Not one positive drug test and they're going to ban him on the accounts of "witnesses" who pretty much all have a vendetta or something to gain.
Not guilty.
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Not one positive drug test and they're going to ban him on the accounts of "witnesses" who pretty much all have a vendetta or something to gain.
Not guilty.
guilty as sin but he beat all the others who were on similar stimulants. banning for life is void as he's finished anyway.
jeez I wonder why these athletes take something thats undetectable today but could be years down the track...perhaps many years of hero worshipping and more money in winnings and sponsorships than imaginable
guilty.
interesting that marion jones never failed a drug test either, and i suspect there is a lot of eastern europeans that never failed a drug test that everybody is happy to convict as drug cheats on circumstantial evidence (strong as it may be for some female competitors).
this...
everyone has their points of view... some guilty some not... In any case even if he did... It is an amazing achievement of all he has done.
I for one still think not guilty. With as posted I have had people come after me for 10 years and im over it... Why would someone want to be in the press and courts all the time.
It has a hugeeee tall poppy and witch hunt feel to it.. all this under handed deals to land 1 guy. Not cool..... I miss watching him race it was truelly amazing regardless if he was on some unknown untestable not seen before or developed wunder juice.
Soooooooooooooooooooooooo it seems I may have been 'slightly' off on my whole "Armstrong is innocent he's never tested positive innit" line of defense.
Reports over the last week have changed my view on almost everything to do with sports and the people that run them.
I hereby totally change my stance on this issue. Feel free to ridicule me for believing. Unfortunately I can no longer defend this dude, the sport or the corrupt bastards running it.
Worse part is now the narrative has switched to "oh it's ok that shit ain't going on now".
Exactly how am I supposed to accept that after what's just been exposed?
Amazing.
cycling = tainted
will need wholesale cleanout to remain credible in future
lol this hardly taints cycling any more than it already was. they've been juiced since day dot.
the biggest problem it creates is that people who only had a passing interest in it (read strayans, englishmen) will probably not give a shit any more. it's still ****ing crazy in europe, i was just at the last day of la vuelta in madrid and there was a squillion people in the city and surrounds watching it.
there's still question marks over teams/people but the dopers are getting picked up left, right and centre now - contador, schleck etc. people can and will get caught.
next year will be massive, lots of good GC contenders out there - purito, nibali, froome, contador, etc. all three grand tours promise great things imo, if you don't like it, go to russia etc
I wasnt saying it was any more tainted than it was, its taintedness had been confirmed ;)
The cleanout needs to be public, but proposing an amnesty for users isnt taking a tough stance imo
you try riding a bike up a hill for 3 weeks straight without being on something.
what, like a bike?
Oh don't get me wrong I knew there were cheats before and there will be cheats for many a year to come. I'm just peeved that I was convinced Armstrong was legit. These days with the internetz and stuff there's not much that stays a secret forever (Even Hulk Hogans sex life is public fodder).But for all this stuff to come out seemingly at a much higher level than just the riders it was amazing they got away with it as long as they did.
Will still watch it though, caaarrrrrnnn Cadel and all that.
I never doubted that he was doping. What I don't like is that I can see them stripping him, but not going hell for leather for every other rider of the era.
Lets face it, there is likely to be very few clean riders from that time.
If they want this process to be legit, and not just a well orchestrated witch hunt, they need to keep going and haul every rider in.
Still not sure if this will have a positive impact in the sport. I'd much prefer a focus on current riders.
know anyone selling anything decent, road bike wise at the moment lenny?
in around the $1500 market - was looking at a colnago move 105, which i've seen for around $1399-$1499 - however around that money there's lots of good second hand gear to be had
probably looking at a 54 to 56cm frame - not too phased on groupset, probably just 105 upwards
oh yeah, updated the thread title for posterity
I'll ask around. My brother was selling his but I think has had a change of heart. For $1500 there is normally a decent bike second hand somewhere.
I have a shed full of mtb frames I am trying to shift.
haha, the wife cracking the whip no doubt
lance issue on 4Corners now.
Phil Liggot - "They were all on it"
So, are they going to go after everyone else?
Seems clear all the Euro Teams were doping, US Postal were, doesn't leave many riders in the peleton who may of been clean, maybe the shit kickers in each of the teams, but thats it.
Armstrong's defence is turning from "i'm innocent" to "all these others guys were doing it too and they were offered incentives to confess"
always had my suspicions about armstrong, an achievement like that in a sport like cycling would take a superhuman effort, or artificial means
i dont think you can take away the money etc that's he *and others* have been able to earn from it but it does turn his "achievements" into OMG I INJJECTED MORE STUFFF THAN 300 OTHER CYCLISTS, IM DA BESTEST which ruins his credibility for life
His defence should now really be - everyone else was doing it - so i sort of won fairly.
But he came across on 4 Corners last night as an arrogant twat. Which he supposedly is. I can't believe he still denies it, it is laughable.
tyler hamilton doesn't look like full biscuit at the moment, comes across as a bit crazy
hot wife though (y)
i wonder if hincapie et al. would have sold lance down the river, ie. became involved in the con-spiracy, in order to get reduced sentences for themselves.
george is supposed to be armstrong's best mate so it seems strange for him to rat out lance either way.
Tour de Enhance is the only sporting event I can get my Mrs to watch and that's cause she likes the scenery.Probs try and convince her to go for a geez in the next couple of years drugs and all.
Well it is official now Cadel Evans has won more TDF's than Lance ArmstrongQuote:
GENEVA -- Cycling's governing body agreed Monday to strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and ban him for life, following a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that accused him of leading a massive doping program on his teams.
UCI President Pat McQuaid announced that the federation accepted the USADA's report on Armstrong and would not appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The decision clears the way for Tour de France organizers to officially remove Armstrong's name from the record books, erasing his consecutive victories from 1999-2005.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme has said the race would go along with whatever cycling's governing body decides and will have no official winners for those years.
USADA said Armstrong should be banned and stripped of his Tour titles for "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen" within his U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams.
The USADA report said Armstrong and his teams used steroids, the blood booster EPO and blood transfusions. The report included statements from 11 former teammates who testified against Armstrong.
Armstrong denies doping, saying he passed hundreds of drug tests. But he chose not to fight USADA in one of the agency's arbitration hearings, arguing the process was biased against him. Former Armstrong team director Johan Bruyneel is also facing doping charges, but he is challenging the USADA case in arbitration.
On Sunday, Armstrong greeted about 4,300 cyclists at his Livestrong charity's fundraiser bike ride in Texas, telling the crowd he's faced a "very difficult" few weeks.
"I've been better, but I've also been worse," Armstrong, a cancer survivor, told the crowd.
While drug use allegations have followed the 41-year-old Armstrong throughout much of his career, the USADA report has badly damaged his reputation. Longtime sponsors Nike, Trek Bicycles and Anheuser-Busch have dropped him, as have other companies, and Armstrong also stepped down last week as chairman of Livestrong, the cancer awareness charity he founded 15 years ago after surviving testicular cancer which spread to his lungs and brain.
Armstrong's astonishing return from life-threatening illness to the summit of cycling offered an inspirational story that transcended the sport. However, his downfall has ended "one of the most sordid chapters in sports history," USADA said in its 200-page report published two weeks ago.
Armstrong has consistently argued that the USADA system was rigged against him, calling the agency's effort a "witch hunt."
If Armstrong's Tour victories are not reassigned there would be a hole in the record books, marking a shift from how organizers treated similar cases in the past.
When Alberto Contador was stripped of his 2010 Tour victory for a doping violation, organizers awarded the title to Andy Schleck. In 2006, Oscar Pereiro was awarded the victory after the doping disqualification of American rider Floyd Landis.
USADA also thinks the Tour titles should not be given to other riders who finished on the podium, such was the level of doping during Armstrong's era.
The agency said 20 of the 21 riders on the podium in the Tour from 1999 through 2005 have been "directly tied to likely doping through admissions, sanctions, public investigations" or other means. It added that of the 45 riders on the podium between 1996 and 2010, 36 were by cyclists "similarly tainted by doping."
The world's most famous cyclist could still face further sports sanctions and legal challenges. Armstrong could lose his 2000 Olympic time-trial bronze medal and may be targeted with civil lawsuits from ex-sponsors or even the U.S. government.
In total, 26 people -- including 15 riders -- testified that Armstrong and his teams used and trafficked banned substances and routinely used blood transfusions. Among the witnesses were loyal sidekick George Hincapie and convicted dopers Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis.
USADA's case also implicated Italian sports doctor Michele Ferrari, depicted as the architect of doping programs, and longtime coach and team manager Bruyneel.
Ferrari -- who has been targeted in an Italian prosecutor's probe -- and another medical official, Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral, received lifetime bans.
Bruyneel, team doctor Pedro Celaya and trainer Jose "Pepe" Marti opted to take their cases to arbitration with USADA. The agency could call Armstrong as a witness at those hearings.
Bruyneel, a Belgian former Tour de France rider, lost his job last week as manager of the RadioShack-Nissan Trek team which Armstrong helped found to ride for in the 2010 season.
good riddance
justice imo
http://www.bicycling.com/news/pro-cy...dgame?page=0,0
not a bad read
...Quote:
His ultimate legacy most likely is out of our hands. Fans who may not yet be alive will decide who he was. To us, today, Eddy Merckx is the greatest cyclist who ever lived, not a fraud who tested positive for a stimulant while leading the 1969 Giro d'Italia and had his 1973 Giro di Lombardia win stripped for the same. Joop Zoetemelk is the hardman who started and finished 16 Tours—a record—and won one. He's not a reprobate who was caught doping at the 1979 Tour, received a paltry penalty of a 10-minute time addition, and maintained his second-place podium spot. Jacques Anquetil is the five-time Tour winner who in 1961 took the yellow jersey on Stage 1 and wore it all the way to Paris, not a boastful cheater who said, during a French television interview, "Leave me in peace—everybody takes dope." And Fausto Coppi is il campionissimo, the champion of champions, not an admitted doper who said on Italian television that he only took drugs when necessary—"which is nearly always."
everyone should just get off the blokes case imo, it seems a but ****ed how everyone else is offered immunities as such, to confess against him, why not go after the bloke 5 years ago when he could still compete.
us anti doping agencies should just gtfo
i'll extend a metaphor: "no honour amongst dopers". quite happy to have cheats turning on each other. but i also see you're point. then again, the police do this kind of thing all the time. greatest good and all that.
interesting down here in canberra at the moment. stephen hodge has admitted to doping during his cycling career, he's on the ACT hall of fame and has written a letter to the ACT government saying he should be removed from the list. he's also got a track at mount stromlo (big cycling area down here) named after him, and he's said he is happy to let the ACT government decide if his name should be removed from the track. now, the cynic in me says this is a great PR move from him to garner sympathy/support. another part of me thinks, why only come out now if you're so wracked with guilt? the rest of me thinks "what a guy".
i wonder what response armstrong would have got had he gone down this path?
the whole sport (elite level) stinks, and it's going to take a long time to clean it up.
there are no winners here.