actually providing any other body the evidence which they claim to have....)

    The whole thing seems to be a witchhunt and it is Lance saying he no longer defends himself against the USADA's alligations.

  • I'm sick of the whole damn witch-hunt. Nothing has ever been proven against Lance in spite of him being the most tested athlete ever, and so now the USA ADA says they are going to strip him of all titles going back to 1998?  It will mean absolutely nothing to all the cyclists who finished 2nd to Lance to now be declared the Tour winner. What concerns me more is he will never be able to race an Ironman which would have been of supreme interest to many thousands of cycling and triathlon fans. The great French TdF cyclist Jalabert has done pretty well in long course tri, I would have loved to see if Lance could win one, especially as he started his career as a triathlete.

  • Yeah I was really looking forward to seeing what he might do at Kona.  Somehow I think this is far from over...a tactical move I think.

    KK you can put yoiur hand down now. 

  • Paul T 197 wrote (see)

    The USADA don't have the authority to strip the titles from Lance. It would be the UCI along with Tour officials. The whole USADA thing is the fact that they have broken their own rules in persecuting Lance. (ie going back 17 years when their own rules state they can only go back 8, and not actually providing any other body the evidence which they claim to have....)

    The whole thing seems to be a witchhunt and it is Lance saying he no longer defends himself against the USADA's alligations.

    afaik, USADA do have authority to strip LA of his titles but whether the UCI see that as enforeceable is another matter.  

    WADA as the world governing body of drug testing has no authority over this, they merely manage the testing (and they are a private body)

    USADA as the US drug testing authority have signed an international convention with other country drug testing bodies that basically says that a ruling in one country on a ban for drug testing is enforceable in another.   fair enuff.

    BUT the UCI has the ultimate control over whether to enforce the bans and whether they can strip him of his titles is uncertain - that may come down to the French authorities.

    so what we still have is a potential stand off between USADA and the UCI

    I suspect that this will go to the Court of Arbitration in Sport for a judgement.

    USAD have broken their own rules in their case against LA; LA has still never tested positive; the evidence against LA is still hearsay and untested in court.

    basically the whole thing is still a mess.   LA has been smart by doing what he has - he's basically said "I'm still drug free and I've not been able to test my case in court, so over to you fuckers to sort it out.  I have a life to lead"

  • The ironic part is that if he is stripped of all his titles they will struggle to award them to anyone else as nearly all his peers have been banned for drug taking at one time or admitted doping. I think Jan Ullrich finished second more than once .......

    I still think Lance is guilty but as KK says it was a long time ago, time to move on AND I would like to see what Lance could do at Kona

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Maybe they should go back 30 years. It wouldn't surprise anyone to find that every decent pro cyclist had at one time or another taken something considered illegal, not to win, but merely to get through the day as a participant.

    🙂

  • in light of all this, I just hope Bradley Wiggins is telling the fucking truth....

  • No I think they're stuck on.

  • Interesting interviews on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, journalist opining that it was a tacit admission of guilt vs someone from one of the UK anti-doping agencies who thought it was only the start of what was likely to be a UCI vs USADA spat which will go to the CAS.

    I would like the truth to out, but suspect this will never be.

  • TopSecTopSec ✭✭✭

    Sad day and what I fear this will do is 'taint' Brad & Cav's achievements.  How many of the GBP will do nothing but read the headlines in the tabloids and jump to the conclusions that all cyclists are cheats.

    I agree that this has been a witch hunt.  My heart says no he hasn't, my head says perhaps but still veering towards no. 

    FB, Just an assumption of mine but I do think Brad is telling the truthimage

     

  • He probably cheated. So did many of the riders he competed against. Given the levels of defence he's put up against doping allegations in the past and that this decision not to defend himself comes after attempts to claim USADA had no jurisdiction failed, his motive is probably to try and discredit further proceedings and limit the damage to his reputation.

    I hope USADA publish the evidence they have along with the names of the team mates who provided it.

    As for a witch hunt, USADA's stated objective is to catch cheaters in pro sport. He may well be one of the biggest benficiaries of cheating in pro sport.

  • Lets be honest here, if any of us were offered a drug which would win you an Olympic medal or the Tour the chances are we would all be very very tempted, pro athletes are very driven to win and I suspect most will use ALL available methods to get there. Being cynical I suspect a lot of sport is fixed and that many use "stimulants" of some kind, whilst the tests improve so do the methods of cheating and it will be ever thus.

    Do Brad & Cav use "stimulants" ? Lets hope not.

  • USADA also have another agenda that comes from the US Govt which part financed the US Postal team (US Postal being a govt agency) that LA rode for in many of his victories.   the US Govt want to be seen as not sponsoring a team of cheats, so they have probably been pressing USADA hard to bring the charges contrary tosome of USADA's own regulations

    TopSec - I also think that Brad is telling the truth, and afaik, there have never been any allegations about him doping.   I've always been in 2 minds with LA as he's never tested positive but there's plenty of circumstantial to say he has.

  • In addition to that DD, at the time drugs were probably needed to win since other riders were using them.

    The below has been around for a while but shows at times you have to go down to 8th place in the TdF positions to find a rider without doping connections.

    TdF

    Hopefully things have improved since then.

  • FB, you're a race ref and know the rules, what would you do?

    For me, if you put a system in place for testing, and then ignore it when you feel like it, you're a fool. 

  • So are the authorities saying that drugs tests aren't worth sh-1-t, because they don't give a true postive or that circumstantial evidence/ hounding will overule them anyway? Now that's a worrying position for any athlete...

    Can't blame him for giving up - there are only so many times you can bang your head against a brick wall before deciding to stop.

  • So was this years tour Brads second win?

  • Everyone knows that the cheats are ahead of the drug testers. Its always been that way. 

    The evidence against Lance is overwhelming, and now he's wriggled out of having it all proven against him. 

    As to re allocating his wins - well most of the podium people have been busted anyway. Lets see who would get it....

    1999 - er lets call that invalid

    2000 - oh bum

    2001 - damn this is hard

    2002 - Sastre in 10th ?

    2003 - Sastre in 9th takes it.

    2004 - Sastre gets his 3rd win

    2005 - Cadel Evans !

     

  • So if someone comes out of the woodwork to discredit Eddie Merckx should we erase him from cycling history. We all know cycling has been riddled with drugs for years. I'm all for tightening up future testing and stopping cheats but raking through tours from decades ago is doing no-one any favours. If Lance beat the tests of the day then that should be the end of it.
  • Anyone else read David Millar's book? Interestingly he goes into depth on how dirty the sport was and what some named cyclists actually took. Millar explains exactly how he gave up under the pressure of trying to stay "clean" but not once does he implicate Lance.

  • Unless you had physical proof would you want to implicate Lance?  What interests me is if he cheated, how, when so many ohers were caught.  Not impossible.  But how?

  • DB - I'm a triathlon race ref not a cycling one.  I'm only responsible for enforcing the rules in the "field of play" and have nothing to do with enforecement of any drug testing that takes place outside this area.

    "The evidence against Lance is overwhelming, and now he's wriggled out of having it all proven against him. "  but equally he's not getting his day(s) in court to prove the allegations are (possibly) false.    none of the evidence is from drug tests so I can't agree the evidence is overwhelming - only the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming and that isn't necessarily proof.

  • AvalafAvalaf ✭✭✭

    I really have a hard time with understanding the fervor to get lance and find him guilty and also the total lack of understanding that everytime he goes through this it still doesn't clear his name as far as everyone is concerend.  how many times do people have to cleared before they are actually cleared.

    If it was you in that position being blamed for something you didn't do but were continually being prosecuted for it and people with zero evidence cited comments from other people with zero evidance as evidence, what would you do?

    That article is purely based on the writers opinions, and adds nothing to the argument.

    Wheter or not Lance is guity or not and I couldn't really care one way or another, you should however at least care about how another human is being treated under these circumstances.

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