Armstrong charged and banned

[smutchin]

if you did you were on a level playing field at the top.

Yeah, I used to think something like this but then I actually read a bit about how EPO works... Now I wouldn't be so foolish as to believe anything so ridiculous.

Anyway, there's no "level playing field" for people who refuse to dope, eg Bassons.

What Armstrong does demonstrate though, if you believe he and his team were long term dopers, is the incompetence of WADA and the drugs testing labs in detecting doping. How can they not detect doping in over 500 screens of an allegedly committed doper to say nothing of all the tests on his team mates?

Well, maybe the UCI and others within the sport covering up positive tests was one of the things that prevented them catching Lance sooner? Hmmm?

And stop repeating the 500+ tests myth - it's been well and truly debunked.

d.

 

[DogTired]

Legally absolutely. But morally?

Depends on that person's subjective moral standpoint. Throwing money at a problem rarely brings success.

Personally? Morally wrong if they were suppressing or abusing people to get their money - otherwise its just money - 1s and 0's in a bank's computer. Some people have more money, some have less. Some pedal (or peddle) harder, some less.

 

[smutchin]

drugs don't work miracles, but mostly help you to train harder - you still have to do the work.

Yeah, that's how I understand it too, but they can do enough to help athletes of relatively modest natural talent become super athletes...

Johnson was not an 'also ran'. he was very fast and was made faster still by drugs.

Yeah, OK, I don't mean to dismiss his natural ability entirely - he was pretty fast even without the drugs but not a winner at the highest level - that's what I mean by also-ran.

Although, to be fair, maybe he could have been that good if the field was clean. Who knows?

d.

 

[DogTired]

Yeah, that's how I understand it too, but they can do enough to help athletes of relatively modest natural talent become super athletes...
d.

David Millar's Book, Racing through the Dark P76 (talking about EPO specifically):

"Does it make a difference? It can turn a donkey into a race horse..."

Lots of riders refer to a peloton of 2 speeds so it makes quite a difference.

 

[Boris Bajic]

[QUOTE 2007250, member: 45"]Are people on here excusing drug use in sport??[/quote]

I do not excuse it, but its absence would have led to not seeing M Pantani destroy the mountains.

It would have meant missing many of the crazy battles of the 1990s and 2000s.

I'm not saying that what we would have seen would have been worse, but what we did see (drugs and all) was quite extraordinary.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

But on the evidence that the peleton (or at least all the leadership contenders) were all doping around that time if you didn't dope you didn't stand much of a chance and if you did you were on a level playing field at the top. And on that level playing field he managed something that no-one else else managed on drugs and that was to win seven times in succession.

Firstly, not everyone was doping. Secondly, where do you think the pressure to dope came from? Why do you think it wasn't dealt with earlier? It didn't just arise out of nowhere nor did it continue for inexplicable reasons. There were significant figures who used their personal power, and groups of people with strong connections etc. which wer able to pressure others, hide what was going on, and who also shut down complaints and revelations. This is the whole point of the allegations against Armstrong, Bruyneel and the three doctors what some people still fail to appreciate. It isn't (just) about whether someone used drugs to win, but exactly about tackling the interpersonal and social structures within cycling that allowed doping to flourish.

 

[raindog]

I do not excuse it, but its absence would have led to not seeing M Pantani destroy the mountains.

It would have meant missing many of the crazy battles of the 1990s and 2000s.

And that's created an enormous problem. You can see evidence of that in the race threads on the CN forum, where anything less than an impossible superhuman acceleration up a steep climb is considered "boring" by the younger generation following the sport.

Give me clean and "boring" over artificial crap everytime, thanks. The 1990s and the 2000s are the lost years imo.

 

[DogTired]

I do not excuse it, but its absence would have led to not seeing M Pantani destroy the mountains.

It would have meant missing many of the crazy battles of the 1990s and 2000s.

I'm not saying that what we would have seen would have been worse, but what we did see (drugs and all) was quite extraordinary.

It was pretty dull watching Arnstrong dominate the TdF. Just reading a bio of Eddy Merckx - the speed of riders in the late 60s early 70s is still extraordinary! For me, its not about absolute performance - guys competing and giving it their all, far in excess of what I could achieve is the compelling part.

 

[johnr]

http://rittecycles.com/lance-armstrong/

Interesting article. No idea who the business or the author are, but it's quite a poignant little polemic on a money-maker and a fan trying to come to terms with their hero's betrayal... and failing.

Reminds me of my own reaction to Neil Young's support for Reagan and Bob Dylan's zionism in the 1970s.

 

[Boris Bajic]

It was pretty dull watching Arnstrong dominate the TdF. Just reading a bio of Eddy Merckx - the speed of riders in the late 60s early 70s is still extraordinary! For me, its not about absolute performance - guys competing and giving it their all, far in excess of what I could achieve is the compelling part.

I didn't see the racing in the 60s and 70s. I've read about it since, but my itroduction was in the already drug-sodden 80s.

From much of what I read, the 60s and 70s were a utopia of Corinthian values and no-one touched a drop of anything that might enhance their speed or endurance. Sorry, I had to stop typing there until I'd managed to get back on my chair.

Sure, the 1990s and 2000s were bad (maybe the worst) but competitors compete. They do go for the edge.

To somehow draw a distinction between the 'non-cheating' dopers of the 60s and 70s and the cheating EPO monkeys of the later years might be seen in some quarters as eccentric.

Yes, the domination of Armstroing was dull in some ways (much as the Wiggins machine was this year) but the Tour is more than just a yellow t-shirt. Some of the EPO-fuelled racing in those 'lost' years was extraordinary.

Wrong, certainly. Cheating, certainly. Entertaining and impressive for its sheer impossibility? Without a doubt!

I do not condone cheating, but in cycling it predates my birth and my engagement with the sport. I grew to love a dirty sport. The 90s were just 'the same but more so'.

 

[Boris Bajic]

And that's created an enormous problem. You can see evidence of that in the race threads on the CN forum, where anything less than an impossible superhuman acceleration up a steep climb is considered "boring" by the younger generation following the sport.

Give me clean and "boring" over artificial crap everytime, thanks. The 1990s and the 2000s are the lost years imo.

I agree. Which were the 'clean and boring' years of the TdF?

I started to pay attention to it in the early-mid 980s. I can't think of a clean (or boring) race since that time.

I love it nonetheless.

 

[johnr]

Sorry if I've missed an earlier reference to this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/25/lance-armstrong-johan-bruyneel-cycling

Looks like Brunyeel's going to go down slugging. Be interesting to see if he can do that and cover Pharmstrong's back at the same time.

 

[Alun]

Sorry if I've missed an earlier reference to this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/25/lance-armstrong-johan-bruyneel-cycling

Looks like Brunyeel's going to go down slugging. Be interesting to see if he can do that and cover Pharmstrong's back at the same time.

Or draw fire away from him!

 

[PaulB]

[QUOTE 2007250, member: 45"]Are people on here excusing drug use in sport??[/quote]
Here's one I've always thought relevant; why is it that one branch of medicine - pharmacology - is mostly illegal while another branch of medicine - psychology - is considered perfectly acceptable? That was a question raised, of all people, by Chris Eubank. He'd been beaten by a fighter who boasted he'd been to a hypnotherapist who encouraged his aggression once in the ring. I think Sky are well known to employ psychologists to get the best from their riders and once again, this is the province of the best-funded and will be denied to those teams and nations who don't possess the necessary wealth to employ such specialists.

 

[Red Light]

Or draw fire away from him!

Or act as a proxy for him to discredit the evidence.