Lance Armstrong

[nikkiboy]

To be stripped of all his titles

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... arges.html

[Booji Boy]

Shame really, he was a hero of mine but now his name will always be tainted. I want to believe he was clean, but its hard to think he was.

[Stubby]

Everytime someone does anything exceptional there's always a doubt in people's minds.

I always reckoned that Flo-Jo must've been on something as no one has come within half a second of her records and she died at 38!!

But watching the athletics the pundits are always quick to dismiss the east german records but never question hers??

Could be she was just exceptional?

[spaceman70]

Flo Jo was a cheat as was Lance Armstrong. Cycling was always full of drugs cheats.

[The Cat]

Even though it is costing him money and time I find it hard to believe you would give up on proving your innocence if you knew you were in the right.

[Stubby]

I noticed on the BBC yesterday - there was a report of Para-olympicans (sp?) causing themselves injuries on purpose cause it increases the blood pressures in the body and enables them to train harder!

[Dan1987]

Don't know too much about the Lance Armstrong drug case, but just read his statement.
How can he be stripped of his titles when he has never failed a test??

[Deleted User]

This may end up with a case of no winner being announced for those 7 years.

For 3 of those years Jan Ullrich was second and he's had all his results from 2005 onwards annulled for drugs offences.

There's always doubts about phenomenal sports people. The East German women's sprinters cheated. There's mountains of documentary evidnce against Koch, Gohr, Woeckel etc and was so glad when their 4x100m WR went to the USA gals at the Olympics.

Flo-Jo less evidence, more circumstantial but still very dubious.

With Armstrong, I'd like to believe he was clean. For several years he was the most tested athlete on the planet and NEVER failed a single test. The case has been brought on the testimony of other (discredited by drugs themselves) cyclists.
Armstrong has always repudiated the claims and stands by his thousands of negative test results.

He now says he just is so weary and sick of fighting the allegations that he just won't fight any more. He still states his innocence.

I want to believe him. As Dave says cycling has had massive doping problems for years and despite that I still love the sport.
If Armstrong had failed just one test I'd be happy, but this whole story has left a bitter taste in my mouth and I'm really not sure who to believe.

What a shame.

[Dan1987]

So with no physical evidence, just a few testimony's from other cyclists he could be stripped of his 7 titles. I dont understand how that can happen, sounds like a load of coniffers to me.

I did see in his statement and elsewhere that USADA didn't have the authority to strip him of his titles anyway

[spaceman70]

This may end up with a case of no winner being announced for those 7 years.

For 3 of those years Jan Ullrich was second and he's had all his reults from 2005 annulled for drugs offences.

There's always doubts about phenomenal sports people. The East German women's sprinters cheated. There's mountains of documntary evidnce against Koch, Gohr, Woeckel etc and was so glad when their 4x100m went to the USA gals at the Olympics.

Flo-Jo less evidence, more circumstantial but still very dubious.

With Armstrong, I'd like to believe he was clean. For several years he was the most tested athlete on the planet and NEVER failed a single test. The case has been brought on the testimony of other (discredited by drugs themselves) cyclists.
Armstrong has always repudiated the claims and stands by his thousands of negative test results.

He now says he just is so weary and sick of fighting the allegations that he just won't fight any more. He still states his innocence.

I want to believe him. As Dave says cycling has had massive doping problems for years and despite that I still love the sport.
If Armstrong had failed just one test I'd be happy, but this whole story has left a bitter taste in my mouth and I'm really not sure who to believe.

What a shame.

I just cannot accept that anyone who is truly innocent not continuing to fight, who in all seriousness would be willing to have their career scratched?

[Wyn]

Just read that Lance Armstrong will no longer be fighting the drug charges.

He says he's innocent,but weary of fighting the "nonsense" accusations.

[Deleted User]

I did see in his statement and elsewhere that USADA didn't have the authority to strip him of his titles anyway

Correct. Only the UCI can strip him, but they usually do if the rider's national governing body find them guilty, which looks like the outcome here.

[Deleted User]

I just cannot accept that anyone who is truly innocent not continuing to fight, who in all seriousness would be willing to have their career scratched?

A point may others are making Dave. Armstrong has always been a fighter, beating his cancer through brutal bouts of radio and chemo-therapy. He's never quit on anything before.

Having said that, the allegations of doping that he has been denying consistently (as I said before with NO failed tests) have been dogging him since 1999 and it could be that after 13 years of fighting the allegations that he figures they're never going to go away and that he's simply wasting his breath.

If it was me and I was innocent I'd fight on. But then I haven't been fighting for 13 years already.

[Lee Taylor]

I'm a bit confused by all this.

So Armstrong won 7 Tours? Was he drug tested after each of those wins? Did he pass or fail those drug tests?

What has suddenly come to light after all these years?

[The Cat]

According to what I have read there are accusations that he did fail a test and it was covered up.

The witnesses who have given no public evidence yet are also all former convicted drugs cheats who are said to be being paid to provide testimony.

Allegedly etc etc

I still don't believe he would give up the fight though if he knew he was innocent.

[Deleted User]

I'm a bit confused by all this.

So Armstrong won 7 Tours? Was he drug tested after each of those wins? Did he pass or fail those drug tests?

What has suddenly come to light after all these years?

Nothing has suddenly come to light, there have been whispers for years. However in 2010 after 4 years and millions of dollars spent claiming his innocence Floyd Landis confessed to doping and said he would name others. After being deied a wild-card ride with a team in the Tour de France, Landis stated naming Armstrong (his former team-mate) as one of a number of high-profile cyclists he said had cheated.

He was tested multiple times during each Tour. Countless times at other events and even more times in out-of-competition testing.
Not one of those tests ever came back positive.

However, several of his former team-mates (only two named so far including Landis - both confessed dopers) have said that Armstrong was systematically doping thoughout his career. Also, there is a claim that a positive test during the 1999 tour was covered up by tour officials although this is only hearsay with no physical evidence.

It may well be that the doping chemists were just better than the detecting chemists, but as it stands he has never failed a test and has often been referred to as "the most tested athlete on the planet".

It's a mess.

[spaceman70]

I'm a bit confused by all this.

So Armstrong won 7 Tours? Was he drug tested after each of those wins? Did he pass or fail those drug tests?

What has suddenly come to light after all these years?

Nothing has suddenly come to light, there have been whispers for years. However in 2010 after 4 years and millions of dollars spent claiming his innocence Floyd Landis confessed to doping and said he would name others. After being deied a wild-card ride with a team in the Tour de France, Landis stated naming Armstrong (his former team-mate) as one of a number of high-profile cyclists he said had cheated.

He was tested multiple times during each Tour. Countless times at other events and even more times in out-of-competition testing.
Not one of those tests ever came back positive.

However, several of his former team-mates (only two named so far including Landis - both confessed dopers) have said that Armstrong was systematically doping thoughout his career. Also, there is a claim that a positive test during the 1999 tour was covered up by tour officials although this is only hearsay with no physical evidence.

It may well be that the doping chemists were just better than the detecting chemists, but as it stands he has never failed a test and has often been referred to as "the most tested athlete on the planet".

It's a mess.

That's the whole problem with performance enhancers, the detectors are only testing for drugs that they know about and the chemists are always inventing new ones.

[hang the dj]

Very sad to see as Armstrong was a hero of mine both with what he achieved in his career but more for what he overcame in his life

[Deleted User]

Very sad to see as Armstrong was a hero of mine both with what he achieved in his career but more for what he overcame in his life

Hear, hear. In 1996 Armstrong was diagnosed with late-stage metastatic testicular cancer that had spread to his abdomen, his lungs and his brain.
He was given only a 40% chance of surviving.
I watched so many of his Tour de France rides and he was an iron man in the mountains, breaking his nearest competitors with incredible climbs and time-trials. His training regime was tougher than any of this rivals in terms of how much he did and the sheer brutality of it.
To me, that made him the rider he was.
Landis and Hamilton have proven themselves to be dishonest in both doping (proven by failed tests) and lying about it, only implicating Armstrong later under alleged inducements from the USADA. Hamilton only gave his Olympic gold from 2004 back in 2010.

Other witnesses also claim to have been aware of his drugs use over the years, but all the evidence is their word against his.
He does, however have all the negative test results on his side!

I really, really want him to be clean but from today I have my doubts.

[WCDPA]

Flo Jo was a cheat as was Lance Armstrong. Cycling was always full of drugs cheats.

Cycling has got a terrible record of drug abuse but many have been caught, Armstrong has been tested numerous times and passed, take your point about enhancers Dave but others were caught, if we take it to the extreme and say Taylor , Adams even Hedman who are all winning events in their 50's and to my knowledge never failed a drug test ! Perhaps they too are on something that can't be detected or maybe it's purely because they are exceptional at what they do.
Armstrong protesting his innocence for 13 years perhaps he is just fed up.