Lance folds on drug charges

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  • Well as he isn't prosecuting LA, just writing a book, who knows.

     

    But as for there being actual proper evidence?  I will be pretty amazed if some isn't forthcoming during the next while. Only time will tell.

  • It is amazing how the did he didn't he dope has captured the worlds imagination; there is a wealth of opinion on every cycling forum site with passionate argument either way. I should not really be surprised that it is mirrored here. I have contributed my opinion for what it is worth elsewhere. But if you have not looked already; have a look at www.52x12.com this has a lot of stuff from the Dr who is alleged to have doped Lance. The science is frighteningly complex and makes me think this bad smell could hang around for a long time to come.  Come on USADA publish your stuff....please! 

  • They have been saying there is evidence for the last 10 years !



    Would be nice if someone produced some
  • I totally agree.  

    It's not about the bike makes LA sound pretty arrogant, not very likeable but certainly a character and never ever a quitter.

    So when he quit! 

     

    But they do need to put up or shut up, and I am saying that as someone who thinks LA is guilty as sin.

  • Havent we seen the positive EPO test results already ? And the accounts from several sources ? 

    OK so its not gone to court - but theres plenty of stuff out there. 

    Not read the Hamilton book - must have a look. 

  • We have Cougie, but nothing that would stand up in court !



    Not decided either way, but with all the smoke there hasn't been a fire proved
  • The whole time I was reading Hamilton's book I was driving my husband insane ...'omg listen to this'... etc etc  

  • $100,000 isn't that much if you are in Lance's league.

    No evidence has been proffered that he bribed the IOC as well so bribing the UCI would be pointless.

    If there isn't hard evidence then they should shut up, if there is then they should publish it. As they haven't published it is because they aren't confident in their evidence.

    Not really a Lance fan but it is innocent until proven guilty and there is nothing proven.

    There is lots of evidence of aliens coming to earth and taking people away, feeling them up, messing with their heads and using probes. But would that evidence stand up in court.

     

  • Currently wading through the Hamilton book its very interesting already points the finger at another of my favorites Big George Hincapie the interesting thing is its not just Hamilton flinging crap there are statements from other US postal riders also hamilton didnt testify to save homself he was already cooked IIRC (i havent got to this part in the book) he didnt dish the dirt until he had to make a statement under oath and you would be daft to lie on that unless you like the taste of prison food

    I have slways been a massive Lance fan and as. DTS rightly says where is the evidence but the circumstancial stuff has made me get my head out of the sand regarding Lance

    I thought the book would be a one man mud slinging thing but its far from that and is proving a much more enligtening read than the Millar book which was good but totally skirted the Lance issue
  • Yeah and Jimmy Saville should be resurrected and booked as a children's entertainer for every party in the land.  I mean he's never been found guilty.  Maybe with Ken Bailey as a sidekick to make sure the boys don't get left out.

    WTF has Lance's wealth go to do with how much is a lot of money to another unconnected organisation?  So Lance is rich and that means the UCI don't think a six figure sum is useful?  Mmmm..does not compute.  £100 probably isn't a lot to a powerful pimp but it would probably entice some desperate ho to do something she ordinarily wouldn't.

    The IOC have as much if not more to lose than the UCI over positives and their track record of honesty and integrity in terms of voting and bribes a neptotistic awarding of lucrative contracts around the Olympics isn't exactly admirable.  Take a look at the carp broadcasting of the Olympic road race we all 'enjoyed' and who owns the company you HAVE to use if you win the bid.  So they don't hold a lot of credibility either.

    The evidence is obviously in the USADA files and that's why Lance quit and didn't contest the charges of systematic doping.  The files are supposed to be released by 15th October so there's not long to wait. 

    As you were.

  • Awaiting 15th october with interest
  • What CRAB says is pretty much correct - the UCI is corrupt as hell - I hadn't realised the Olympic broadcast was tied into a company on which Verbruggen is a Director (until I just googled it) but it's just another example.   I think there is enough evidence to suggest fairly strongly that they were complicit in covering up what Armstrong was up to.    

  • popsider wrote (see)

    What CRAB says is pretty much correct

    What, you mean if you take out the sarcastic, hyperbolic exaggeration for comedy effect? image

  • LA needs to be banned from tri as well - anyone who does a race in budgie smugglers and no top is an affront to fashion.....  image

    the top levels of many sports are pretty corrupt - IOC, UCI, FIFA, IAAF, FIA, various boxing bodies, to name a few - have had allegations, many proven, of corrupt practices thrown at them over the years.   and the other problem is that many of them are self-regulating so it's the corrupt fuckers that are passing judgement on other corrupt fuckers - where's the independence in that??

    as they say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely

     

  • It has all been said here already, but frankly common sense says he cheated, apart from anything else. Am I really expected to believe that LA clean was a better climber than Marco Pantani  with an HcT reading in the late 50s? Totally ridiculous. Clean Pantani would have been the best climber of his generation, doped he was insanely good, but Lance was that brilliant he could ride with him easily. Total twaddle. Add to that the failed dope tests, the UCI "donations", the way his team spat all over Simeoni, the known links with the king of doping Ferrari, the"I will publish all my results online, err my test team dont want to know " , the shutting up of Kimmage, Walsh, Betsy Andreu, The Oakley girl (name eludes me). The "look" the circumstantial evidence etc.

    And lets not even get onto the 700 tests that actually is more like 250.

    Yes Eddie charged too, but he didnt set up a system to make sure his team did so he could win, he popped a pill like everyone else. And when they asked him he told them. They all did. Im not saying it is right, but LA set his team up to systematically cheat IMHO , and if you wouldnt he finished your career.

    I just hope the USADA go after the other theives liars and no good money grabbers  at the UCI. Yes you McQuiad.

     

  • So publish and be done.



    I agree with most of what everyone says. Especially FB, if he wore budgies then he is finished.

    Not sure I can beleive an IOC and UCI conspiracy. Too many people to have never had a leak. As I say publish and be done - why wait till the 15th. This isn't harry potter and wait till magic Thursday to be Christmas best seller.
  • I didn't mean FB wore budgies - horrible thought.
  • too right - horrible thought...image

  • Thanks M..eface! I now need at least a petrol sized tanker of brain bleach for that image!!image

    No offence FB! That image should be kept to you and Petal alone!! image
  • I've just been sick in my mouth ;o(

    As you bleurrghhhh. 

  • I also couldn't agree that there was a conspiracy between the IOC and the UCI - their interests were not aligned. But the UCI waited until the last day but one to sign up to the anti-doping agreement that was needed to be a seed sport into the Olympics. This came into effect in 2004. Which means that the failed drugs test that was aleged to have been buried by the UCI would never have been seen by the IOC anyway - that test was taken in the Tour of Switzerland in 2001.

    It's clear that USADA is having a tough time bringing together all the evidence they can on LA. I suspect that his dramatic defacto change of plea put a spanner in the works for them and has made their problem very much different in terms of the kind of evidence they can collect and the type of people willing to break cover on the issue.

    I suspect they want to release their file on LA one to the UCI and to do it correctly. The urgency of providing that info is less important than the need to make sure it is water-tight.

    One of the pieces of data that is just plain obvious that cyclists were doping profusely is the power output per kg of body weight statistics. In the 'noughties decade, riders were consistently able to maintain output ratios in the high 6.0s, say 6.7, 6.8 watts of power per kg of mass. There's a huge wad of research taken from race times on stages like Alpe d'uez on this. It was during this period that Lance, supposedly clean and not fuelled by anything other than athleticism and mental strength, was able to outperform all other known cheaters like Ivan Bassoo etc.

    Now the riders who go up Alpe D'Huez are several minutes slower than what they were ten years ago and the average power output per kilo is in the high 5.0s or occasionally low 6.0s. Today's riders are not able to make as much power as they did before.

    Most of us here are well trained athletes. Well all know that elite athletes ALL train like crazy and have fabulous suport from physios and dieticians and sports scientists etc. So how much difference can mental strength give you when you are competing against a peloton known to be high as a kite? To win the TDF 7 times at the height of The Doping Age? That's a bit fantastical really. The Myth of Lance needs to be put to bed. Allez USADA but please get it right.

  • The report from USADA is being delivered to UCI today.  Hopefully we'll get to read it some time soon.

    Look at Lance's position over the allegations over the past year or so :-

    I never doped.
    I passed every test as the (self-proclaimed) most tested athlete. 
    I never tested positive.
    The people making the claims have no credibility.
    It's an unconstitutional witch hunt. 
    It's old allegations why can't we just move on?

    If I was accused of doping and hadn't done it I'd have stuck with the original defence. Looks like classic PR led messaging has called for more twisting than sticking.  For the record Lance (why can't we move on) has hired the same PR team that Marion Jones (and Bill Clinton) have used in the past...to help damage limit allegations that were true that they originally flatly denied.  So we should all move on whilst he still controls the message.

    Unfortunatley there is such a large percentage of morons on the planet that there is still value (measured in dollars) in controlling the message.  Livestrong.org will continue to draw people (unknowingly) to Livestrong.com to keep the cheddar rolling in. And these people will still claim it's a withc hunt and pointless as it was so long ago.  I suspect they DON'T feel the same about Sir Jimmy of Savile.  Now then, now then.

    As UCI were. 

  • it seems as if LA's lawyer is on the attack today - http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstrong-lawyer-attacks-pending-usada-report

    "In conclusion, Herman points to a 'call to arms' with the release of the USADA report, warning that public support is with Armstrong."

    errm - it might have been at one time, but it's decreasing day by day and wtf has public support got to do with it anyway??  that means little to the bodies involved who have their own battles to fight and the public have no say in the matter at all, bar having discussions like this.   

  • 5 times Olympic gold medal winner Marion Jones (all now taken away from her) was given a jail sentence yesterday - 6 months, for her programme of cheating, lying and defrauding. I think there are articles where MJ and LA's names could be interchangeable.

    LA still tries to make a fight in the courtroom of public opinion because he knows he is stuffed in the proceedings with USADA. Any military commander knows that good strategy is to choose the location for a battle.

    As for public opinion being behind him, I think he can still say he has allegiance from the ignorant. I suspect the informed people are more like those who are donating money to the legal defense fund of the journalist Paul Kimmage who is campaigning against the corrupt running of UCI and it's refusal to manage anti-doping in a serious and coherent manner. This could all get very interesting soon.

  • Tricky Dicky¹ wrote (see)

    5 times Olympic gold medal winner Marion Jones (all now taken away from her) was given a jail sentence yesterday - 6 months, for her programme of cheating, lying and defrauding. I think there are articles where MJ and LA's names could be interchangeable.

    It wasn't yesterday, it was 2008. But the page I think you got this from is an interesting read!

  • so - 3000 pages of evidence from USADA to the UCI.   that's going to take some digesting...

  • fat buddha wrote (see)

    so - 3000 pages of evidence from USADA to the UCI.   that's going to take some digesting...

    Love the fact that there is a 200 page "summary" to be released!

    I can do it in a lot less than 200 words!image

  • Can't do links on my pad, but George Hincapie has posted a "coming clean" statement on his website
  • and 6 former USPS team mates who are still riding have also now been suspended for 6 months

    "Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Sharp), David Zabriskie (Garmin-Sharp), Tom Danielson (Garmin-Sharp), Michael Barry (Sky) and George Hincapie (BMC) have subsequently been suspended. All actively race but ended their seasons in September. Any ban may be backdated meaning if a suspension of six months is ratified then each rider could return to racing by the time of Paris-Nice, next Spring."

     

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