Lance Armstrong

Open Forum in English
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I am really perplexed by what has transpired recently in the Lance Armstrong saga. How can one become such a perfect liar and live with that? If you look at former speeches of his talking about his cancer work or when he lashed out against the people behind this “smear campaign” against him it makes you want to throw up.

This guy not only comitted fraud on a massive scale, he also had the sang froid to bully everyone into silence threaten media and journalists with libel lawsuits while seeing himself as moral superhuman.

What a heartless, spineless cheater and fraud, unbelievable!

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I agree with you, but I’d like to add 3 nuances :

  1. The testimonies of the “witnesses” are a compromise made between the American federation and other “coureurs” who are declared guilties of drug abuse (“you say what you’ve seen, and we reduce your sentence”). Moreover, the physical proofs are almost non-existent.
  2. He’s not the only one who used EPO and other substances (Far from it !! That’s why Christian Prudhomme declared “organisers would prefer not to re-attribute Armstrong’s wins to other riders, with finding a podium finisher not implicated in doping affairs in those years a difficult task.”).
  3. Nothing is done to change this problem (when you look at the parcours of the Tour de france 2013… :-s).
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Of course there is plea bargaining involved in such cases, that is how you crack a wall of silence.

Of course he was not the only one to dope but given his life story, his aggressive posture towards whistleblowers, his image of a cancer campaigner and moral role model, all this makes his case all the more serious and shocking.

You could argue that even a positive test is only circumstantial evidence because someone could have tampered with the sample. Given the large number of independent testimonies against him it would be impossible for them to lie and fabricate the whole story and still be consistent with the entire body of evidence.

Another element is that EPO was only very hard to detect at the time, so he could have slipped under the radar because of that.

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JujuLeCaribou wrote:

“The testimonies of the “witnesses” are a compromise made between the American federation and other “coureurs” who are declared guilties of drug abuse (“you say what you’ve seen, and we reduce your sentence”). Moreover, the physical proofs are almost non-existent.”

Simply not true. The case file of the USADA includes sworn testimony from 26 people including 15 riders. Christian Vande Velde, George Hincapie, David Zabriskie, Frankie Andreu, Jonathan Vaughters, Michael Barry to name just some riders never tested positive before (some of them already ended their career), so they wouldn’t face a sentence or ban.
In 2005 six urine samples taken from Lance Armstrong in 1999 were tested positive for EPO (the first EPO detection method was introduced in 2000). Just because the samples supposedly were not “conducted according to official standards”, Armstrong couldn’t be banned. In addition Armstrong was tested positive for corticosteroids in 1999. In the 2000s many riders started to use blood transfusions which are nearly impossible to detect.

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George Hincapie : “On October 10, 2012, Hincapie released a statement on his website acknowledging the use of performance-enhancing drugs and confirming that he had been approached by US Federal Investigators and USADA with regards to his experiences with doping. Later that day a statement was released confirming his acceptance of a six-month ban from September 1, 2012, ending on March 1, 2013, along with a stripping of all race results between May 31, 2004, and July 31, 2006.”

David Zabriskie : “On 10 October 2012 it was announced by USADA that he would be suspended for six months for admissions of doping during his time with the US Postal Cycling Team. Later that day a statement was released confirming his acceptance of a six month ban from 1 September 2012 ending on 1 March 2013 along with a stripping of all race results between 13 May 2003 and 31 July 2006.”

Christian Van de Velde : “On 10 October 2012 it was announced by USADA that he would be suspended for six months for admissions of doping during his time with the US Postal Cycling Team.[2] Later that day a statement was released confirming his acceptance of a six month ban from 1 September 2012 ending on 1 March 2013 along with a stripping of all race results between 4 June 2004 and 31 April 2006.”

Frankie Andreu : “In an interview with the New York Times in September 2006, Andreu admitted that he had taken EPO to help prepare for the 1999 Tour de France, when he was riding for the US Postal team which assisted Lance Armstrong to his first Tour victory. Andreu said he was introduced to performance enhancing drugs in 1995 while he was riding for Motorola.”

Jonathan Vaughters : “In August 2012 Vaughters published an opinion column in ‘The New York Times’ entitled ‘How to Get Doping Out of Sports’ in which he stated his opposition to doping and expressed his regret over taking drugs during his cycling career.”

Michael Berry : “In August 2012 Vaughters published an opinion column in ‘The New York Times’ entitled ‘How to Get Doping Out of Sports’ in which he stated his opposition to doping and expressed his regret over taking drugs during his cycling career.”

In exchange of their testimony ??? Financial impunity !!! (I insist of the term “financial”, my previous post being wrong regarding this fact, as Sebastian K mentionned it)

About the positive samples :
As you mentioned it, they have “not (been) conducted according to official standards”.
Therefore, Lance Armstrong has NEVER been controlled positive OFFICIALLY.
The 1999 control doesn’t prove anything (officially !!!) because the results are due to the post-treatment for his cancer.

Conclusion : obvious arrangements between the prosecutors (USADA and UCI) and the witnesses (coureurs and medical staff), and no physical proof.

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I recommend this (French) book to the readers of this thread : Prisonnier du dopage de Philippe Gaumont - Livre - Decitre
Appalling…

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Why then would Lance Armstrong let his sponsors drop off without a fight and lose out on potentially $100+ million? For years he fought the charges left and right, but now all of a sudden he decides to give up after trying every angle to appeal the case against him by the USADA? It doesn’t make logical sense, and clearly Mr. Armstrong is a man who understands the cost of not fighting the charges.

As far as the future of the sport, just yesterday Greg LeMond stepped up and called for the resignation of McQuaid and Verbruggen, attempting to make positive steps towards remedying the doping-laden culture of professional cycling. I think it’s too early to conclude that nothing is being done to change the problem, and the 2013 race is still many many months away. Time will tell, but I think there is hope for the future of the sport in this regard.

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“Conclusion : obvious arrangements between the prosecutors (USADA and UCI) and the witnesses (coureurs and medical staff), and no physical proof.”

Are you saying he is probably innocent?

Regarding the 1999 samples, there are divided opinions on that one and if one alledges incorrect handling, as you did, one would have to be more specific as to how EPO could have contaminated the supposedly clean sample.

Again, it is not one single evidence, it is the big picture. Given the fact that cycling was in the state it was in at the time the riders testifying are not less credible because of that. Given that so many have in fact taken drugs, Armstrong’s domination throughout these years while refusing to dope is even less conceivable.

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@ Alex :
From what I understand, the USADA and the UCI are sports tribunals. Their judgement has no legal validity outside of the code of conduct / rules of the sport.
Therefore, L. Armstrong can not be forced to give this money back.
But I may be wrong…

@ Friedemann :
My 1st sentence, in my 1st post, was : “I agree with you, but I’d like to add 3 nuances”.
I think my opinion about this is clear.

What I want to explain is that the “process” is not clear, at least not for me : there is no physical proof (the 1999 “evidence” is not OFFICIAL proof), only testimonies obtained by arrangements. For me, this is not a “clean” job.

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Money lost not from having to return prize money, but from existing sponsorship agreements that have continued even after his retirement (and second retirement). Estimates vary, but many estimates fall in the tens of millions over the next few years. Hard to say he’ll ever make a solid return into the public eye after something like this. The same can be said for Barry Bonds, but that’s another story altogether.

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@JujuLeCaribou wrote: “In exchange of their testimony ??? Financial impunity !!!”

But who guarantees financial impunity for the testifying riders? The USADA and UCI can’t (maybe except for the won prize money). A deceived sponsor may simply go to a civil court.

The most perfidious of this case is, that Armstrong gained millions of dollars suing against newspapers and witnesses, who accused him of doping.

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If everyone in the world of professional cycling is into doping, why not just make doping legal in this sport?

Just a thought…

13

I totally agree with you, Jay_B !!

The American football is a perfect example : in the rules of the NFL, there is no explicite drug abuse interdiction. They don’t say you can, but they don’t say you can not either !
(after thinking more deeply, I think they changed their rules about drug abuse a few years ago)

14

No holds barred? Well, at least you wouldn’t have Lance’s hypocritical claims that he is clean.

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I would even say : “at least you wouldn’t have everyone’s hypocritical claims that he is clean.” :wink:

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There are different degrees of hypocritical, I think, Lance is just off that scale…

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