Lance Armstrong To Lose All Tour de France Medals...

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

Apparently USADA are going to release the evidence anyway. The UCI are also holding fire until they see it for themselves.

Evidence against Lance Armstrong will be disclosed by USADA as they aim to strip Tour titles and ban for life
US Anti-Doping Agency chief executive Travis Tygart has stated their evidence against Lance Armstrong will be made public, despite the seven-time Tour de France winner's decision not to fight the charges against him.

By Telegraph Sport12:39PM BST 24 Aug 2012
The 41-year-old released a statement saying he was "finished with this nonsense" and insisted he is innocent, but did not want to spend any further effort clearing his name.
He said: "There comes a point in every man's life when he has to say, 'Enough is enough'. For me, that time is now.
"I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999."
Armstrong faces having his unprecedented run of Tour wins stripped out of the record books, as well as a lifetime ban from any sport signed up to the World Anti-Doping Agency code.
His decision to walk away from the charges against him casts a cloud of doubt over proceedings.
The USADA have treated his move as an admission of guilt, but it is a guilt that has not been proven by arbitration hearings where the evidence against him has been judged on its merits.
WADA chief John Fahey believes Armstrong's decision not to fight the charges meant there was 'substance' to those allegations.
"He had the right to rip up those charges but he elected not to, therefore the only interpretation in these circumstances is that there was substance in those charges," Fahey said.
"My understanding is that when the evidence is based upon a career that included seven Tour de France wins then all of that becomes obliterated."
The USADA also accused five of Armstrong's associates including Johan Bruyneel, the sporting director who guided the American to his Tour triumphs.
Proceedings against them are ongoing but Tygart told velonation.com the evidence, believed to include testimony from up to 10 of Armstrong's former team-mates, will be released "in due course".
When asked if he expected details of the evidence against Armstrong to emerge, he said: "Yes, absolutely...at the right time.
"Obviously there are other cases that are alleged to be involved in the conspiracy. Their cases are still proceeding, so it will be in due course."
When asked if there was any impediment to the USADA releasing those details, he replied: "No."
Tygart also insisted the USADA have the power to strip Armstrong of his Tour titles.
Cycling's international governing body, the UCI, have contended they should have jurisdiction over Armstrong's case as they were responsible for carrying out doping tests while he competed.
Armstrong has been at pains to point out that he has never failed a drug test.
The UCI could choose to appeal to CAS against the USADA ruling, or to gain jurisdiction over the case.
But Tygart is confident his body have the power to hand down their sanctions.
He said: "They (Armstrong and his legal team) have already taken legal action and the federal judge told them we do have authority and our process is the process where those complaints can be made.
"It is kind of funny that they walking away from a process, but are threatening to attempt to go back to somewhere else to fight. It is a little ironic but, no...it means nothing."
The UCI have released a statement saying they will wait to receive a required communication from USADA explaining its actions before making further comment.
It read: "The UCI notes Lance Armstrong's decision not to proceed to arbitration in the case that USADA has brought against him.
"The UCI recognises that USADA is reported as saying that it will strip Mr. Armstrong of all results from 1998 onwards in addition to imposing a lifetime ban from participating in any sport which recognises the World Anti-Doping Code.
"Article 8.3 of the WADC states that where no hearing occurs the Anti-Doping Organisation with results management responsibility shall submit to the parties concerned (Mr Armstrong, WADA and UCI) a reasoned decision explaining the action taken.
"As USADA has claimed jurisdiction in the case the UCI expects that it will issue a reasoned decision in accordance with Article 8.3 of the Code.
"Until such time as USADA delivers this decision the UCI has no further comment to make."

We don't know what the full body of evidence is either way (bar parts like the eyewitness testimonies) but my gut feeling is that USADA wouldn't have taken this step, and Armstrong wouldn't have pulled off his hissy fit if it wasn't bulletproof. It'll make for interesting reading.

[Tanasinn]

At some point a bunch of stupid medals must just stop becoming worth it.

No physical evidence. The word of only butthurt defeated proven-and-admitted cheaters to go on.

[Korgeta]

So that Dodgeball scene was a lie all along?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Anyway, If they do show some hard evidence on this then in my eyes tour de france is dead and just a farce, Armstrong wasn't just tour de france's mascot for, he kept that sport going because of his outstanding performance. Even with Team sky involved and wiggins winning (great from a brit pov) the idea that armstrong was able to evade the doping system (or turned a blind eye) makes the sport at 'best' look incompetent.

[ArmorPierce]

Wow not only did armstrong manage to beat all his main competitors, all proven to be juice monkeys, he did it with only one ball.

Imagine what kind of beast he would be if he still had both balls attached.

[Simon_Jester]

I think past records have to be worth something- we're revisiting this a decade later and now it makes sense to retroactively yank medals? For nearly unfalsifiable allegations of cheating?

So either Lance Armstrong was such a superhuman rider that he could beat guys that were later found to be doping while he was completely clean, or he was as up to his eyeballs as the rest of them. Which seems more likely? It won't hold up in a court of law, but the circumstantial evidence alone combined with his statement seems rather damning to me.

How would the world look different if Armstrong just happened to be some kind of weird high-powered mutant?

Here's an idea:

Let's simply invalidate any and all cycling competitions from, say, 1990 onward. If the sport is that rotten then it's all meaningless anyway.

Either that, or just admit it's a race between pharmaceutical companies and not actual humans, allow anything and everything, and we can just sit back and watch these "athletes" die of drug complications a few years after spectacular wins. That's if they don't just simply start dropping dead mid-race.

That is extraordinarily stupid, even by your standards. For starters, do you realise that events like the Tour aren't just all about the yellow jersey?

Not if everyone who performs in the Tour is doped to the eyeballs. Then it's just a farce.

I mean, if we accept the argument "he beat people who were doped so he must be doped," we might as well scrap everyone's records, dating all the way back to the invention of steroids. Because this idea that there's an inherent nobility to sport turns into a joke. How can you appeal to the 'purity' of something when by your own argument, the entire activity is so corrupt that it's literally impossible to win without cheating?

This, essentially. You'd have to be a conspiracy theorist loon to think all of the agnecies after him are somehow in collusion to take him down.
1) Take down Lance Armstrong for doping.
2)???
3) Profit!

Where was the profit in outing actors as communists during McCarthyism?

There is a certain class of people who get off on destroying reputations and success. And going "heh heh, guess HE wasn't clean after all!" And people like that will hound you endlessly, once they feel like they have an angle of attack; if you clear your name once they'll just wait a year and drum up a nearly identical version of the same accusation.

It doesn't even take conspiracy, just like-mindedness and a willing to believe spiteful assholes.

[Flagg]

This, essentially. You'd have to be a conspiracy theorist loon to think all of the agnecies after him are somehow in collusion to take him down.
1) Take down Lance Armstrong for doping.
2)???
3) Profit!

Where was the profit in outing actors as communists during McCarthyism?

There is a certain class of people who get off on destroying reputations and success. And going "heh heh, guess HE wasn't clean after all!" And people like that will hound you endlessly, once they feel like they have an angle of attack; if you clear your name once they'll just wait a year and drum up a nearly identical version of the same accusation.

It doesn't even take conspiracy, just like-mindedness and a willing to believe spiteful assholes.

You're kidding right? McCarthy was bolstering his political ambitions and studios and actors were saving their own asses. This is the worst comparison I've ever seen. Ever. Congratulations, you are a stupid shit.

[Phantasee]

I'm with Simon. There are people who bring others down even if it doesn't profit them. And there is a sort of profit to be had in stripping Armstrong of his medals: the USADA and WADA have been embarassed again and again as all the other former Tour winners have been found to have been doping. They're trying to wipe that record out by wiping Armstrong's record out, and hope the historical record shows they managed to get them all, whether they all doped or not, or whether they can actually prove it or not.

[Flagg]

I'm with Simon. There are people who bring others down even if it doesn't profit them. And there is a sort of profit to be had in stripping Armstrong of his medals: the USADA and WADA have been embarassed again and again as all the other former Tour winners have been found to have been doping. They're trying to wipe that record out by wiping Armstrong's record out, and hope the historical record shows they managed to get them all, whether they all doped or not, or whether they can actually prove it or not.

So... Let me get this straight... They are saving themselves embarrassment by going after the only championship cyclist most Americans have ever heard of? How the fuck does that work, magic?

[aerius]

The widespread use of performance enhancing drugs in road cycling goes back a good 50-60 years, if not more. Back then it was amphetamines & steroids, then later on the had blood doping, better steroids, EPO, human growth hormones, and who knows what kind of designer shit they have now. If a rider is anywhere near the top in the Tour, he is on a "medical program", period. How do we know this? Hematocrit levels. During the Tour or other such similar stage race, hematocrit levels should fall around 10% since the body can't recover from the daily sustained efforts of racing, it slowly breaks down and gets weaker as the race goes on. When you look at the blood samples from the top guys this doesn't happen, their hematocrit levels remain pegged at the same level (usually just below the 50% legal limit) from beginning to end which is physiologically impossible without some sort of "medical assistance".

My personal thoughts? Lance is guilty as fuck, and so is every Tour winner for at least the last 25-30 years, as well as pretty much the entire field for at least the last 15-20 years. They're all fucking dopers, the only difference is some of them were caught and the rest either got a slap on the wrist, a talk behind the scenes, or they just plain don't give a fuck about them.

[Simon_Jester]

Aerius, I can belive that- I don't feel inclined to argue.

But if we accept that theory, it's pointless to 'rescind' anything because there is no honor left to the sport. All you can say is "look, all Tour de France medals between 1980 and 2010 are contaminated, presumably the guys who won the races had some combination of highest fitness and best pharmacist, and that's all we know."

We ban people for cheating because they're getting an unfair advantage, and because it's "supposed" to be about such good old-fashioned 'training' techniques as eating huge piles of protein, or working out in a steamroom to dehydrate yourself so you can pass the weight test to enter a boxing match, or building up huge asymmetric muscles to do certain things. It's not about chemistry, or at least not chemistry discovered since 1900.

Which is fine; I approve of defining sports that way. But if everyone's doing it, then I can't very well mock outrage when the entire system of testing, enforcement, and compliance was a joke from start to finish. It reflects worse on the people running the sport than it does on the athletes themselves. The athletes at least have the excuse that all their real physical training and effort goes to waste if they don't dope, because they'll lose to people who did dope and did the training too.

And yet I still don't like it, because the whole thing smacks of celebrity-hunting.

You're kidding right? McCarthy was bolstering his political ambitions and studios and actors were saving their own asses. This is the worst comparison I've ever seen. Ever. Congratulations, you are a stupid shit.

Coming from you, I take it as an honor...

McCarthy had his ambitions- which were furthered by bringing decent people down and making as many accusations as possible. It's very easy for witch-hunts to start, and pick out high profile targets; there's a huge dose of "fastest gun in the west" there. If you're a bureaucrat who's trying to prove that he has control of his sport, then being the bureaucrat who broke Lance Armstrong is like being the man who out-drew the world's best gunfighter.

The man who passed hundreds of drug tests? Who always seemed to be clean? Now you broke him? Holy shit!

It doesn't make anyone's name a household word; it doesn't have to. Because all that really matters to this sort of mindset is that in your heart, you're shitting on someone's idol and winning.

[Flagg]

You're kidding right? McCarthy was bolstering his political ambitions and studios and actors were saving their own asses. This is the worst comparison I've ever seen. Ever. Congratulations, you are a stupid shit.

Coming from you, I take it as an honor...

McCarthy had his ambitions- which were furthered by bringing decent people down and making as many accusations as possible. It's very easy for witch-hunts to start, and pick out high profile targets; there's a huge dose of "fastest gun in the west" there. If you're a bureaucrat who's trying to prove that he has control of his sport, then being the bureaucrat who broke Lance Armstrong is like being the man who out-drew the world's best gunfighter.

The man who passed hundreds of drug tests? Who always seemed to be clean? Now you broke him? Holy shit!

It doesn't make anyone's name a household word; it doesn't have to. Because all that really matters to this sort of mindset is that in your heart, you're shitting on someone's idol and winning.

So you're not going to defend your retarded comparison then, you obfuscating fuck?

The only upside to them taking down Armstrong is they will have shown some fucking integrity. Or do you think embarrassing their sport further is somehow a good thing for them?

[Simon_Jester]

What is there to defend? Your reading comprehension is not my problem; if you want to misinterpret everything you read so you have excuses to call people stupid, you can.

As to the rest, if the point is "take down Armstrong for what I'm pretty sure he must have done," then there's no integrity to show. You can't vindicate your own bad behavior with a round of burn-the-witch, even if you manage to luck out and find the witch.

[Flagg]

What is there to defend? Your reading comprehension is not my problem; if you want to misinterpret everything you read so you have excuses to call people stupid, you can.

You claimed there was no profit in McCarthyism. I showed that to be wrong as all hell, dumbass. I didn't misread shit, either, so add "liar" to the list of things I'll call you.

As to the rest, if the point is "take down Armstrong for what I'm pretty sure he must have done," then there's no integrity to show. You can't vindicate your own bad behavior with a round of burn-the-witch, even if you manage to luck out and find the witch.

Except there are eyewitnesses who can testify to the fact that he used performance enhancers. As aeris pointed out there is valid scientific basis for thinking he used performance enhancers. Those alone could easily get him convicted and sent to prison if he were accused of a crime. They have a perfectly reasonable basis for going after him. How the fuck is that a witch hunt?

[Simon_Jester]

What is there to defend? Your reading comprehension is not my problem; if you want to misinterpret everything you read so you have excuses to call people stupid, you can.

You claimed there was no profit in McCarthyism. I showed that to be wrong as all hell, dumbass. I didn't misread shit, either, so add "liar" to the list of things I'll call you.

No, I asked what the profit was.

Like, if you asked, "what does Bob gain from lying?" And I ask "what did Bernie Madoff gain from lying?" And the answer is "money."

Here, the payoff is a sense of power and the joy of ferreting out secret crimes at someone else's expense- which played a huge role in McCarthyism. The commie-hunters of the 1950s really believed in what they were doing, you see.

Except there are eyewitnesses who can testify to the fact that he used performance enhancers. As aeris pointed out there is valid scientific basis for thinking he used performance enhancers. Those alone could easily get him convicted and sent to prison if he were accused of a crime. They have a perfectly reasonable basis for going after him. How the fuck is that a witch hunt?

If he were accused of a crime someone would have to explain those hundreds of 'clean' drug results. Were all the drug tests faked to give Armstrong a free pass so he could win races? If so, we should be asking about the testing authorities' complicity too; the whole sport had to be corrupt from top to bottom.

Now granted, maybe it was. Wouldn't surprise me to learn that.

But then it looks damn hypocritical for someone to come swooping in ten years later to hammer people over it for 'the honor of the sport,' which is basically what's at stake.

The Olympics can do this credibly, because the Olympics have a tradition of not being a total roid-fest where everyone and anyone is getting doped all the time. But if the Tour de France is so fucked up that someone passed all their tests and only gets burned now, there's nothing to point the outrage at. Fine, take away his medals... but break up the Tour's management and start over totally from scratch with a Tour de Spain or whatever instead, because clearly the whole thing is rotten.

To some extent they've already done that with a doping crackdown. I suppose Armstrong is a target now because he's symbolic; he was a celebrity under the old system of wink-wink-nudge-nudge, so the only way to have a new system is to make soup out of his reputation and ritually drink it to regain his mana, or whatever the point of all this is.

[aerius]

Aerius, I can belive that- I don't feel inclined to argue.

But if we accept that theory, it's pointless to 'rescind' anything because there is no honor left to the sport. All you can say is "look, all Tour de France medals between 1980 and 2010 are contaminated, presumably the guys who won the races had some combination of highest fitness and best pharmacist, and that's all we know."

Of course it's pointless, it's just another token gesture which'll do jack shit. Everyone in the Tour next year will still be doped to the gills because they know that 95% of them will get away clean. Until the day that the various organizations start catching the vast majority of performance enhancing drug users and banning them for life on the spot, the sport will never be clean and it'll be business as usual.

Personal thoughts. It's widely known among those who follow pro cycling that pretty much everyone is on a "medical program". And it's accepted as long as everyone keeps quiet about it. Yeah they're all dopers, yeah we know they're dopers, but let's not talk about it because that's the unwritten rule. If you talk to them in public they'll all insist that their favourite riders are clean, but catch them at a bar with their fellow cycling fans & friends and they'll all admit that everyone's doped. And that's the way it is, yeah it's fucked up, but that's cycling for you. And it gets worse, but that's for another time.

It's a cultural issue. As long as doping is generally accepted and enforcement of the rules is a complete joke, not to mention the means of catching cheaters being hopelessly ineffective for the most part, the cheating will only progress from where it is now. Put it this way, if you knew you could rob banks and only get caught 2% of the time, and when you did get caught you'd only get banned from robbing banks for a year, would you still work and make an honest living?

Several things need to be done to get doping out of pro cycling. It needs to be made socially unacceptable so that fans will kick dopers to the curb. Then we need to get serious about testing procedures to catch the cheaters, and when we catch them we need to come down hard on them. But they can't do that, since that's pretty much a public admission that they are wrong and the entire sport is rotten from top to bottom, and everyone from the athletes to the governing organizations is corrupt and incompetent. Gotta save face and preserve some semblance of propriety and honor.

[Sriad]

A response to the whole bullshit process by a guy on Reddit who knows a lot more about the organizational structures than I do.

It's an extrajudicial process.

It's essentially a private organization making its own rules, so the Federal court ruled that they didn't have jurisdiction. Kind of like if a private school gives you a punishment for running in the halls even though you didn't; none of that is up to the courts. Everyone KNOWS he won the titles, so "stripping" him of them is basically saying "nuh-uh!" Also the UCI (International Cycling Union) disagrees with USADA, and it's only because of some very poorly-thought-out reciprocal agreements that this can even happen. Basically WADA has agreements with the major sports bodies, but then ALSO gave all its "franchises" (each country's __ADA) its same powers, meaning that ANY franchisee in ANY country can start proceedings against anyone anywhere, regardless of their ability to defend themselves in that venue. USADA started this off with banning several doctors and staff who are EUROPEAN CITIZENS for life because they didn't respond within 5 days or whatever the requirement is to this U.S.-based inquisition.

And yes, "franchise" is correct because this operation was run not by some officer of the law, but the CEO of USADA. Travis Tygart has had it in for Lance for a long time; when Floyd Landis was busted, Tygart offered him a sweet deal if he would dish dirt on Lance. The Department of Justice actually ran a Grand Jury investigation for 2 years before dropping the case in February -- apparently, someone eventually realized that winning the first 6 tours in a row for the US Postal Service wasn't "defrauding" them of their sponsorship dollars. Some of the people called to testify are still active riders in the pro peloton, which are presumably in the "10+ witnesses" Tygart would call on, which means he didn't care about ACTIVE riders who were part of the same alleged doping ring; he just cared about trying to destroy public opinion about Lance, who was retired from cycling and last won in 2005.

Lance didn't have the option of a trial, only binding arbitration with a 3-person panel. Binding arbitration is bad enough for your cell phone contract, but imagine it applying to your job -- and not just to your current job, but a LIFETIME ban on working at all in your entire field. And even if you win, it's not until after USADA has dragged your name through the mud, issues press releases about their allegations, makes false claims, and then publishes a report with all the allegations and dirt to further hurt your public image, and nothing prevents them from doing it all again later. (One of USADA's pieces of "evidence" was the biological passport values from the 2009-2010 comeback which fluctuated, which an expert in a Cycling News report already said could fluctuate from either doping OR natural causes; but USADA trumpeted that it automatically meant cheating. It's pre-trial by Press Release, without expert testimony.)

USADA can essentially end the career of anyone it chooses to at any time, based on its own say-so, from riders to doctors all the way down to support staff. This is incredible leverage it can use to compel a "witness" to testify the way it wants them to.

This isn't even comparable to prosecutors using deals to get small fish to testify against a bigger fish, because not only are there no juries or judicial oversight, but this private organization DOESN'T need to prove anything -- they can stop you from competing immediately by simply opening an investigation. Lance was about to run Ironman France when Tygart announced the investigation, which immediately suspended Lance from being able to compete at all, anywhere, indefinitely. If he wanted, he could wait until the day before a grand tour to suspend his alleged witnesses, leaving their teams scrambling, and keep them suspended for the entire racing season. This is enormous leverage and doesn't require a single doping test. So it isn't enough to pass the tests and never be sanctioned for a doping violation; they can unilaterally decide to ban you for life anyway, so what's the point of the tests?

There are people who just competed in this year's Tour de France, and who are competing right now in the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain), who HAVE been sanctioned for doping violations, yet are still allowed to ride. Besides the two expected witnesses who perjured themselves so badly that they would be completely unusable in an actual courtroom (Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton), another of the pieces of so-called "evidence" that Tygart wanted to use was 6 urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France, a case which had already been investigated by the UCI's own appointee, and it EXONERATED Lance. The investigator was the director of the Netherlands national anti-doping organization, and wrote in his exhaustive, 132-page report:

"the failure of the underlying research to comply with any applicable standard and the deficiencies in the report render it completely irresponsible for anyone involved in doping control testing to even suggest that the analyses results that were reported constitute evidence of anything."
(p. 17) PDF link: http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news/200 ... report.pdf

It was an epic beatdown. WADA screamed bloody murder, even though under their own regulations, they had stored the samples under the agreement they would never be used for sanctions of any kind! Since the samples were EXPLICITLY not to be used for sanctions, they didn't follow the chain-of-custody regulations, were NOT anonymous, and sat in a freezer for 6 years that was accessible like any other research materials to any number of people.

Chain of custody is ESSENTIAL to handling samples, and it is already established in every context that a broken chain of custody equals completely worthless non-evidence. This would be like if the cops impounded your car, then sold it at auction, and then 6 years later whoever is driving it gets pulled over, cops search the car, find drugs, and then want to charge YOU. It was obviously out of their "secure" impound facility the entire time, and the drugs could have come from anywhere -- including being forgotten by the cops after using the vehicle in an undercover sting operation (which I seem to recall actually happening in a story covered by Reddit).

Moreover, the French national anti-doping lab in question regularly leaks its findings to the French paper L'Equipe, which has a notorious anti-Lance POV (they really didn't like him winning their tour every single year). This would be something like if you went for a drug test for your job, and before anyone else got the official results, your worst enemy on Facebook posted the "results" given to him from his buddy at the lab that coincidentally showed you used certain substances that were also sitting in the lab research supplies. Let's see, people with a motive and a grudge who have access to your samples with no chain of custody and know exactly which samples are yours and suddenly find a "positive" years after the fact?

As a cyclist, Lance's Tour de France years were under the auspices of the UCI, which claimed sole jurisdiction over this case, which USADA ignored because they could use their WADA connection as a loophole. The UCI also has an 8-year statute of limitations, and doesn't vacate titles after that even if doping is ADMITTED later, as happened some years back with 1996 winner Bjarne Riis who runs Team Saxo Bank. Jonathan Vaughters just admitted to doping and he runs Team Garmin. But USADA is now trying to ban the director of Lance's team, who ISN'T an admitted doper, solely because of his connection to Lance. Tygart wants to claim it was a conspiracy and the whole team was doped up, yet curiously is not trying to stop any of the OTHER ex-teammate riders he claims were cheating just like Lance, and who are still competing, presumably in exchange for their testimony. This seemingly violates USADA's charter, as it is charged with stopping doping, yet is letting CURRENT riders continue on just to nail someone who RETIRED from cycling and last won 7 years ago.

The whole process is the definition of a kangaroo court. The anti-doping agencies ONLY get clout and increase their budgets by busting people; if busts don't happen, people will begin wondering what the point of the doping agencies IS, exactly. There's no bigger fish than Lance, so CEO Tygart is probably counting on a big fat funding increase next year based on being able to abuse power like this.

Imagine how much fear he will be able to strike into athletes' hearts AFTER this, twirling his moustache and swinging his riding crop about, as he struts about imperiously: "I am zee one who took down Lance, you think I cannot take down you?" (Cue evil laugh)

There are no effective safeguards for athletes. Tiger Woods left college early because he couldn't stomach the arrogance and control exercised by the NCAA. Basically anyone in a position of power wants to use it, and it's always for something bad -- without them, you'd just do whatever you were going to do ANYWAY, so the powers are exclusively negative. They can't exercise their power by giving you the ability to play ball; they can only exercise their power by taking that ability away. Contrary to the assertion that Lance "accepted" USADA's decision, he instead refused to go into binding arbitration with Travis Tygart, refusing to acknowledge the CEO of USADA's personal vendetta as legitimate. Both Lance and the UCI agree that the UCI is the only legitimate party with jurisdiction, as the UCI has announced publicly.

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

A response to the whole bullshit process by a guy on Reddit who knows a lot more about the organizational structures than I do.

*snip tinfoil hat black helicopter crap*

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I'm betting that the eyewitness testimony will probably pass or fail based on who they actually got to testify. With it being the USADA it's probably teammates/backroom staff from Armstrong's US Postal/Discovery days. If it's guys like Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton I'd be very sceptical. Both have already come out and said that Armstrong doped, but they've got serious credibility issues as well and I could believe that the USADA have got leverage on them. If it's guys like George Hincapie or Dave Zibriskie then it gets a lot more interesting, as both of them have no discernible axe to grind and neither have tested positive themselves. Of course, now that there's going to be no official arbitration, there's no opportunity to cross-examine the eyewitness and have a proper analysis of the evidence. But since most of the mindless apologists would insist Armstrong is innocent if they caught him shooting up performance enhancing drugs made from ground-up Jewish babies, it really doesn't matter either way. *rolleyes*

[Jub]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I'm betting that the eyewitness testimony will probably pass or fail based on who they actually got to testify. With it being the USADA it's probably teammates/backroom staff from Armstrong's US Postal/Discovery days. If it's guys like Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton I'd be very sceptical. Both have already come out and said that Armstrong doped, but they've got serious credibility issues as well and I could believe that the USADA have got leverage on them. If it's guys like George Hincapie or Dave Zibriskie then it gets a lot more interesting, as both of them have no discernible axe to grind and neither have tested positive themselves. Of course, now that there's going to be no official arbitration, there's no opportunity to cross-examine the eyewitness and have a proper analysis of the evidence. But since most of the mindless apologists would insist Armstrong is innocent if they caught him shooting up performance enhancing drugs made from ground-up Jewish babies, it really doesn't matter either way. *rolleyes*

If he did it where are the tests that he pissed hot for? Where are the telling blood samples? How many times does a man have to test clean before people understand that either he's clean or the testing isn't worth a damn and anybody could be doped to the gills. If the former this is a a worthless witch hunt set against an honest man, if the later then it's worthless because their testing standards are so poor as to allow anybody to dope up.

[Thanas]

Despite the testing being worthless in general he still is guilty and still deserves to lose his medals.

[Jub]

Despite the testing being worthless in general he still is guilty and still deserves to lose his medals.

You can't win being clean, and you'll lose if you're doping. Your options are training hard for nothing, or shooting up knowing the sport is as crooked as anything, so I can see why everybody says fuck it and dopes up as best they can.

Even the quote of the week agrees:

"Exhibiting ethical behaviour within an unethical system is unwise." - Samantha Power, Irish-American government official and writer (1970-)

[mr friendly guy]

I am not going to weigh into if Armstrong is guilty or not. However I will try to put a summary of Aerius's linked article, to see where they are coming from.

Now when I first saw Aerius's post about no change in haematocrit, my first thought was can't dehydration (from the racing) exert an upward shift on haematocrit and counteract the downward shift we would expect. The article does explain it away, by saying it wasn't just the haematocrit, but also Armstrong's reticulocyte count, which shouldn't be affected by fluid shifts (like dehydration). If you just think I am saying that, I will explain. Haematocrit is essentially the volume of red spells vs the volume of plasma. Hence dehydration will raise haematocrit, by decrease the volume of plasma. Simple maths, one is the numerator, the other value is the denominator. When the denominator is decreased, the total figure (haematocrit) increases.

Reticulocyte count is however expressed as a percentage of total red cells, so is not dependent on plasma volume.

Further reading elsewhere, it does appear that EPO will suppress reticulocyte count. This makes sense to me physiologically, since reticulocytes are immature red cells which are released in the circulation when you lack mature red cells in certain medical conditions. For example haemolysis, where your mature red cells are destroyed, and your immature ones are released. In fact, reticulocyte count is part of the investigations if you do think a patient is suffering from haemolysis. However my understanding is that, we can detect artificial EPO by finding out a minor difference between natural one using a method which is controversial.

However, what the article is suggesting, is that Armstrong has similar blood profiles to someone who is engaging in autologous blood transfusion. That is, someone who takes their own blood out, and transfuses it into themselves at a later date. Obviously by then, your own blood count would have recovered, so the blood gives you a boost. At present there is no way to reliably detect this method, because you are taking your own blood, and not some artificial substance, and shoving it back in.

Obviously for this to work, the cheaters must have some a fridge to store the blood, and at least a medical pump and some IV cannula's. Its not clear when they have to dope, ie before or after. Of course, the allegations against Armstrong stem not from using an autologous blood transfusion, but from taking certain drugs.

Edit - if its due to an autologous blood transfusion, saying testing procedures is worthless is a bit harsh, when medical science hasn't found a way to test it.

[Flagg]

Despite the testing being worthless in general he still is guilty and still deserves to lose his medals.

You can't win being clean, and you'll lose if you're doping. Your options are training hard for nothing, or shooting up knowing the sport is as crooked as anything, so I can see why everybody says fuck it and dopes up as best they can.

Even the quote of the week agrees:

"Exhibiting ethical behaviour within an unethical system is unwise." - Samantha Power, Irish-American government official and writer (1970-)

So don't participate. No one held a gun to the motherfuckers head saying "You must race bicycles".

[Irbis]

Yes, it would seem reasonable that in a field where everyone else was caught cheating the winner wasn't cheating, too - but if that is so why did none of the tests ever catch it? That needs to be explained before you start stripping titles.

Simple - tests are known. You give sportsmen substances that aren't caught by them, then polish general indicators that can't be falsified, like haematocrit level, until they're barely within legal limits. Just read how many times East German sportsmen hit testing wall once new test procedure (catching whatever magic bullet they were using at the moment) was introduced.

[Simon_Jester]

So don't participate. No one held a gun to the motherfuckers head saying "You must race bicycles".

So, basically, competitive people who like physical activity and contests of physical ability are supposed to not race because other racers use drugs, and because the authorities suck at catching them.

How many athletes do you know? Does this strike you as a realistic and reasonable thing to ask them?

[Flagg]

So don't participate. No one held a gun to the motherfuckers head saying "You must race bicycles".

So, basically, competitive people who like physical activity and contests of physical ability are supposed to not race because other racers use drugs, and because the authorities suck at catching them.

How many athletes do you know? Does this strike you as a realistic and reasonable thing to ask them?

He can join a sport that maybe isn't run that way? You know, as opposed to the black/white fallacy we were presented with.