USADA to suspend and strip Lance Armstrong

[Russ Smith]

Armstrong elected to not go through the process with USADA so they've announced they will issue a lifetime ban and strip him of his 7 TDF titles(still not clear if they can or if TDF itself has to).

Basically Lance admits no guilt says he's tired of the whole thing and since the process to defend himself is so one sided, he won't do it.

My take is the same, I've always believed Lance doped, still do. I think in this case Lance is giving up because USADA "changed the game" on him. For years the game has been someone comes forward and says he cheats, Lance goes on full frontal assault, his lawyers go in full bore after the accuser and if they don't have lance on live tv with a needle hanging out of his arm, everyone believes Lance and it eventually goes away.

This time USADA has all the leverage, they have at least 10 people they say will go under oath that Lance(and 3 others) were involved in a huge doping conspiracy. They have old samples that test positive, they have samples from 09 and 10 that test consistent with blood doping, and they apparently have some evidence of a paper trail to the conspiracy essentially selling doping materials to other cyclists.

It's not you prove me guilty it's Lance prove yourself innocent and that's flipped the tables on him. He tried the lawyer angle but the judge, in Texas, threw his suit out.

I don't think this changes much people who believe him still will, people who don't still won't.

I do think the way he's doing this is clever, if you assume he's guilty what he's doing now is making it much harder for it to be proven to the masses. Many people on the fence or who don't care will simply say he's being persecuted, why should he dignify it with a response. By giving up the way he is he's playing a martyr without actually having to admit to anything.

For people who say at this point what does it matter everyone doped, the problem is that Lance has spent about 15 years now attacking everyone that said he cheated. Legally, publicly, he's sued people and won settlements, he's attacked the character of people, and let's not forget he won a LOT of money off this includling the 5 million from the Insurance company for the 5th TDF win. If he's been lying all along people will line up to sue him now, another reason to simply refuse to respond to USADA.

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

How can the USADA strip titles he won before they even existed?

 

[Russ Smith]

How can the USADA strip titles he won before they even existed?

It's not clear they can I guess that's still in debate. Supposedly WADA supports whatever USADA does with its athletes, and UCI is generally going to do what WADA says..

Apparently some of the evidence USADA has involves allegations that UCI intentionally hid evidence Lance had doped so if that's even remotely true it's assumed they're going to go ahead and strip Lance hoping USADA won't make that public.

I think that's the other thing Lance is hoping here, if I just give up, they won't publicly trot out all the evidence and testimony they have.

 

[BACH]

For people who say at this point what does it matter everyone doped, the problem is that Lance has spent about 15 years now attacking everyone that said he cheated. Legally, publicly, he's sued people and won settlements, he's attacked the character of people, and let's not forget he won a LOT of money off this includling the 5 million from the Insurance company for the 5th TDF win. If he's been lying all along people will line up to sue him now, another reason to simply refuse to respond to USADA.

Bingo...

Winning as many times as he did is still a great achievement. Cyckling is a sport that has been infected with doping from the 70's up until 3-5 years ago. There still is a problem, but there has been a huge clean up and also a mental switch within the cyckling enviroment itself. Lance having used doping isn't the big thing here. The issue is that Lance still claims never to have used any performance enhancing drugs, while EVERY another major rider from that time has confessed to using Performance Enhancing Drugs.
To put it into perspective... Top Marathon runners only compete in 2-4 runs every year, because running more would wears too much on the body in order to be competitive. The Tour de France is the equivalent to running 4 marathons, 4 3/4 marathons and 12 half-marathons in 21 days. Lance dominated this event while the closest 40-50 competitors ALL were on performance enhancing drugs. Lance never had an off-day in 7 years and was competitive every single day. If he didn't do drugs to be in that sharpe it was be even bigger news, because that would make part non-human.

 

[Russ Smith]

Bingo...

Winning as many times as he did is still a great achievement. Cyckling is a sport that has been infected with doping from the 70's up until 3-5 years ago. There still is a problem, but there has been a huge clean up and also a mental switch within the cyckling enviroment itself. Lance having used doping isn't the big thing here. The issue is that Lance still claims never to have used any performance enhancing drugs, while EVERY another major rider from that time has confessed to using Performance Enhancing Drugs.
To put it into perspective... Top Marathon runners only compete in 2-4 runs every year, because running more would wears too much on the body in order to be competitive. The Tour de France is the equivalent to running 4 marathons, 4 3/4 marathons and 12 half-marathons in 21 days. Lance dominated this event while the closest 40-50 competitors ALL were on performance enhancing drugs. Lance never had an off-day in 7 years and was competitive every single day. If he didn't do drugs to be in that sharpe it was be even bigger news, because that would make part non-human.

Michael Ashenden the Aussie who helped create the current EPO tests did a great piece on it that in HUGE detail explains why he's convinced lance doped.

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden

Goes to great detail to point out the number of myths and outright lies there is about Lance, how he's got special physiology(he doesn't) how he allegedly improved his efficiency 18% after cancer by training and losing weight, Lance claims in his book he went from 79 to 72 kg, but later testified under oath he never got as low as 72 and "the 74's" was a more usual weight.

The entire study done by Coyle that Lance uses to prove he could have done what he did without doping is discredited by Ashenden. Coyle never weighed LA he just asked him for his weight, he swears he used the same ergometer to measure Lance over several years yet a student paper at Texas that did a story on it took a picture of Lance being measured and the ergometer shown in that picture is NOT the same ergometer Coyle insists he used over the length of the study. As Ashenden points out if you change the ergometer during the study you no longer know if the measurements are accurate. Coyle insists under oath he didn't and yet there's photo evidence he did.

Ashenden very clearly explains why there's only 2 ways Lance's 99 TDF blood samples tested positive for synthetic EPO years later, either he was using it, or someone planted it. He then goes into incredible detail to explain how improbable it was that someone could have planted it and done it in a way that wouldn't be easily detectable as planted. nothing is impossible but he says it's about as close to impossible as there is. Quite simply he says he has zero dout Lance was using synthetic EPO in 99 and that's why it's in his system.

He's also on record as saying if you look at time trials before and after cancer the improvement in Lance is unprecedented, there's not another human being cyclist on record that's ever come close to that level of improvement. He points out lance was a serious rider before cancer so it's not like he was a weekend athlete before and then trained seriously after, there is zero scientific evidence that it's humanly possible to improve that much without doping.

Which is why Ashenden changed careers, he used to train athletes but he said he came to the realization that as long as doping is prevalent, training athletes clean is pointless, they simply can't compete as clean athletes against the dopers, so he turned his attention to catching dopers.

Same guy that invented the current EPO test, that caught Tyler Hamilton's blood doping in 04, he's considered as much an expert on blood doping as there is in the world and he's on record that he's convinced Lance doped, and did so for over a decade.

 

[Russ Smith]

Was reading a cycling forum yesterday and apparently rumor is the insurance company(SCA?) that paid Lance for TDF wins(apparently 5 million once 1.5 another time) is trying to get USADA to release their information publicly. The reason is they want to sue Lance to get the money back.

Most people got that whole case wrong, the judge didn't rule Lance didn't dope(as Lance's people said) the judge ruled it didn't matter if he doped or not, the contract didn't specify he had to be clean or not it just said if he wins, you pay him, he won, so pay him. He made no ruling at all on if Lance had doped or not because it wasn't relevant to the contract.

What the company is hoping is that if the TDF wins are OFFICIALLY stripped(they're not yet), they can then go back and get that same ruling overturned on the technicality that Lance no longer won the races. They're hoping that by pressing USADA to release what they have, it will pressure UCI et al to officially vacate those TDF wins.

Also an 11th rider, as yet unnamed, apparently came forward and told USADA he'd go under oath that he doped with Lance. And Tyler Hamilton has a new book due out next week where he details doping with Lance and the team, they literally had a vehicle following them during races with EPO in a cooler in the vehicle so they could dope immediately after stages. Hamilton says Lance sent him PED's and there's apparently innuendo he may have given USADA paper evidence of that. Although I'm sketchy on the part it's not like Lance is going to write 5 syringes EPO on a packing list for something he ships to Hamilton.

Essentially everyone in cycling is convinced Lance doped and they're all hoping either USADA releases what they have, or it comes out during the hearing with Bruyneel who has accepted the arbitration process. The general feeling is nobody is going to go forward with cleaning up cycling until it's all out on the table.

 

[Mulli]

My name is now next to Armstrong, Lance on the list of Tour de Frances won!

 

[Russ Smith]

My name is now next to Armstrong, Lance on the list of Tour de Frances won!

One of the hilarious aspects of this is LA fans are arguing if you strip Lance who wins? One of the years 9 of the top 10 people will have either been banned or suspended for doping(counting Lance) so the only "clean" racer finished 9th. Apparently that's one of the expected delays with UCI, they don't want to just strip titles without knowing what's next.

I think they should just list no winner for those years.

Nobody wants to win a race because someone else got stripped, especially 10 years later, and especially since they were probably doping themselves.

 

[Russ Smith]

http://www.outsideonline.com/templates/Outside_Print_Template?content=167790055

Just wow.

 

[BACH]

One of the hilarious aspects of this is LA fans are arguing if you strip Lance who wins? One of the years 9 of the top 10 people will have either been banned or suspended for doping(counting Lance) so the only "clean" racer finished 9th. Apparently that's one of the expected delays with UCI, they don't want to just strip titles without knowing what's next.

I think they should just list no winner for those years.

Nobody wants to win a race because someone else got stripped, especially 10 years later, and especially since they were probably doping themselves.

I agree. Everyone was doped in cycling during that era, so stripping Lance would be silly. Who should receive the titels instead? The best riders not having face a doping ban at some point (9th place) or the the best rider never doped (perhaps #40-50)?

Lance shouldn't be stripped of the titels, but they will come harder after Lance as he has aggressively denied for years. I believe Riis (how started the confession trend among the big names) got stripped for three months. He was the first TDF winner to admit, but as everyone else started to admit they more or less had to reinstate him.

 

[Russ Smith]

I agree. Everyone was doped in cycling during that era, so stripping Lance would be silly. Who should receive the titels instead? The best riders not having face a doping ban at some point (9th place) or the the best rider never doped (perhaps #40-50)?

Lance shouldn't be stripped of the titels, but they will come harder after Lance as he has aggressively denied for years. I believe Riis (how started the confession trend among the big names) got stripped for three months. He was the first TDF winner to admit, but as everyone else started to admit they more or less had to reinstate him.

THe problem is the rules very clearly state riders have to be clean to be eligible. I don't buy that everyone doped so he keeps the titles. If you weren't actually eligible to be in the race, you can't keep it. To me they should just vacate the titles.

I think that makes a bigger statement now if you're trying to clear up racing. Much bigger stigma being the guy who lost 7 TDF titles to being the guy who has 7 with an asterisk IMO.

I think for Lance it really depends on what happens to Bruyneel, if he sticks out the USADA stuff he's probably going to get nailed and a lot of the evidence against him is also against Lance. There will be a ton of pressure on UCI to strip Lance in that scenario.