Lance's Tour Titles are Stripped - Banned from Cycling For Life

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Steve, I understand what you are saying, but I've re-read what I posted and can stand by it 100%. Cycling might have started testing early, but blood-doping was rampant and testing still inadequate during the Armstrong years. Yes, the testing might be one of the most stringent NOW, but it was inadequate for a very long time: The end-result kind of proves it - too many guys got away with it for too long, despite all the eyes on them. Part of it was just the fact that blood-doping was too difficult to prevent - some of the tactics the cyclists used were very creative.

From the late '90s until about eight years ago, as a marathoner, I trained with triathletes who were, of course, heavy into cycling. We all closely followed the cycling debacles year after year. You can say what you want, but we were all pretty much ashamed of the professional end of the sport of cycling. I think catching a few stars recently will help the sport in the long run.

Just my opinion, of course - add $2.20 and you can get a 12-oz cup of drip coffee.

I can see why you'd think that, but they were testing for EPO starting in 2000. At the time the test was a combined blood and urine test. They have since moved to just urine as the science improves. Blood testing for HGH began in late 2004. As did testing for homologous blood doping (Using your own blood instead of random blood.)

So He passed the tests for EPO (and a huge list of other stuff) starting in 2000, and All 3 plus the other stuff in 2005. There are apparently ways of beating the tests which I wasn't aware of. They're all pretty gross so I'll spare us all the details. They're out there if you look for them like I just did.I was actually trying to get the actual degree of testing. I know it's all stage winners, and a random sampling at the least.

The politics of it still bothers me though.
The French anti doping agency was aware of the ways of beating the test, and catching him at any of them would have led to an immediate ban. Why they didn't pursue that when they had plenty of reason to is bothersome.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/repo...oping-controls

Warned presumably by his team. But where did the info come from? The inspectors who were supposed to do surprise testing. There's precedent for the inspectors turning a blind eye towards some positives. One rider claimed that the hematocrit tests were often over 50, but the testers would announce in the team tent "49.9 you're all ok"

There's also this
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/usad...five-tour-wins
Yep, the group that just gave him the lifetime ban would have followed their own rules and let him slide on 5 tour wins by following their own statute of limitations if only he'd cooperated. That looks pretty poor in my book. Make rules, then apply them if someone cooperates but ignore them if they won't. I can't imagine that going over well in a criminal case.
I'm also somewhat against having a statute of limitations at all. Either he cheated or he didn't.

He was ok while he was making money everyone, now that he's doing stuff that won't make that money he's fair game. Guilty or not that feels wrong, maybe more wrong than a cyclist taking some performance enhancers. A single guy cheating is wrong, a whole organization looking the other way until the money stops coming in.....

Steve B