I won’t bother you with another post outlining USADA’s charges against Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Dr. Michele Ferrari, Pedro Celaya, Luis del Moral, and Pepe Marti. If you read any cycling news site there are several articles about the hot topic. But here are a few things I found interesting.
Armstrong in a recent interview with Men’s Journal said he was done fighting the charges and he’d surrender his Tour de France wins. That sounded like talk from a man who was tired of it all and willing to move on. In fact he said he wouldn’t even bother to change people’s minds about it. However that’s not the case.
Armstrong just last week sent the @UCI_Overlord, one of the publishers/creators of the cycling site Cyclimas.com, a direct message through Twitter,
“dude, you fellas need to get over it. Starting to look pathetic.”
Not exactly the words from a man that is willing to let it go.
And no sooner had the Washington Post released the USADA charges a response was issued from Armstrong stating the same points he has in the past: most tested athlete, motivated by spite, vendetta, etc… Again, this is sounding like a man suiting up to fight the charges.
If these charges are true the weight of this lie on Armstrong must be enormous and I wonder how he keeps it together. My thought is Armstrong, the self-proclaimed most tested athlete in the world, keeps it straight in his mind because he doesn’t believe he cheated. His thinking is, ‘I competed within the parameters of legality and didn’t get caught, so I haven’t cheated.’
We also know now how easy it is to beat the testing. Something as simple as drinking a lot of water to micro-dosing EPO beat the system. Ex-BMC rider Thomas Frei explained how he beat the system by drinking a liter of water.
And let’s be real – he wasn’t the only guy sticking a needle into an appendage. During the late 90s to early 2000s doping was almost an institutionalized method of training.
I was also disappointed by some of the younger professional cyclists, as well as a comments from others, that stated we need to move on and let it go because these are old charges. The Washington Post article, just three paragraphs in, states that USADA has collected blood samples, “fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions” from 2009 and 2010. That’s very recent. I wonder if the people who want to “let it go” are in a state of denial, didn’t really read the article or read it and ignored a fact that ruined their version of their Armstrong reality?
This drama will continue to unfold. It will now go to arbitration (to my knowledge no firm date has been set, just that it will occur before November). No matter how long this process takes it needs to happen and I honestly think that in the long-term the sport will be better for it.
Perfectly stated! RT @neilroad: The different perceptions of the USADA charges against Lance Armstrong – my thoughts http://t.co/aBmCqwLZ
“If these charges are true, the weight of this lie on Armstrong must be enormous & I wonder how he keeps it together.” http://t.co/hSNLmWvo
I think the comments about ‘letting it go’ is that USADA has talked specifically about stripping his Tour wins – which certainly precedes 2009 / 2010. Having proof from 2009 / 2010 applies to those years (IMHO) – extrapolating that backwards in time (regardless of hunches) is stretching into conjecture, not proof.
And to your point Neil – exactly who would they then award the titles to? Hopefully someone they have applied the same degree of scrutiny to over the past 16 years.
At the end of the day, we all have opinions on the matter. Hopefully USADA has more than just an ‘opinion’ here that is specifically relevant to the accusations.
And sorry – but the Lance ‘era’ has done a ton for American cyling, Tour viewership and now Triathlon. And don’t forget LiveStrong and all the sponsor driven jobs / ad revenue, sales, etc. There’s a lot on the line. All I’m saying is I think USADA serves sport much better by keeping their head on today – and certainly the near past like 2009 / 2010. Throwing money after charges older than that – while providing a sense of vindication to some, doesn’t serve sport in the best way possible. I just don’t see how it works out that this is a relevant / helpful thing – even if true.
Again – if they have real, scientifically indisputable proof – then rewind and erase 90% of what I’ve said. I just don’t think they do.
Kevin Sheen stated my thoughts perfectly. There are 2 issues at hand – to rewind the clock to 1999 seems like a stretch. However, the more recent postiives (although what took them so long to bring this to the light of day?) are what I believe the focus should be.
My other thoughts on Lance are he was doing the same thing everyone else was doing, which is cheating. And he’s a complete sociopath because he really believes he didn’t cheat.
And yes, Dopers do really SUCK!
I just don’t understand how could there be so many brain wash LA fans that are willing to overlook at the fraud of his fruit, just because the man put on a fundation that every other rich man seem to have to avoid paying too much taxes.
Seriously guys, wake up and smell the cofee. Don’t be so naive. If I screw an audience 10 years a go, then buy tons of candy and give it to all the kids in the world, then I get arrested for fraud; will it be okay to say, let him go because the man provided candy to all the children with the money he stole? What a nice way to get out of trouble.
Apparently in our country is not how did you get it, as long as you got it. Did it ever occur to you that he probably got testicular cancer as such of young age because of all that testosterone that he was using. Nothing surprise me any more.
I doubt he was cheating in 2009 – 2010. Everyone has been under a microscope in the last few years. Then again, I didn’t think Floyd had cheated; I thought he was pretty smart to be pouring whole waterbottles of water over his head every 5 minutes on his infamous climb.
“Armstrong in interview with Men’s Journal said he was done fighting the charges and he’d surrender his TdF wins”へー http://t.co/lnbbycT9
Here’s my theory/idea: Armstrong somehow used his connections to avoid prosecution under the grand jury in “exchange” for the arguably less egregious sanction by USADA. In effect: we’ll drop the federal criminal inquiry against you if you relinquish your Tour titles. He keeps his money, his lifestyle, and avoids jail, but loses his Tours and takes his changes in the court of public opinion. Total conspiracy theory type stuff, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.