I think it is a setup and that he is still innocent.
In other words I was one of the idiots who hoped and felt he was not guilty, just shows my wife is correct when she says I am hopeless at judging a persons character.
I would like to apologise slightly more sincerely than Lance did for wasting the time of others who tried to convince me in the past of his guilt and admit that at my very advanced years (56) that I certainly still get things very wrong.
In another thread early last year, I posted this:
The whole question of his guilt/innocence on doping...well, the smoking gun, the positive test, remains absent. Like Martin, I think the principle of innocent until proven guilty is one worth upholding. It's hard for me to see the continued campaigning of certain journalists against him as anything other than mudslinging. Yes, it seems ridiculous that he was clean when Pantani wasn't, Ullrich wasn't, Riis wasn't, and so many of his friends and former teammates weren't. But nor is it completely implausible. Apart from the physiological changes caused by cancer and his recovery, he quite clearly applied the same spirit that in many respects got him through the worst of his illness to his training.
Oh, the benefits of hindsight…Certainly, I've had my doubts over the past few years, but I preferred to have a bit of faith in the body of proof, or lack there of. Back then, I hadn't read much of the evidence that makes such an overwhelming case LA's admission is redundant- some I just hadn't read, some has either emerged for the first time or been brought to much greater attention. I was not, for example, aware that Armstrong's performances were out of the realms of any clean athlete, nor of the extent of his bullying of his own team, let alone his other victims like Emma O'Reilly and Betsy Andreu. I certainly wasn't aware, until relevant extracts from Tyler Hamilton's book were published, just how easy it was to dope and get away with it. Riders knew when they could take stuff without fear of being caught, and that skipping a test could be as simple as hiding under the kitchen table. Which makes you wonder how stupid Landis, Vinokourov, Rasmussen and all the others who've been caught had to be...
And on my last point: I was right and wrong. His determination certainly played a part in getting through cancer. He did train harder than others (in part, undoubtedly, facilitated by all the drugs). But he also doped harder....as has been posted over on YACF, if he'd been clean he would have been a real hero, not just a fallen one. Perhaps we'd be now be talking of him as the legitimate winner of multiple Tours. And we'll never know one way or another.
I don't think he is a positive influence for the sport now and would like him to bugger off unless he changes his views and makes a stand against doping rather than pissing about worrying about riders having their zips done up to thier neck.
Bit vague I know but it was posted by someone in one of the mamoth LA threads I can't trawl through them again !
