UTMC

So after all these years, the unrelenting pressure from the USADA (US Anti Doping Agency) has pushed him him to move on from the doping allegations and relinquish his TdF titles. What kills me about this decision is not that a competitor like Lance has backed down, but that his opponents have jumped up and cried out that this is, at long last, an admission of guilt. It really has been a witch hunt. One can only hope that whomever was second in those races is under the same scrutiny. As well as third place, and fourth, and on down the list. Personally I believe he was/is just that much fucking better than everyone else.
Links to related articles are on any respectable news site, here's one for reference
http://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/sto ... ing-career

I'm pretty sympathetic to Lance at this point. I think its unfair that he can still be pursued years into his retirement by some quasi-state agency that didn't even exist when he started his winning streak. There's something about a grinding, ongoing investigation that will eventually take on weight just for having ground on for so long.

Personally, I think it is noteworthy and important that the activities he's accused of are something done by himself to himself, inside his own biological body. He then used his body, filmed in stretch underwear in public for a global audience, to win those races, his face on camera the whole time.


I see a key difference between 'bettering the sport for all' and 'taking away Lance's wins'. Both things require ongoing scientific development in order to detect and monitor possible unfairness in sport through drugs or doping. Thing is, you can aggressively develop detection technologies and refine stringent protocols in how events are currently run, without having to spend any effort 'going after' one historic figure in particular.

I think this agency has pursued this to make their own bones and prove their mettle by 'getting' Lance. The management at that agency has not accomplished any positive change to the current and active competing community by doing this. Do I think Lance used every trick in the book, no, I think he was using tricks that weren't even in the book yet, but in order to have these 'tricks' bring him his winning results, he went out and did things with endurance, focus and effort that are where the real victory still resides. I don't think those investigators are fit to carry his sweaty little black cycling socks.

The idea that TdF is really a rolling drugstore isn't new, I recall actual participants telling this to camera (not at the race itself, of course).
As for Mr. Armstrong, he might be one of two centuries' great athletes, he might have cheated. That's what doping is, cheating, getting something without putting in the work or having the talent.
Fair enough if you only want to bulk up for working as a model or a bike courier or felling trees or the like, but when you enter a competition that is intended to show who's the best cyclist, being the best doper is an unfair advantage. Of course, when everyone is doping, it's no longer that unfair, but that makes the entire event sort of pointless.

I recall great debates in the media over here that he was effectively excluded from doping screenings because all the cancer meds he had in his system would give more false positives than something that gives a lot of false positives. So there is at least a reasonable suspicion, a sport where doping is rampant, a champion who is basically untouchable by the competition and who cannot be monitored, makes sense.

They should go after that, if doping wasn't restricted, you'd get high-school footballers starting off on epo at 16, professional athletes getting an overall life-expectancy like smack addicts, sports would no longer be an issue of talent and personal effort but more off who can stomach the most dope and pay for it, too.

Whether they did act decently when going after him is a different question, of course. Newborn law enforcement agencies tend to be run by people who are desperate to claw for every morsel of relevance and power they can, and like managers everywhere, they don't mind stepping over a few bodies. Working for the government and, at least on paper, fighting for a good cause helps them rationalize that.

However, they can only take two of his TdF titles, if that. The international governing body has an 8 year statute of limitations for doping. So for anything before 2004, he's already in the clear.

The most compelling argument for his guilt I think, is that if doping is commonplace, what is the likelihood of Lance being dominant if he were in the minority of non-dopers. Very slim odds, and that would require him to be way, way ahead of his peers in athletic capability.

It is just conjecture, and proves nothing, but it is something to think about.

Frankly, I'd like Lance more and have more sympathy if:

1. He wasn't such a dick in person (truly a top 1% prick!);
2. If he would have just said it at the outset that EVERY single top racer utilized PED's regularly during their careers; and
3. If he'd have just admitted that the sanctioning body of professional bicycle racing is a complete farce.
4. If he would establish his righteous indignation about being clean without hammering on Greg LeMond and every team mate he's ever ridden with. (See #1).

Dr. Colgan once said that every single athelete that came into the Olympic training facility was using or had recently used steroids as part of their training. Just be clean for the event or use untraceable roids (tailor made - $$$$$). Well, testing has become much more accurate than when Colgan was at the USOCTC.

Witch hunt? Yes, it was/is and continues to be for all the top riders. It's a problem that is simply never going away. So who do they make the winner now? The guy who came in second? Better test him too. Where does it end? If Colgan is to be believed, nobody in the race would deserve the top spot. You couldn't even enter it without being an elite athlete, and that means you did "something" to be better than the rest. Likely, it was more than training.

goose wrote:Witch hunt? Yes, it was/is and continues to be for all the top riders. It's a problem that is simply never going away. So who do they make the winner now? The guy who came in second? Better test him too. Where does it end?

From The Telegraph

...who will take over the titles of Armstrong? With just two of the top five riders between 1999 and 2005 being clean it'll be interesting to see how the governing bodies justify handing the prize to anyone.

goose wrote:Frankly, I'd like Lance more and have more sympathy if:

Bingo.
I personally think athletes should use any performance edge they can. But I hate Armstrong, so he can suck it.

If I didn't have a pink bracket on I'd have a yellow one. I may still get one. If anything this will only make me more likely to.

Bicycles are more annoying obstacle than interest for me, but finding a thread with my name on it is weird enough and I'm just buzzed enough that I feel some odd need to comment.

I do think it's kind of a bummer, mostly because being named Lance like the dominant bicyclist is a touch better than being named Lance like the liar and cheat

/RM

roadmissile wrote:I do think it's kind of a bummer, mostly because being named Lance like the dominant bicyclist is a touch better than being named Lance like the liar and cheat

/RM

If it helps, I'll consider you named like Lance Johnson the surfer, from Apocalypse now.