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Ribsauce posted:Rerun, I just read 5 articles and never saw one mention of the Postal Service sponsoring his team as a reason for interest. quote:There is also a complicated whistleblower lawsuit filed by Floyd Landis, another disgraced former Tour de France winner, against Armstrong and others, the suit stating that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. Postal Service, which was one of his sponsors once, and paid him between $60 million and $80 million at the height of his fame. Armstrong, of course, will say what Barry Bonds and Clemens said, that chasing sports stars over drugs is a waste of taxpayer money. But what about all that money the U.S. Postal Service paid to Lance Armstrong? The government, I believe, dropped their case earlier this summer and USADA went full bore on Lance because they had 10 very credible and damaging (George Hincapaie for example) testifying against Lance. These men testifying against Lance would be the killing blow. But yes Lance's involvement in defrauding the US Postal is one of the reasons why, 10 years later, authorities are still going after Lance.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 13:54 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 23:51 |
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This thread might help people understand how doping can go undetected: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...hreadid=3498973 It's a real shame, I was very much into the idea that he was the only clean man in the sport but to not a face a charge is just straight up admitting it. So, as one monotesticular man to another, gently caress that guy.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 13:55 |
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Mechafunkzilla posted:Criticizing a TdF winner for using PED's is like criticizing a bodybuilder for using steroids. The 50 guys who finished after Lance in each race he won were all doing the exact same poo poo. It's obvious that Lance doped; it's obvious that everyone else did too. But the doping agencies are obsessed with nailing Lance.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 14:05 |
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evensevenone posted:That's what pisses me off. They're just handing the Yellow Jerseys from one doper to another. Are they going to go back and retest Ivan Basso's samples and shake down all of his teammates? Are we going to go dig up Pantani? It is assumed that they'll just be vacated.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 14:12 |
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Tezzeract posted:Maybe Skip Bayless is right and that not even Derek Jeter is above the suspicion for doping this season.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 14:16 |
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Doping athletes perform better and are more fun to watch than clean athletes. Doping for everyone!
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 14:28 |
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Meh whatever. He doped, everyone else doped, so winning 7 TdF's is still pretty drat impressive, whether or not his name is in the books. Maybe he's not Jesus H. Superman but his charities have raised an absolute shitton for cancer research so I'm not going to condemn the guy. What I don't get is why he doped in front of teammates...do that poo poo in the bathroom man. wyoak fucked around with this message at Aug 24, 2012 around 14:35 |
| # ? Aug 24, 2012 14:32 |
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wyoak posted:Meh whatever. He doped, everyone else doped, so winning 7 TdF's is still pretty drat impressive, whether or not his name is in the books. Maybe he's not Jesus H. Superman but his charities have raised an absolute shitton for cancer research so I'm not going to condemn the guy. His charities raised a poo poo-ton for cancer *awareness*. Very little, if any, for cancer research. http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoo...s.html?page=all
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:02 |
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Deathlove posted:His charities raised a poo poo-ton for cancer *awareness*. Very little, if any, for cancer research. oh jesus christ "A note on the foundation’s website informs visitors that, as of 2010, it no longer even accepts research proposals"
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:11 |
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Describing the whole thing as a "witch hunt" is ridiculous. First of all, it is pretty much standard operating procedure to keep samples around and retest them many years after the fact. Just the other day a cyclist from the 2004 olympics was stripped of gold because he was busted when they retested his 04 sample, which they did for everyone. Second, Lance came back to cycling and had suspicious tests just a couple of years ago. Finally, I think it is obvious why a doping agency would focus more on an athlete who won an unprecedented number of titles than on an average, middle of the pack one. Especially after so many witnesses came forward and accused him.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:13 |
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Ribsauce posted:edit Well we don't know exactly what the evidence is yet so it may be more than a bunch of eyewitness testimonies from ex-team mates. As an aside, what did you think of Marion Jones getting done for 8-10 year old offences?
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:16 |
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evensevenone posted:That's what pisses me off. They're just handing the Yellow Jerseys from one doper to another. Are they going to go back and retest Ivan Basso's samples and shake down all of his teammates? Are we going to go dig up Pantani? It's just dumb that everyone gets up in arms about Lance when tons of other people have gotten sacked already and no one gave a poo poo about them because they didn't have a PR team and a cancer bracelet
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:38 |
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notaspy posted:This thread might help people understand how doping can go undetected: Or, he could have decided not to face the charges because the legal fees were going to eventually break him. He's stood up in the face of scrutiny and passed the drug tests for years. At some point someone's going to finally stop and he's got child support and poo poo to deal with already.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:02 |
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We should focus more on the loving UCI having known about Lance doping, if anything is more damaging to the sport it's that: The ruling body not giving a poo poo.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:02 |
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What I've been very impressed with is how the US anti-doping authorities never relented in exposing Armstrong even though it would've been easy to do so given his seraphic reputation in America. This is something Europe could learn. Would, for example, any Spanish authority justifiably press this hard against any one of the myriad of high-profile dopers in Spain? Not likely.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:05 |
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Breaky posted:Or, he could have decided not to face the charges because the legal fees were going to eventually break him. He's stood up in the face of scrutiny and passed the drug tests for years. At some point someone's going to finally stop and he's got child support and poo poo to deal with already. I want to print this out and frame it. Everyone feel bad for poor Lance Armstrong who can't put food on the table because the nasty government keeps taking his ill gotten gains that he won through dangerous and systemic cheating.  joepinetree posted:Just the other day a cyclist from the 2004 olympics was stripped of gold because he was busted when they retested his 04 sample, which they did for everyone. This was actually Tyler Hamilton, who publicly vacated all of his medals and victories and has been out of the sport for a while. One of the people who rode with Lance and was going to testify. They didn't actually re-test and catch him, he publicly admitted it, they just waited until the last possible day to actually strip him formally of the medal.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:05 |
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xie posted:I want to print this out and frame it. Everyone feel bad for poor Lance Armstrong who can't put food on the table because the nasty government keeps taking his ill gotten gains that he won through dangerous and systemic cheating. Go ahead. I have no personal connection for Armstrong nor after having met him do I think he is a good person. He was a tremendous dickhead. I simply choose to believe that he might be innocent until actually proven guilty. I'm a biochemist, I know full well how the tests work and how they can find things much later on with newer tests from old samples. If evidence actually comes out I won't feel bad for Armstrong in the slightest. Until then I'm not going to jump on a bandwagon and say he's guilty simple because he decided not to keep fighting against the accusations he's gotten during and after his entire career.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:15 |
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Breaky posted:Go ahead. I have no personal connection for Armstrong nor after having met him do I think he is a good person. He was a tremendous dickhead. and 10 people's testimony, and the fact that all of his competitors were doing it, and and and...
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:20 |
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Clearly Lance is just an evolutionary marvel who actually doesn't need drugs to trounce the best doped up cyclists in the world again and again
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:21 |
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So do you think the multiple suspicious drug tests, evidence of previous test cover ups, and at least 10 people that the USADA had ready to roll on Lance don't count as some sort of proof? Do you think that this was all railroaded charges, or a fishing expedition? A conspiracy that everyone was in on that spanned years and dozens and dozens of people? What about the fact that what he did is almost assuredly beyond the limits of human physiology, as is what his competitors were doing, almost all of whom have been caught/admitted to cheating. And he was better. I'm curious, because Marion Jones never tested positive and eventually admitted it and there was far less circumstantial evidence and testimony. I'm a very big innocence until guilty thing, but he's not on criminal trial here.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:22 |
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19369375 And its official. Banned for life from cycling, and those 7 tour wins are gone.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:30 |
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serious gaylord posted:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19369375 He still keeps his prize money, doesn't he? Still what a letdown. After all the inspiration of beating cancer then winning the Tour several times, he turns out to be a cheat. A cheat who has repeatedly said that he did everything clean.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:44 |
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Plucky Brit posted:He still keeps his prize money, doesn't he? Still what a letdown. After all the inspiration of beating cancer then winning the Tour several times, he turns out to be a cheat. A cheat who has repeatedly said that he did everything clean. While he keeps his prize money, it opens him up for all kinds of litigation from sponsors.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:48 |
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xie posted:So do you think the multiple suspicious drug tests, evidence of previous test cover ups, and at least 10 people that the USADA had ready to roll on Lance don't count as some sort of proof? Do you think that this was all railroaded charges, or a fishing expedition? A conspiracy that everyone was in on that spanned years and dozens and dozens of people? For someone supposedly tested so much I'd prefer to see actual evidence that he tested positive. If there were test coverups that we here on the internet know about then hey present the actual proof of that then. That would great. It's obvious that there is a massive doping problem in cycling. It's probable that Armstrong was doping. It's also obvious that he's been target #1 in cycling both for the testing agencies and for the tabloids. There are definitely at least some people with an agenda in taking him down. Given that circumstance I'd like to at least see one actual test result seeing as he's been tested so rigorously for so long. Otherwise we're just saying "well we heard some stuff, and despite using the best testing methods in the sport for over 10 years we're going to decide you're guilty" and I have a problem with that line of reasoning. I have no problem with him being guilty. At this point in cycling you're far better off assuming everyone has doped. Edit: and yes I know about the corticosteroid positive test in 99. He was cleared for that via a previous prescription.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:54 |
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Breaky posted:Edit: and yes I know about the corticosteroid positive test in 99. He was cleared for that via a previous prescription. Which was backdated so that it would be "previous".
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:57 |
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mdemone posted:Which was backdated so that it would be "previous". So in 13 years they haven't proved that and used it against him already?
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:58 |
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Pardon my ignorance, but simply put, who the hell is the USADA? In the sense that, how can they possibly be claiming jurisdiction? Can they strip something they didn't award in the first place?
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:06 |
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serious gaylord posted:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19369375 Not yet. Thats just the USADA, which technically doesnt have any control over the biking world. ITs an olympic testing thing. Who knows if his TdF victories will be stripped. But it hasnt happened yet. USADA is just making the recomendation.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:07 |
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Breaky posted:For someone supposedly tested so much I'd prefer to see actual evidence that he tested positive. If there were test coverups that we here on the internet know about then hey present the actual proof of that then. That would great. It's obvious that there is a massive doping problem in cycling. It's probable that Armstrong was doping. It's also obvious that he's been target #1 in cycling both for the testing agencies and for the tabloids. There are definitely at least some people with an agenda in taking him down. Given that circumstance I'd like to at least see one actual test result seeing as he's been tested so rigorously for so long. From earlier in the thread: grack posted:http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lan...t-usada-charges And I think having his teammates testify against him, plus every sports scientist ever, is more than just "well we heard some stuff". And of course part of the point of the blood tests is that you're supposed to be able to check them later. INSPECTAH DECK fucked around with this message at Aug 24, 2012 around 17:33 |
| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:09 |
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Breaky posted:For someone supposedly tested so much I'd prefer to see actual evidence that he tested positive. http://nyvelocity.com/content/inter...ichael-ashenden Michael Ashenden posted:AS: So out of the 87 usable samples that they gathered, they got 13 positives and 6 of them belonged to Lance Armstrong.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:11 |
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Woah cool. That's an interesting read, and a lot more damning. Is this part of the evidence that USADA is using?
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:22 |
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quote:LOS ANGELES -- The director of the Swiss anti-doping laboratory informed federal authorities last fall that Lance Armstrong's test results from the 2001 Tour de Suisse were "suspicious" and "consistent with EPO use," The Associated Press has learned. This positive was swept under the rug by the UCI who by then had seen the monetary value of an American winner who beat cancer, Lance paid them back by "donating" tons of money to buy the UCI a blood testing machine, that would make it harder for his competitors to dope. http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycli...tory?id=6614413
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:24 |
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Breaky posted:Woah cool. That's an interesting read, and a lot more damning. Is this part of the evidence that USADA is using? I'm not sure. I only found out about the article because someone posted it earlier in the thread. It's a really good read though. I vaguely remember the French reporter/Lance's tests scandal, but don't remember why nothing ever came of it. It sounds like Lance pretty straightforwardly failed tests for synthetic EPO. Can someone explain -- really explain, not just "LOL corruption" -- why he didn't get suspended for that? It sounds like they retested these '99 samples in '05, so I don't think these are the tests that UCI swept under the rug.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:27 |
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Gregor Samsa posted:I'm not sure. I only found out about the article because someone posted it earlier in the thread. It's a really good read though. I remember this slightly from long ago also, but it was made to sound really suspicious. From reading that it seems not to be the case at all. The way the journalists found the evidence was suspicious in and of itself, but as the guy put so well, they would still be highly difficult to fake, even for a professional chemist.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:32 |
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Gregor Samsa posted:I'm not sure. I only found out about the article because someone posted it earlier in the thread. It's a really good read though. The UCI called the help of an 'independent' lawyer, Emile Vrijman, who said there were procedural errors and Armstrong coudn't be suspended. WADA wasn't very pleased about that and the whole affair (see here for their statement), but were powerless to do anything about it. You can find more information and a timeline in the link.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:44 |
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We've done it. Years of paperwork, tons of funding, long hours and it's over. We got him. One of the most obvious dopers in recent history has finally been beaten. Now the current pro-peloton will be less likely to dope because they got Lance. We got Armstrong. This makes so much sense. The game has changed. 
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:44 |
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Lance is just pulling a Batman here, he's the villian the sport needs.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:54 |
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Mechafunkzilla posted:Criticizing a TdF winner for using PED's is like criticizing a bodybuilder for using steroids. The 50 guys who finished after Lance in each race he won were all doing the exact same poo poo. Everyone I've talked to about this has said some variation of the above ("cycling is corrupt as poo poo and this is pointless"), "he's still the best cycler for beating all the other doped-up people", "witch hunt! loving Frenchies!", or "still cool for cancer awareness and, y'know, the whole being alive thing". Honestly, I think the Tour de France/USADA comes out of this looking far worse in the public eye than Lance Armstrong does.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:54 |
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gently caress it other people beat me to it.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:58 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 23:51 |
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The minute George Hincapie turned this was all over. If you've watched cycling in any amount over the last decade and a half you'll know Hincapie's testimony is as damning as positive sample.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:59 |
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