Lance Armstrong

suburbanreuben":3alzsytk said:

Which would require them to prove he doped, when they claim he doped, and that they had lost financially (which I doubt) as a result.
Advantage Armstrong...

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No, the sponsor contested that they had to pay a $4.7 million bonus to Armstrong due to the rumours that existed back then that he doped. Armstrong took them to court and under oath stated that he never doped. Result is potential perjury.
As far as proving he doped, the testimony of eye witnesses is very much an accepted form of evidence in a court (in fact it seems to have convicted Jimmy Saville before any police action has been taken).
Not sure why people believe that there has to be a blood test to prove this when a key issue is that he was able to corrupt the tests either through use of masking agents, diuretics, using other peoples piss, hiding for the duration of the 'glow' period, using knowledge of the testers diaries, using back-dated exemptions or just paying to make the tests go away.

Advantage ex-sponsor

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/arm ... =text-only

Almost finished now (but you can listen again), excellent discussion/documentary on 5live http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/

Here it is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ngqxd

That was a good listen, although made me feel sad.

To think that there is probably no clean sport these days, and that all my heroes are probably tainted doesn't sit comfortably, but now I can't help but think they probably are on something. I never liked Lance, not because he was successful, but because of how he came across. However, there are many greats across many sports that I do like, and now I question their achievements. I already had started questioning Brad, and I like him, as well as Froome-dog, but to think that maybe Mo and Usain, and many, many more are just as likely to be at it is a dark situation.

Bad times :cry:

It seems that everyone is now talking as though they always knew but merely needed some hard evidence.

Bit of a bandwagon journalistically, if not quite a witch hunt.

...and what exactly did he do wrong?

He was more organised than everyone else who was doing the same damn thing!

Schumacher was always accused of being a cheat, because he knew the rules inside out and used them to his advantage.

Reckons me it is a case of doing what you need to do to beat the pack.

Schumacher was accused of being a cheat for deliberately taking out opponents when it suited him. I'm thinking, in particular, of the moment when he had trashed his car, in 94 I think, and could not finish the race, and took out Damon Hill. In the replay you saw him looking in his mirror, nodding, and then steering into DH's car, taking him out and thus winning the championship. I applaud him for getting the best out of the car, that's his job, but I don't think he was the best driver on the track. However, this is another conversation all together.

Even if it is jumping on the bandwagon journalism, and everyone was at it, doesn't make drug taking right. Lance Armstrong based his career on cheating and bullying, and deserves to be taken down. I admit, that the leniency is too lenient on the whistleblowers, but that shouldn't detract from the evidence provided.

It's just a shame to hear the drug testers saying they will never be able to stop it. I preferred Hamilton's sound bite, we all need hope

Okay, so it seems that pretty much every professional team over the last 20 years has been guilty of using drugs in an attempt to gain an edge.

Either the UCI were complicit or incompetent. Either way given that no-one can now trust professional cycling is it not time for the UCI to be disbanded along with the rest of the organised professional cycling sport and then for it to begin again with a clean slate.

As things stand I and a lot of people I know simply have no interest in the sport any more. It seems like they are all cheats.

yagamuffin":1ukw8357 said:

Either way given that no-one can now trust professional cycling is it not time for the UCI to be disbanded along with the rest of the organised professional cycling sport and then for it to begin again with a clean slate.

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And this goes back to my earlier point that the usda is not only witch hunting one person despite that many are known to have done it but they are also career building and positioning themselves for the top job

sylus":mzvc52nf said:

yagamuffin":mzvc52nf said:

Either way given that no-one can now trust professional cycling is it not time for the UCI to be disbanded along with the rest of the organised professional cycling sport and then for it to begin again with a clean slate.

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And this goes back to my earlier point that the usda is not only witch hunting one person despite that many are known to have done it but they are also career building and positioning themselves for the top job

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Politely, over 26 people so far listed as involved in doping in reasoned decision. 6 sanctioned. 4 sacked / resigned. 11 still under investigation. 5-10 more seem to be at risk of breaking code of conduct on their own teams, 2 or more of the above under federal investigation within their own countries.

Do USADA want the top job? no. WADA wouldn't sanction it as would be the case with the IOC. The UCI are persuing individuals who they feel have libelled them, but so far, they are not persuing the media outlets that published the statements made. At present, no one seems to be chasing Tyler Hamilton or Daniel Coyle for the contents of their recent book. Statements made today by some prominent members of the Pro Cycling community re-iterate that they believe sponsors were complicit in their knowledge of doping. We haven't even touched on the rider who spoke out about their direct contact with people who asked them to take drugs to compete at the Pro level, but refused. The VP of the IOC asked someone today to just move along and admit his past.

I appreciate a lot of the points you have made in this discussion but lets not asssume now that this is now a single issue / single person agenda. It is growing by the day.

Which again seems to give credance to the fact, if as you say everyone was eating at the table ..that the pursuit of lance can only be seen as a witch hunt of one individual by the usda .

Like most cans of worms often those that open them also have some backwash and I'd be interested to see if the usda are as squeeky clean as they want everyone else to be..a few interesting months to come