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AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-23-11, 08:04 PM (EST) "More Lance Armstrong discussion" It seems that the Tour of California, the only major US bike race, has become the preferred time for Lance attacks. For the second year in a row, the Tour was overshadowed by more charges against Lance, some sensible and some improbable. Last year, the charges came from Floyd Landis. This year, they came from Tyler Hamilton. Both have one thing in common that they don't share with Lance: their careers were ended by positive doping tests: Landis during the 2006 Tour de France (which was followed by a need for hip surgery); Hamilton three times -- during the 2004 Olympics, the 2004 Vuelta a Espana, and an off-season positive steroid test in 2009 (which led to an 8-year ban). http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/tyler-hamilton-positive-again-21269/ As I've said before, I believe that Lance used EPO during the 1999 Tour, when he rode with his weakest team and recorded his fastest time. So, to the extent that Hamilton claimed that Lance used EPO then, I believe him. I also believe that every other team in that race was using EPO. The charges about later years are more difficult to evaluate. I figure that Lance's association with Dr. Ferrari was so that he could move to a blood transfusion regimen for subsequent Tours. I also expected that he quit blood doping after he split from Dr. Ferrari at the end of 2003 (which is when he won his fifth Tour). Hamilton claims that he saw Lance using EPO at this time, but that would be inconsistent with what we think we know. That tends to call all of Hamilton's charges into question. Similarly, Hamilton's charge that Lance tested positive during the 2001 Tour of Switzerland but bribed his way out of it sounds good if you're a conspiracy theorist or a reporter with no knowledge of pro cycling. But it sounds nuts to me. There are simply too many people with access to such tests through WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is associated with the IOC) for anything to be successfully covered up through a bribe. This is as crazy as Landis' charge that USPS faked a bus breakdown so the whole team could dope during one Tour. If that was true, the bus driver could put his kids through college with the amount of money that he could earn by selling his story to the European press. So what did George Hincapie testify to in front of the grand jury? And how could CBS have known it? I don't know, and there is no reason to credit the rumors, which probably came from one of the lawyers somehow involved in the case. If Hincapie testified that all of Postal took EPO prior to the 1999 Tour, I'd believe it. But we'll have to wait and see. And I really doubt that there was any team-wide doping program after Vladi Ekimov rejoined US Postal at the start of the 2000 season -- although, again, if Hincapie and Kevin Livington testified otherwise, I'd believe them.   Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Subject     Author     Message Date     ID    RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion michel 05-23-11 1    RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion AyaK 05-23-11 2        RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion michel 05-24-11 3            RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion AyaK 05-26-11 4                RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion michel 05-26-11 5                    RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion AyaK 05-27-11 6                        RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion michel 05-27-11 7  End of the investigation AyaK 02-03-12 8    A dupe strikes back AyaK 02-04-12 9        RE: A dupe strikes back kingfish 02-04-12 10            RE: A dupe strikes back Starshine 02-05-12 11                RE: A dupe strikes back Snidget 02-05-12 13    RE: End of the investigation michel 02-05-12 12        RE: End of the investigation AyaK 02-06-12 16            To be fair . . . AyaK 02-06-12 18  Contador's 2010 TdF title stripped AyaK 02-06-12 14    RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title strip... Estee 02-06-12 15        RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title strip... kingfish 02-06-12 17            The fate of SaxoBank AyaK 02-09-12 20    RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title strip... byoffer 02-10-12 23        RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title strip... AyaK 02-10-12 24  The Ullrich case AyaK 02-08-12 19    Ullrich found guilty AyaK 02-09-12 21    RE: The Ullrich case kingfish 02-09-12 22        RE: The Ullrich case AyaK 02-10-12 25            RE: The Ullrich case kingfish 02-11-12 26                RE: The Ullrich case AyaK 02-12-12 27  RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion trigirl 02-29-12 28

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michel 10812 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-23-11, 08:17 PM (EST) 1. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" Every cyclist was taking something. Most still do. Simple as that. It does seem that the loyal Hincapie is backing Hamilton's accusations. That would really hurt.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-23-11, 09:52 PM (EST) 2. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" We simply don't know what Hincapie is claiming. 60 Minutes says that Hincapie said that all of USPS used EPO, although we don't know when. But 60 Minutes also claims that Armstrong failed a blood test during the 2001 Tour of Switzerland on no evidence except the statements of Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, neither of whom were in that race -- and that claim seems preposterous on its face. None of that changes the fact that I think Armstrong did use EPO in 1999. The thing is, Armstrong isn't a nice guy, despite his reputation. He hung out in strip clubs. He had riders fired from USPS, such as Frankie Andreu, even though Andreu had been a team leader. He believes that people who aren't him are lesser people. That's why I think lots of his ex-acquaintances would rat him out if they actually had the evidence ... although it also makes their evidence suspect. (For example, Betsy Andreu has been out to get Lance ever since her husband got fired by USPS after the 2000 season.) That's also why Hincapie's testimony, if it really exists, would be so damaging to Lance; Hincapie is one of the few people who spent a lot of time around Lance during his "glory years" and didn't leave with an axe to grind. Ekimov is another. I completely believe Stephen Swart's claim that Armstrong, who had already won a stage of the TdF as well as the World Road Race Championship before 2005, was pushing the 2005 Motorola team to use EPO to compete with supreme dopers like Miguel Indurain: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/01/18/lance.armstrong/index.html But all that means is that Frankie and Betsy Andreu's testimony that Armstrong admitted to using EPO prior to his 1996 cancer surgery is probably true, and I never doubted it anyway: all of the top 4 in the 1996 TdF were EPO users, led by Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich. The TdF wants to pretend that the 1996 Tour didn't happen; it no longer lists a winner for that year. But that's like pretending that Barry Bonds didn't play baseball, and the UCI sensibly says it still considers Riis to be the winner.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

michel 10812 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-24-11, 09:03 PM (EST) 3. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" >But 60 Minutes also claims that >Armstrong failed a blood test >during the 2001 Tour of >Switzerland on no evidence except >the statements of Tyler Hamilton >and Floyd Landis, There are the "contributions" that Armstrong made to the ICU at that time on the pretense that he wanted to help them fight doping. It would be quite ironic if it really served as hush money. By the way, did you ever read Bill Strickland's article in Bicycling? The title said it all: Endgame. Apparently, he was a friend of Lance. http://www.bicycling.com/news/pro-cycling/lance-armstrongs-endgame >None of that changes the fact >that I think Armstrong did >use EPO in 1999. Why would he stop afterwards? >The thing is, Armstrong isn't a >nice guy, despite his reputation Some compared him to a mafia boss. The thing about the "news" is that it comes from Americans whereas before it seemed like a smear campaign coming from France that his fans could ignore. Despite all that, Lance is still the best athlete I've ever seen on a bike.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-26-11, 08:42 PM (EST) 4. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" LAST EDITED ON 05-26-11 AT 08:43 PM (EST) >There are the "contributions" that Armstrong made to the ICU >at that time on the pretense that he wanted to help >them fight doping. It would be quite ironic if it >really served as hush money. And it would also be quite ludicrous. The labs that do drug testing for UCI also do drug testing for WADA. WADA head Dick Pound flat out said that he believed Armstrong was a doper. There isn't any way that WADA would have been part of such a conspiracy, and there isn't any way that UCI could have prevented WADA from finding out about a positive test on Armstrong. At the same time, there was a perfectly good reason for Armstrong to contribute to doping research: because he was already being accused of being a doper by some of the cycling world's prominent suspended dopers, such as the late Marco Pantani. It started even before he won in 1999. Heck, look at these excerpts from the USPS Team Notebook from the "early" Web in 1999: From Margot Myers USPS Tour Summary . . . But Armstrong did it his way, like eveything he does. He defied the pundits who said he was "damaged goods" after battling back from cancer. Armstrong surprised cycling's strongest riders by winning four stages, including a mountain stage. Armstrong also every race against the clock, a feat only matched by Tour greats Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. Armstrong also won a war against the press, which tried but failed to link Armstrong to doping scandal. >> Stage 9: After the Tour's first rest day, Armstrong shocks the cycling world with his first major mountain stage victory of his career. . . While Armstrong's dramatic win solidifies his hold on the lead, his strong performance raises questions among a press corps hungry for scandal. Many start to ask how Armstrong could survive cancer yet return stronger than he was before. Armstrong calls it a medical miracle, a suspicious press calls it something else. From this point on, Armstrong is dogged by suspicions over performance-enhancing drugs. TOUR NOTEBOOK - STAGE 14 . . . After the podium, Armstrong granted an interview with Italian television and, following medical control, was on his way back to his team camper when he was approached by a reporter from England's Channel 4 television. The reporter wanted to know if Armstrong was holding out speaking with all English-speaking media outlets, since he granted the interview with Italian television but has avoided most others. Armstrong stopped dead in his tracks and looked the reporter in the eye and "What's your question?" What then started as a one-on-one interview eventually turned into a full-fledged media event, with Armstrong speaking on several hot topics in front of nearly 20 cameras. As he has throughout the race, Armstrong flatly denied the allegations from the French press that he may have been doping during the Tour. Armstrong bristled at this topic, calling many of the reporters "unprofessional and irresponsible," printing stories only based on innuendo and rumor. He said most of the reporters have a short and selective memory - saying that nobody questioned anything about him following his victory at the 1993 World Championship as a relatively unknown 21-year-old. He continued to state his disappointment that every year at the Tour de France the wearer of the yellow jersey is questioned when he rides strongly throughout the race. What better way to show your "honesty" than by funding the drug hunters? This claim of "hush money" would only appeal to those who believe in huge global conspiracies. I guess they got tired trying to prove the the US government was covering up UFOs. >By the way, did you ever read Bill Strickland's article in >Bicycling? The title said it all: Endgame. Apparently, he was >a friend of Lance. > >http://www.bicycling.com/news/pro-cycling/lance-armstrongs-endgame I have read Strickland's article. But remember, he claims that he used to believe Lance never doped. Really? The charges that Lance wanted Team Motorola to dope have been out there since before Lance's return to cycling in 1998. In fact, the story went that the breakup of Team Motorola was related to Jim Ochowicz's realization that doping had spread among his riders. >>None of that changes the fact >>that I think Armstrong did >>use EPO in 1999. > >Why would he stop afterwards? That's easy. There was a rumor in early 2000 that a test for EPO had been developed and would be unveiled shortly, which would have led smart riders to investigate such alternatives as blood transfusions, which had been used in distance events since Lasse Viren in the 1972 Olympics (which has also never been proven, although everyone knows it happened). >Some compared him to a mafia boss. The thing about the >"news" is that it comes from Americans whereas before it >seemed like a smear campaign coming from France that his >fans could ignore. And coming from Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, both of whom were left without any income when their bike careers ended in scandal, it still seems like a smear campaign. >Despite all that, Lance is still the best athlete I've ever >seen on a bike. And that's what makes all this speculation about what happened soooo many years ago such a waste. I still believe that Lance's comeback on Astana was motivated by his desire to see how well he would do riding clean, despite his age. He did darn well. ***************** One last thought: here was the 1999 USPS team in the Tour de France: Peter Meinert Nielsen, Pascal Deramé, Jonathan Vaughters, Frankie Andreu, Kevin Livingston, Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie, Chrisitan Vande Velde, Lance Armstrong. Vaughters is currently head of Team Garmin-Cervelo. Vande Velde was a 21-year-old rookie who is still riding (finishing 4th in the Tour of California last week). Hincapie, of course, is still riding as well. The others are long since retired from cycling. So far, though, the only people speaking publicly against Lance are Andreu, who was fired from USPS after 2000 at Lance's urging (despite the fact that he and Lance rode together every year from 1992 on, even moving to Cofidis together in 1997) -- and whose wife is known to detest Armstrong because of her husband's sacking, and Hamilton, who had to retire from cycling after being given an 8-year ban for repeated doping offenses.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

michel 10812 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-26-11, 09:54 PM (EST) 5. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" >The labs that do drug testing for UCI >also do drug testing for WADA. >WADA head ##### Pound flat out said >that he believed Armstrong was a doper >...there isn't any way that UCI could >have prevented WADA from finding out >about a positive test on Armstrong. First of all, tests have to be confidential so yes, one agency could keep secrets from another. Also Hein Verbruggen was head of the ICU at the time and he has always been a big fan of Armstrong's. As for Pound, he has been pushed aside by the Olympic committee while Verbruggen is still rising within the movement so who has more power?! And I didn't really ask why Lance stopped using EPO, I meant why would he stop using drugs altogether if it had helped him win. EPO became old news so Lance, like most everyone else, moved to the new drugs. >And that's what makes all this >speculation about what happened >soooo many years ago such a waste. I didn't know the truth had an expiry date. When someone is as arrogant as Lance has always been, we should bring him down a notch because he is lying. But most importantly, it shows that regulations need to be revised. If Lance and all the others are able to go for so long without detection, many more will follow and, ultimately, many will die because of these examples. >I still believe that Lance's comeback >on Astana was motivated by his desire >to see how well he would do riding clean, >despite his age. He did darn well. This is puzling: If he had been riding "clean" before, what would he need to prove?! And, if by doing darn well, you mean he was a good helper than yes, he did darn well! I saw that he came back with the same entourage, therefore probably the same pharmacist. A cynic would say he cameback because he had been assured that the newest drug was undetectable.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-27-11, 00:21 AM (EST) 6. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" I'm afraid we'll continue to disagree on this whole issue, because I see little substance in just about anything you say here. The claim that test labs that worked for WADA would keep secrets from WADA, even at the behest of UCI, seems to me to be too unlikely to take seriously. Those labs thrive on WADA work. But you believe that no one at the lab, even to boost his or her own career, would leak this test result to WADA? On what, other than an irrational belief in conspiracies, could you possibly base such a claim? I have worked in large organizations like that, and I would put a higher probability on vampires being real than on a secret of that magnitude not being disclosed to WADA. As for the rest of it, I don't believe that I ever claimed Armstrong rode clean during his run of victories at the TdF, did I? But I continue to say that the focus on such past events is pointless, because ultimately the only thing it does is take the spotlight off of current riders and races. There used to be three UCI class 2.HC races in America: the Tour of California, the Tour of Georgia and the Tour of Missouri. Both of the latter two have folded in the last two years. The SRAM Tour of the Gila was planning to become a UCI class 2.1 race this year. It couldn't find sponsorship and came within a whisker of folding itself. Armstrong helped find sponsors for two other races that are, as of now, going to be UCI class 2.1 races in the U.S. in August: the Tour of Utah and the Quizno's Challenge. But the Tour of Utah tried this once before and almost folded in 2007, while the Quizno's sponsorship has an out after one year. Does anyone really expect that the lead story during those two races will be any different than it was during the Tour of California: the "hunt" for damning proof against Lance Armstrong? Right now, I'm not betting that either of those races survives until 2012 on the UCI calendar. As far as your jibe about Armstrong being a worker on his return, I recognize that Armstrong did little if anything to help Contador win when they were both with Astana. However, Contador actively worked against his "teammates" Armstrong and Kloeden (which I still say was an incredible display of poor sportsmanship, even if it helped Contador win). Despite that, Armstrong finished third in the TdF, even with most of his team having to help Contador and with Frank Schleck breathing down his neck. That seems like a real achievement to me, no matter how little significance it has for you. BTW, it's an interesting question as to whether Contador is even more unlikeable than Armstrong. The last charge is merely an expression of your dislike for Armstrong, so there is nothing I can say to it.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

michel 10812 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 05-27-11, 07:05 PM (EST) 7. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" To put more substance on my comment, all I have to do is quote a paragraph from the article I posted and one of yours: - "To us, today, Eddy Merckx is the greatest cyclist who ever lived, not a fraud who tested positive for a stimulant while leading the 1969 Giro d'Italia and had his 1973 Giro di Lombardia win stripped for the same. Joop Zoetemelk is the hardman who started and finished 16 Tours—a record—and won one. He's not a reprobate who was caught doping at the 1979 Tour, received a paltry penalty of a 10-minute time addition, and maintained his second-place podium spot. Jacques Anquetil is the five-time Tour winner who in 1961 took the yellow jersey on Stage 1 and wore it all the way to Paris, not a boastful cheater who said, during a French television interview, "Leave me in peace—everybody takes dope." And Fausto Coppi is il campionissimo, the champion of champions, not an admitted doper who said on Italian television that he only took drugs when necessary—"which is nearly always." - "which had been used in distance events since Lasse Viren in the 1972 Olympics (which has also never been proven, although everyone knows it happened)." Athletes have been using illegal substances forever. That should tell you that there are a lot of people hard at work to keep things quiet. >"you believe that no one at the lab, >even to boost his or her own career, >would leak this test result to WADA?" I know that no one at the lab except for a very select few know that sample #17785495254-A belongs to Armstrong. >"I don't believe that I ever >claimed Armstrong rode clean >during his run of victories at the TdF" I'm sorry, I thought that was your claim. That he only used EPO in 1999 because he had such a weak team but after he stopped using anything. Are you only protecting his reputation, his legacy? Shouldn't a liar be exposed? BTW, I don't dislike Armstrong the cyclist. I dislike the liar.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-03-12, 07:54 PM (EST) 8. "End of the investigation" LAST EDITED ON 02-03-12 AT 08:03 PM (EST) Following good PR protocol, the US government announced today (Friday afternoon before the Super Bowl) that it was dropping its Wall Street Journal-fueled investigation into Lance Armstrong and his cycling teams without filing any charges. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/cycling/story/2012-02-03/lance-armstrong-performance-enhancing-investigation-closed/52951474/1 This is the expected result, because Floyd Landis' claims about teamwide doping were clearly bogus. Federal agent (and full-time scumbag) Jeff Novitzky launched an entire subterranean PR campaign to try to induce anti-Armstrong testimony through extensive use of leaks and lies, but his campaign had to come to a halt after Armstrong's lawyers got a federal judge interested in Novitzky's surrepticious leaks, which created the illusion in the media that there was a real case . . . but which everyone knew was fake. Basically, the investigation went bust after then. I stopped posting in this thread, because it was just michel and I. Some of you may have believed the hype that where there's smoke, there's fire. Maybe that's true in Canada, but not in the U.S. This case resulted simply from the Wall Street Journal's sports reporters getting played for suckers by Floyd Landis, who was determined to get even with Armstrong because Armstrong wouldn't help him get into the Tour of California. As I've said before, Landis' charge that the USPS team bus stopped for teamwide doping during the Tour de France is the most ridiculous charge I've ever heard, and the WSJ simply failed to realize how preposterous such a charge was, perhaps because their writers had never covered the TdF. Then a publicity-hungry federal agent saw this as a potentially huge case that would compensate for his flubs in the Barry Bonds investigation, and the circus was on. Just to wrap this thread up, I want to respond to a couple of michel's comments in the last post, Athletes have been using illegal substances forever. That should tell you that there are a lot of people hard at work to keep things quiet. The difference, though, was the fiasco of the 1998 TdF. Prior to that, it was easy to dope in cycling. After that, it became incredibly risky, with riders being nailed all the time. >"I don't believe that I ever >claimed Armstrong rode clean >during his run of victories at the TdF" I'm sorry, I thought that was your claim. That he only used EPO in 1999 because he had such a weak team but after he stopped using anything. Are you only protecting his reputation, his legacy? Shouldn't a liar be exposed? No, what I said was that I thought Armstrong stopped using EPO after the 1999 Tour and then used blood transfusions, similar to Lasse Viren, from then on, which is why he hired Michele Ferrari as a personal doctor. Dr. Ferrari was the only one who could have blown the whistle on Armstrong after 1999, not Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton. (BTW, it turns out that the claim that Armstrong stopped using Dr. Ferrari after 2003, which was Armstrong's claim and which I repeat in the first post, may have been untrue as well -- he might have kept working with Dr. Ferrari until his first retirement.) As long as Dr. Ferrari wasn't talking, all the other stories were clearly bogus. BTW, I don't dislike Armstrong the cyclist. I dislike the liar. The lie is the idea that any winner of the Tour de France in recent history, with the possible exception of Cadel Evans, rode totally clean. I used to think that Contador had, but I'd never heard of microdosing then. Only after his positive clenbuterol test did I find out that there were actually riders doing it, and at least one of them said Contador had told him about it. But a different lie is the idea that there was some sort of team-sponsored doping program at USPS or at RadioShack. Basically, except for a few renegade teams like Liberty Seguros, all the riders doped on their own. The teams just made it known what level of performance they expected -- simply, a level that few if any clean riders could have met.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-04-12, 02:24 PM (EST) 9. "A dupe strikes back" LAST EDITED ON 02-04-12 AT 02:24 PM (EST) When I was referring to dupes above, I only talked about the WSJ reporters. However, the second biggest dupe in this story was ESPN "reporter" Bonnie D. Ford, who decided to throw in with the WSJ . . . and so was completely undercut by this announcement. She tries to save what tatters are left of her reputation in an ESPN article today, alleging that the prosecutor's action is incomprehensible and there may still be something more than hot air so far: End of Armstrong case raises questions Actually, it doesn't raise many questions, except how she'll keep her job, but I'd like to answer one of the main questions she raises. Why did the prosecutor make the formal announcement that the case was being discontinued? So that he didn't have to explain all the illegal breaches in grand jury confidentiality coming from Jeff Nowitzky to the supervising judge. In the Bonds case, a lawyer leaked the grand jury testimony about Bonds' steroid use and ultimately ended up going to jail. The Armstrong case has made the Bonds case look confidential by comparison. A lot of the stories have come from people hoping to profit financially from the case, such as Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton. But it's been the leaks from Nowitzky and his staff that have kept the story alive when there hasn't been any supporting evidence. (Had there been any supporting evidence, Landis and Hamilton would have found a way to leak it, perhaps through a court filing in Landis' pathetic qui tam civil suit, where he's basically begging for money because he's a "good person" (in his own opinion).)   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kingfish 16088 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-04-12, 03:53 PM (EST) 10. "RE: A dupe strikes back" Not to tangent the discourse (very interesting, BTW), but it might be fun if they just discontinued testing and let performance enhancing drug use in cycling run rampant. So what if they produced two headed babies (or were sterile, probably better for the species), at least we'd know that there was equality between the riders and teams. Assuming all teams had equal access to the latest and greatest drugs. Then at least there would be one less category of excuses for the losers. And think of all the legal fees that would be saved. Those boys would sure fly up and down those mountains, and they might not even slow down in Paris.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Starshine 4934 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Stuff Magazine Centerfold" 02-05-12, 06:03 AM (EST) 11. "RE: A dupe strikes back" Unfortunately cyclists dropping dead during the tour is not a crowd pleaser. I see your point, and am personally very unsure about athletics from the 70's to the 90's (apart from Allan Wells of course), and to me the argument that allowing drugs means that the competitor with the best chemist will win carries little weight as one can equally argue the same about coaches, or (particularly with the British Olympic cycling juggernaut) equipment.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Snidget 43862 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-05-12, 04:20 PM (EST) 13. "RE: A dupe strikes back" I'm a tad more cynical, I'm thinking it is not who has the best chemist, but whose chemist does the best calculations taking into account individual clearance rate of drugs to make sure they pass the test on race day/during the season. I suspect that most of the clean" athletes are just clean during testing season and have someone who can do some boosting stuff outside of the testing times. Hard to know how much all the drugs actually help vs how much is athletes believe they help. Also I don't think they will ever make an average athlete into a super star, but they may make someone who is #3 in the world when unaltered win a bit more than they would otherwise. I think for the most part you are really working at the point of diminishing returns, and hard to know how much of the gains are functional (actually change the results) vs make the athlete look different (and again given how psychological performance can be how much they push a bit harder because they think they can rather than they actually have more to push) It is tempting to say these few things that may kill you during the performance are banned (so only a couple of things to test for) and let the rest be a free-for-all and spend the money on the other end as a fund to support the athletes damaged by the sport (either from the physical strain of the sport or the drugs). Maybe it isn't good to just say well they all do it anyway, why not just make it safer for them to do it, or make sure we can pay for the cancers and other long term health problems, but somehow it feels more honest.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

michel 10812 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-05-12, 02:53 PM (EST) 12. "RE: End of the investigation" >But a different lie is the >idea that there was some >sort of team-sponsored doping program >at USPS or at RadioShack. > Basically...all the riders doped >on their own. The >teams just made it known >what level of performance they >expected -- simply, a level >that few if any clean >riders could have met. Even if all the riders have used drugs on their own, the teams have to shoulder the blame. Excusing them in this way is like saying that a mafia boss wasn't guilty of conspiracy because he only asked his hitman to "get rid of the problem" and never imagined it would lead to someone getting killed. By setting expectations so high that it forces even the foot soldiers to attain superhuman performances, it makes them responsible.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-06-12, 12:51 PM (EST) 16. "RE: End of the investigation" I agree that the teams (and team leaders like Johan Bruyneel) were a huge part of the doping problem in cycling. But they didn't organize doping, which is the charge promulgated by ESPN's Hunt and the U.S. investigation. As I posted in the TdF thread, it was special to see Cadel Evans win the Tour this year for BMC and Jim Ochowitz, who was vocally opposed to doping while running the 7/Eleven and Motorola teams from 1985 to 1995 (and everyone that rode for him, including Lance Armstrong, knew it). If cycling wasn't finally getting clean, that never could have happened.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-06-12, 06:51 PM (EST) 18. "To be fair . . ." . . . I should point out that Ochowitz was also the leader of the highly successful U.S. 1984 Olympic cycling team, which is generally believed to have used autologous transfusions (transfusions of your own blood back into your body, similar to what I believe Armstrong did with Dr. Ferrari).* Such transfusions were legal at the time under Olympic rules, but they were subsequently banned in 1986. *I have a former high-school friend who was part of the 1984 team, but I do not have any inside knowledge if this is true.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-06-12, 12:42 PM (EST) 14. "Contador's 2010 TdF title stripped" The microdosing scandal has reached its logical conclusion: Alberto Contador was stripped of his 2010 TdF title and given a one-year suspension, which will keep him out of both this year's Olympics and the TdF. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2012/02/alberto-contador-doping-tour-de-france-2010-stripped.html   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 55195 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-06-12, 12:51 PM (EST) 15. "RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title stripped" There is a LiveStrong banner at the bottom of this page. Oh. Irony.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kingfish 16088 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-06-12, 05:05 PM (EST) 17. "RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title stripped" LAST EDITED ON 02-06-12 AT 07:03 PM (EST) "Oh Irony, Again thou pierceth thy victims with thy keen blade." KingSpeare, Bard to the Stars, From "De Agony of De Feet, Act II" (When you need an apt quote from a bard, just ask).   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-09-12, 01:35 AM (EST) 20. "The fate of SaxoBank" One of Contador's stripped results was a second place (behind Levi Leipheimer) in a race in Argentina last month. . . . which leads to another problem. Contador earned about 68% of SaxoBank's World Tour points last year. Without those points, SaxoBank wouldn't have had enough points to qualify for renewal of its ProTour license. So . . . should SaxoBank be stripped of its ProTeams status? This is a question with real consequences. If SaxoBank loses ProTeam status, it doesn't qualify for an automatic invitation to the Tour de France any longer. It could still be given a wild card invitation, because it would still qualify for Professional Continental team status, but the TdF might choose to use the wild card invites for other teams. I doubt this will happen for two reasons: 1) The UCI doesn't like to tick off major sponsors, meaning that it won't want to hurt Saxo Bank and the cycling manufacturer Specialized, who are the two main sponsors of the team. 2) People in cycling like team head Bjarne Riis, in part because he admitted to his own doping past when he was a rider.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

byoffer 15808 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-10-12, 00:13 AM (EST) 23. "RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title stripped" So does Schleck get awarded the 2010 TdF title? Lousy way to win it, but he must be the champ now. And since Andy had won the White jersey that year, I believe protocol since he won the yellow is to give the White to the second place White jersey rider from that year. What a mess.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-10-12, 11:35 AM (EST) 24. "RE: Contador's 2010 TdF title stripped" >So does Schleck get awarded the 2010 TdF title? Lousy >way to win it, but he must be the champ now. Yes, he is. And Michele Scarponi of Lampre is now the winner of the 2011 Giro. >And since Andy had won the White jersey that year, I >believe protocol since he won the yellow is to give >the White to the second place White jersey rider from that year. Not true. It has happened 6 times that the winner of the white jersey has also won the yellow, most recently with Contadoe in 2007 (his first win, when he rode for Discovery Channel). >What a mess. How's this for a mess: the retroactive victory awarded to Andy Schleck for 2010 came when he was riding for Team Saxo Bank. But now he rides for RadioShack-Nossan-Trek. Contador at the time rode for Astana. But his current team, the team that could lose its spot in the UCI Pro Tour because of all the points he had to surrender? Team Saxo Bank.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-08-12, 07:03 PM (EST) 19. "The Ullrich case" LAST EDITED ON 02-08-12 AT 07:04 PM (EST) Speaking of blood transfusions -- Operation Puerto. In Operation Puerto, the Spanish police in 2006 (a year after Armstrong retired) busted a doctor who was doing blood transfusions for cyclists. He was storing the blood under the name of the cyclist's dog. One of the dogs named in the blood supplies was 1997 Tour de France winner (and 5-time runner-up) Jan Ullrich's dog. Ullrich responded to Operation Puerto by immediately retiring from cycling and turning his license back in to the Swiss Cycling Federation (although Ullrich was German and rode in the Olympics for Germany, he rode professionally under a Swiss license, for reasons which date back to the former East Germany). The Swiss said that they didn't have the authority to investigate Ullrich any further once he retired. UCI challenged the Swiss judgment, and the CAS (sport arbitration panel) will rule tomorrow (2/9/2012) on UCI's appeal in the Ullrich case. I'm not sure what UCI wants to find, however, even if they win. The international statue of limitations on sports doping is 8 years, which puts all of Ullrich's awards prior to 2004, including his 1997 TdF win, off-limits. Maybe UCI just wants to establish the precedent that retirement doesn't set you free. (BTW, note that Armstrong's first five TdF championships (1999-2003) are also off-limits under this restriction. The U.S. case was even worse, because the U.S. statute of limitations on the supposed charges is only five years. Realistically, at any point a judge could have pitched the entire federal investigation -- and Armstrong's lawyers had filed such a motion. The government defense to that argument was claiming that Armstrong was part of a continuing conspiracy going forward to cover up the truth, but that's a flimsy argument to make to extend the statute of limitations without any hard evidence of transgressions.)   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-09-12, 10:30 AM (EST) 21. "Ullrich found guilty" Unsurprisingly, Ullrich was found guilty of doping and given a two-year ban from cycling, which is mostly meaningless because he retired in 2006 and hasn't shown any signs of wanting to get back into cycling in an executive capacity. More interestingly, CAS decided to strip all of his results starting on May 1, 2005 because of a presumption that he was doping at the time (since the "dog records" go back to 2005), which means that his third-place finish in the 2005 TdF has been stripped. It's interesting that Ullrich's results from the 2005 TdF were stripped, when fellow Operation Puerto doper Ivan Basso, who finished second in the 2005 TdF, did not have his results stripped when he was given a two-year suspension himself. But that's not a question I really care too much about.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kingfish 16088 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-09-12, 02:27 PM (EST) 22. "RE: The Ullrich case" LAST EDITED ON 02-09-12 AT 02:27 PM (EST) The names of the cyclist dogs? And of course, if they didn't happen to have a dog, I guess the Doc. would have used the name of a pet fish? I would also bet that that Doc's computer PW was "1234" or "Password". Refresh me, what Fed US law was Armstrong accused of breaking by using performance enhancing substances or methods when he competed in cycling contests in foreign countries? And how far to the moon could we get on the money the Gov spent prosecuting him for this? (I know I know. the last question is not answerable. Or even intelligent).   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-10-12, 12:14 PM (EST) 25. "RE: The Ullrich case" >The names of the cyclist dogs? I had to look this up again. Some of the cyclists, such as Ivan Basso ("Birillo") and Alejandro Valverde ("Piti"), used their dogs' names. But Ullrich was identified as either "#1" or "Hijo Rudicio" ("son of Rudy"). Ullrich's dad is not named Rudy, but his manager was Rudy Pevenage. >Refresh me, what Fed US law was Armstrong accused of breaking >by using performance enhancing substances or methods when he competed >in cycling contests in foreign countries? Defrauding the US Postal Service due to its sponsorship of Armstrong's team. It was a stretch to start out with, and then you ran into the reality that US Postal didn't sponsor Armstrong's team after 2004, and the statute of limitations on fraud by deception is five years, so the statute ran out in 2009. Basically, Novitzky seemed to think that, if he could hit the home run that he did in the BALCO case, the problems with the investigation would be forgiven. >And how far to the moon could we get on the money the Gov >spent prosecuting him for this? About as far as Ralph Kramden wanted to send Alice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbCv6b96OK0   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kingfish 16088 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-11-12, 10:24 AM (EST) 26. "RE: The Ullrich case" "Defrauding the US Postal Service due to its sponsorship of Armstrong's team." Sounds like some pretty creative prosecution. I mean, I can see it when they use creative techniques to go after an Al Capone, and I think they could find something to go after on just about anyone if they wanted to. But to dig that deep to come up with something against Armstrong? What did he do to warrant that? He just got caught up in the anti-sports doping frenzy by an over zealous prosecutor out to make a name for himself, I guess.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-12-12, 00:30 AM (EST) 27. "RE: The Ullrich case" Had Floyd Landis' tall tales been at all true, there were prosecution possibilities at the time. For example, had Armstrong and Bruyneel bribed a bus driver to pull off the road so that they could all dope in peace, you may have had violations of the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act). But when Landis' fanciful stories couldn't be verified, Novitzky wouldn't let it drop, because he felt it would tarnish his reputation if he didn't find anything. But now, his reputation has been tarnished even more.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

trigirl 2844 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Howard Stern Show Guest" 02-29-12, 03:37 PM (EST) 28. "RE: More Lance Armstrong discussion" There are more of us here reading this than you think. Thanks for your clear and knowledgeable comments on Lance, Ullrich et al.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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