Having read some of the hard evidence and the science behind it I've become convinced. I wondered for years how he could pass so many tests and still have the accusations. I'd put it down to his personality. Always one to trash an ex teammate who left because they wanted a slice of the spotlight.
The culture as I've said before is one that embraces the repentant. Sort of like if Barry Bonds said "yeah, you caught me" did his year off and all was forgiven. Maybe it's a European thing.
Having read the article in SI, what saddens me is that the UCI officials right up to include two presidents of the organization declared him clean when they knew absolutely that he wasn't. One positive test went away followed closely by a 150K "donation" from Lance that was used for of all things a youth anti doping education program and a piece of testing equipment.
In my mind there's cheating - Bad but apparently common. And then there's ruining the careers of those who know and speak out - Much worse.
And finally allowing a known cheat to continue in return for payoffs as long as the money keeps coming......... There's a lot of guys who should also be getting a lifetime ban if not jail time. But they won't get any punishment at all.
And as someoneelse mentioned the number of places they'd have to back up if they removed the results of all the riders who have at one time tested positive would be crazy.
On the plus side Jan Ullrich just became a 4 time tdf winner.
(His results from 05 and 06 were already stripped earlier this year by an arbitration board. He was also retroactively banned from 2011 on, despite being retired since early 2007 I guess to prevent any sort of comeback.)
Steve B
10-26-2012, 05:51 PM
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