Lance Drugstrong

[Take Chip]

Finally justice has caught up to Drugstrong, stripped of his titles. Been a long time coming.

Probably cost Cadel Evans at least another tour win (I think Evans probably should have won at least another 3 tours if the cheats were removed from the sport) and yes I do think Evans is a clean rider.

One good thing about the Drugstrong situation is that the sport is now as clean as it ever has been. The times they are riding are now down to around the pre-EPO days, so we are talking about the early to mid-90's.

 

[Pete Cash]

The idea that Armstrong was so dominate in a period that was full of drug cheats and done it clean is quite amusing.

Blood passports which is the real piece of evidence they are nailing him on (comparing his blood from 2001 with his blood towards the end of his career) is the future in testing for performance enhancing drugs. Of course having ten former teammates willing to testify against him is a pretty big deal too.

 

[herbert henry1908]

It was only a matter of time.

It's even more interesting given the reputation he has cultivated off the road.

So many people gushing over him wherever he's gone , plenty of reflection going on now I bet.

 

[Wizardman]

I knew the buggar was dirty. He did do some good in the world, but in the end, the guy lived a lie.

 

[gUt]

Can someone explain the science of this to me? According to him he's passed every test he's ever been subjected to. I realise the performance enhancers are always a generation ahead but a clean sheet is a clean sheet.

 

[Take Chip]

Can someone explain the science of this to me? According to him he's passed every test he's ever been subjected to. I realise the performance enhancers are always a generation ahead but a clean sheet is a clean sheet.

He failed a test in 1999. Also Flo Jo and Marion Jones basically did the same thing as in passed every test - do you think they were clean? This is a layman's language scientific paper on the history of doping in the tour writeen in 2009: http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009/07/tour-de-france-2009-power-estimates.html

 

[Wizardman]

If you don't believe he is dirty, you are in denial

 

[BM1979]

About time. This is a Index of all the accusations over the years if anyone is interested in reading.

It's not the doping that I take issue with it's the way he ruined people's lives who dare made accusations about him. He is a grub of the highest order in that regard.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/index-of-lance-armstrong-doping-allegations-over-the-years

I have been trying to convince people about him for long time, Finaly justicehas prevailed. Next in line a star Spanish Male tennis player

 

[gUt]

I don't know enough about it, that's why I asked.

 

[gUt]

It's pretty sad how many footballers and other athletes over the years have nominated Lance Armstrong as their role model/most inspiring figure etc etc if all this time he's proved to have been on the juice.

 

[BM1979]

He played it very smart though , He can still claim innocence and use his I never tested positive and witch hunt spin.

If he had decided to defend himself at a hearing he would have had all the testimonies in the public eye and would have lost all credibility.

As it is now by just accepting the charges he keeps the evidence under wraps and a lot of people are still on his side.

He has a really good PR team, I will give him that

 

[gUt]

Looking forward to seeing his bitch tits

 

[BM1979]

Cycling has got this really bad wrap regarding doping which is fair enough but at least they are pro active in fighting it.

Other sports like Soccer and Tennis do nothing and it all just stays hidden in the sand.

 

[Pete Cash]

I can explain it if you want Gut how indepth do you want it. The evidence against Amstrong is largely eye witnesses (former teammates and a lot of them), his biological passport (ie they are comparing his blood work from 99 to his comeback in 09) and a few other bits of evidence like how his entire team of doctors have been banned for life (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ferrari-del-moral-and-marti-banned-for-life-in-us-postal-case) and the fact that literally every cyclist of note during that era has either been caught using PEDs or has admitted it. These are the cyclists who ran second to him in his run Alex Zulle (admitted blood doper), Jan Ulrich (admitted blood doper), Joseba Beloki (implicated in operation Peurto but cleared), Andreas Kloden (accused of blood doping) and Ivan Basso (admitted blood doper)

How do they not get caught. Well athletes don't go to meets with drugs in the system. There are largely three ways of cheating in this matter. PEDS basically steroids, blood doping and gene doping. Take blood doping which is probably the biggest issues in cycling. EPO is very tricky to catch after a fairly short period of time but the athlete still takes the benefits of it. Its only in the last decade that any kind of real test has been made for EPO which is why things like biological passports are the future because instead of testing to see if they are literally pissing hot the testers are looking for biological trends. This isn't all that new a very basic form of biological passport is testosterone over epitestosterone ratio which is used to detect anabolic steroids. Take MMA fighter Alistair Overeem who got popped for having a too high ratio. It wasn't a specific drug in his system but irregularities with his biological passport. When testers have years upon years of samples to run against its going to be a lot hard to cheat.

This forum takes accusations against athletes seriously so for arguments sake lets pretend there is a country in central Asia that has no central doping agency. Lets pretend this country produces a lot of athletes in... I don't know picking a sport off the top of my head uhhh Weightlifting. Lets say that during the offseason while out of competition these athletes roid their eyeballs off but steroids don't have a particularly long half life in the body so by the time they get to competition they piss clean. Its not like they won't benefit from the results of these steroids and still win gold medals.

There is also a very good chance agencies don't want to ping athletes so they just pay lip service to it. The International Tennis Federation was pretty cool with Serana Williams literally hiding from a drug test because she "thought it was a criminal".

 

[Pete Cash]

As an interesting aside some of the horror stories I have heard about long term EPO use are terrifying. There is an athlete who has to set an alarm clock so he can inject EPO so he doesn;t die because his body now struggles to produce red blood cells.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18951518

Once a day, every day, a former European athlete is reminded of his greatest victories - but not because of his trophies and medals.

To stay alive, this one-time champion has to inject himself with the medical substance on which his fame largely rests.

According to anti-doping scientists who have heard this story, this unnamed athlete is believed to have taken so much of the blood-boosting drug erythropoeitin (EPO) during his career that his body permanently lost the ability to make red blood cells without it. He will need to inject the drug for the rest of his life.

egads

 

[gUt]

Thanks Pete you're a scholar and a gent.

 

[BM1979]

I can explain it if you want Gut how indepth do you want it. The evidence against Amstrong is largely eye witnesses (former teammates and a lot of them), his biological passport (ie they are comparing his blood work from 99 to his comeback in 09) and a few other bits of evidence like how his entire team of doctors have been banned for life (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ferrari-del-moral-and-marti-banned-for-life-in-us-postal-case) and the fact that literally every cyclist of note during that era has either been caught using PEDs or has admitted it. These are the cyclists who ran second to him in his run Alex Zulle (admitted blood doper), Jan Ulrich (admitted blood doper), Joseba Beloki (implicated in operation Peurto but cleared), Andreas Kloden (accused of blood doping) and Ivan Basso (admitted blood doper)

How do they not get caught. Well athletes don't go to meets with drugs in the system. There are largely three ways of cheating in this matter. PEDS basically steroids, blood doping and gene doping. Take blood doping which is probably the biggest issues in cycling. EPO is very tricky to catch after a fairly short period of time but the athlete still takes the benefits of it. Its only in the last decade that any kind of real test has been made for EPO which is why things like biological passports are the future because instead of testing to see if they are literally pissing hot the testers are looking for biological trends. This isn't all that new a very basic form of biological passport is testosterone over epitestosterone ratio which is used to detect anabolic steroids. Take MMA fighter Alistair Overeem who got popped for having a too high ratio. It wasn't a specific drug in his system but irregularities with his biological passport. When testers have years upon years of samples to run against its going to be a lot hard to cheat.

This forum takes accusations against athletes seriously so for arguments sake lets pretend there is a country in central Asia that has no central doping agency. Lets pretend this country produces a lot of athletes in... I don't know picking a sport off the top of my head uhhh Weightlifting. Lets say that during the offseason while out of competition these athletes roid their eyeballs off but steroids don't have a particularly long half life in the body so by the time they get to competition they piss clean. Its not like they won't benefit from the results of these steroids and still win gold medals.

There is also a very good chance agencies don't want to ping athletes so they just pay lip service to it. The International Tennis Federation was pretty cool with Serana Williams literally hiding from a drug test because she "thought it was a criminal".

The rumours with EPO I am pretty sure were you would inject yourself in the evening and then if you got up the next morning and drank a couple of litres of water that it would become almost untraceable.

Microdosing is also a major issue at the moment . Doping yourself up to just under the thresholds of suspicious blood values(50%)

 

[Take Chip]

I don't know enough about it, that's why I asked.

Apologies man, came a bit over the top.

 

[Pete Cash]

A lot of people are suggesting that if they are all dirty ( and pelaton power has decreased quite a bit lately suggesting that perhaps the sport is cleaner) what's the issue. Well like all drugs some people react better to them than other people do. Lance may well have been the best athlete if they were all clean but all we know for sure is that his body was the best responder to the doping.

It's quite an interesting case. His cancer should have been flagged by drug tests but it was missed. Makes me question how in depth the testing at the time was.

 

[Cliffhanger]

I believe the majority of professional athletes are taking performance enhancing drugs, but never really think of the individual athletes as drug cheats so this was like finding out Santa wasn't real.