The new improved Lance Armstrong discussion thread.*

[GrumpyGregry]

I was just trying to ascribe 'a lack of' to him and continuing the religious theme. I'm fully open to suggestions of how to describe him (I may also have misunderstood your post).

Morally bankrupt? Morally corrupt?

By which I mean he has morals, there is no 'space' or 'emptiness' within him, it's just that the nature of his morals, and moral character, is/are bad.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I think you mean Stephanie McIlvain. And under oath in front of the Grand Jury in a seven hour investigation into the LeMond phone call recording she has reaffirmed that she did not hear the alledged admission by Armstrong.

The doctor who looked after Armstrong also testified that Armstrong had never told his doctors of any drug use (and he had the problem of it being in the medical notes kept by the hospital if he had lied and that lying would have been a career ending move). But USADA forgot to mention that and Stephanie's testimony in their "judgement".

You have said several times that no doctor would risk his career by lying. Unless you came down with the last shower you can't really believe that. Doctors, policemen, lawyers, politicians, captains of industry, successful people from all walks of life have lost their livelihoods by becoming corrupt. Entry to a particular profession is no guarantee of a person's honesty.

And what Stephanie Mcllvain said under oath means nothing when you hear what she said in the taped call to Lemond.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Question:
If I see someone wearing a Livestong wristband do I:
a) Ignore it
b) Ask them what the wristband means to them
c) Ask them why they are supporting a charity founded on deceipt by a bully, cheat, liar etc.
d) Call them a 'cock-end'?

take a marker pen and delete the V?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Properly honest?
You know what? I can say, in all honesty, in the same situation as them: No. I wouldn't have doped. Because for me, a game won by cheating isn't a game worth winning. And because I have a frickin moral backbone.

^this.

I despise those who coach players to cheat. I despise those players who cheat. I'd rather lose than cheat.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Now... my point (before people start busting blood vessels), is that no denial is worth anything.

It all sounds just like Mandy Rice-Davies once said.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

It's a good job you never got involved in the round ball version of football.

I stopped playing, much to the Aged P's disappointment, at more or less the same time I started getting coached to cheat. The oval ball game back then was a bit different. These days? Not so much.

 

[BJH]

He's a minor player in professional cycling whose out to get his little bit of fame. Any suggestion he was forced out of the sport by his unwillingness to dope to compete, or that Armstrong damaged his sporting career by cheating is trounced by his admission that he never came across doping and only heard rumours of it in his road cycling career.

Reality here is that you or the rest of us have Don't any idea just how good this guy was or could have been in a none drugged world. Maybe he was a minor player because the bunch of cheating gits were taking all the top places ahead if him.
So what benefit will he get from his protest ? I don't see him making anything, maybe he just genuinely feels cheated out of his career like many other have been

 

[Paul_L]

^this.

I despise those who coach players to cheat. I despise those players who cheat. I'd rather lose than cheat.

I'm currently going through my British Cycling level 2 coaching. There's nothing like a bunch of 6 to 9 year olds riding round a school playground having fun on bikes. A great antidote to the current mess, or at least the mess from 1998 to 2006.

 

[BJH]

I have only one question I would like to ask Lance in the wake of his ex team mates blowing the lid off his world.

How do you like those frickin apples now?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Not so much but there is a bit of a gap you don't see the same sort of mouthing off at the ref, at least not in televised games.

True. To a degree. But even at elite level 'soccer attitudes' are creeping into the game and they are writ large in the community game.

And to which my answer is 'bloodgate', the 'hand of Back', various divers, deliberate tripping, tip tackles and the entire career of that Ritchie McCaw

 

[Smokin Joe]

Lance Armstrong now has more bollocks than Tour de France victories.

 

[dellzeqq]

And what Stephanie Mcllvain said under oath means nothing when you hear what she said in the taped call to Lemond.

that's in the Australian programme linked to upthread. She's perjured herself. And for what?

 

[Red Light]

You have said several times that no doctor would risk his career by lying. Unless you came down with the last shower you can't really believe that. Doctors, policemen, lawyers, politicians, captains of industry, successful people from all walks of life have lost their livelihoods by becoming corrupt. Entry to a particular profession is no guarantee of a person's honesty.

Have you read Craig Nichols MD's sworn affidavit? It says that in the 280 pages of medical notes (which are separately submitted on sworn affidavit by a member of the hospital's medical records staff) from them neither he nor any of the other of the doctors treating him made any note of his saying he used performance enhancing drugs, that if it had been asked it would have been recorded as a matter of form by himself or his colleagues (and would be something he would definitely remember also) but that it would be highly unusual to ask a professional athlete with testicular cancer if they had used PEDs and he could not recall ever having asked it of other professional athletes he treated.

But he goes further and states:

I am a blood specialist and very familiar with the use and effects of EPO. Had Lance Armstrong been using EPO to enhance his cycling performance, I would have likely identified differences in his blood levels. After all, I had treated him and administered EPO during his treatment years when he was not cycling between October 1996 and January 1997 and was very familiar with his blood levels............​

​

Therefore, it is undoubtedly the case that the administration of EPO for the treatment of Lance Armstrong's chemotherapy-induced anemia cannot have had any performance-enhancing effects on Lance Armstrong's cycling. In addition, the fact that throughout the frequent check-ups until October 2001, when they ceased, I did not notice any unusual or irregular blood cell levels in Lance Armstrong's blood, indicates to me that Lance Armstrong was not administering EPO between January 1997 and October 2001.​

And if you scroll further through the pack of affidavits linked to above you come to a number of other interesting ones. There is one from UCI saying that the TdeF tests are taken not by them but by a doctor from the French Ministry of Sports who then passes the samples on to the French WADA accredited lab, LNDD. So if there was a cover up in the TdeF it was the French Government and WADA lab that were the conspirators, not UCI.

Then there are two very interesting affidavits in favour of Lance Armstrong from a certain Travis Tygart saying:

​

USADA has drug tested Mr. Armstrong twelve (12) separate times on the following dates: November 20, 2001, December 6, 2001, October 22, 2002, November 18, 2003, April 22, 2004, April 23, 2004, April 24, 2004, April 25, 2004, December 7, 2004, January 26, 2005, February 19, 2005, and April 5, 2005. Mr. Armstrong has never had an adverse analytical finding reported to USADA. USADA lias never charged Mr. Armstrong with a doping violation for a positive test or being unavailable for testing or otherwise.​

​

and Don Caitlin saying:

Our laboratory is the exclusive destination and analytical facility for all specimens taken by the United States Anti Doping Association ("USADA"). While I have no idea whether Mr.Lance Armstrong's specimens have been tested by our lab, as all competitors are anonymous, if a specimen has been collected by USADA from Mr. Armstrong, our lab would have performed the analysis. The protocols and procedures employed by our laboratory are extremely sophisticated and highly reliable. If a USADA specimen was analyzed by our lab without a banned substance being detected. 1 can state with confidence that such a banned substance was not in detectable amounts in the specimen. I have attached to this affidavit two papers descriptive of the tests employed to detect EPO ("erythropoielin"), a drug which tends to boost the hemotocrit levels (essentially, the percentage, by volume, of red blood cells in the blood), thereby increasing endurance. This procedure reliably detects EPO if it is present. We also have vast steroid coordinates in our database and the testing procedures and protocols are likewise dependable for the detection of all such substances of which we are aware.​

​

So I guess Travis and Don are implicated in the cover up too. Of course you find none of this in the USADA case.

And what Stephanie Mcllvain said under oath means nothing when you hear what she said in the taped call to Lemond.

Have you listened to the tape? She is very clear that if she is subpoenaed she is not going to lie. So why did she say she didn't hear Armstrong say he'd used PEDs during her seven hours of subpoenaed questioning by the Grand Jury under penalty of perjury if she lied?

 

[Red Light]

Levi's been fired by Pharma Quick-Step. Perhaps he won't be racing next year after all after his 6 month ban ends. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19969458

Now was he fired for doping or being punished for breaking the Omerta?

 

[RedRider]

1/2 way through the R5 programme. Quite shocking.

I wonder if Simeoni and Bassons can sue for a loss of career?

A good listen and some new stuff for me. It'd be interesting to see footage of that shameful stage where the peloton hung bassons out to dry.