91Èȱ¬

How much comment are we to be allowed on this?Or will the mods have a field day again?

yo yo yo what is happenen all up in here!!!
Lance Armstrong will always be remembered for great things so will maroon 5.

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And as far as Armstrong is concerned,I think he will be forever remembered as "the one that got away with it".

I see we've started all ready.How can a comment about Contador,all of which is in the public domain and none of which is conjecture,have broken the house rules?

Cycling is seen as corrupt by most people who care to take an interest, and this is probably justified. The biggest name in the sport is being investigated for doping offences he will almost certainly never have to answer to in court. Hopefully if there is a case for him to answer he will be prosecuted and face the consequences if found guilty.

Maybe doping should just be accepted as part of cycling and legalised...at least it would level up the playing field for those who have not cheated so far.

I've always thought that one problem with doping controls is that they focus completely on the rider while pretty much ignoring the team. Armstrong is generally considered to have used his team very very well to protect him and help him through the mountains etc (not to mention the big gains in some of the team time trials). When people like Landis admit to doping, it kind of effects Armstrong's wins even if he did absolutely nothing wrong himself. I don't really know what can be done about it - kicking teams out if anyone is found cheating might work, but we might end up with a pretty empty race sometimes...

I still don't understand why Lance has to face any accusations because of some proven liar and cheat wants to try and take the greatest cyclist ever down with him.

Lance has never tested positive and that should be the end of it. Otherwise, what is the point of the drug testing? Jealousy is a dangerous thing.

I do agree however, that no matter how much fun Lance had coming back to cycling, he has tarnished his legacy and reputation even if he claims he doesn't care about that.

Marilyn Monroe is usually considered the most beautiful woman to have ever lived, largely I suspect because she never had a chance to grow old and lose her looks. If Lance had stopped for good the first time round, he would have been immortalised at his peak in much the same way.

As a casual watcher of the Tour de France, I've enjoyed watching Armstrong, his story is compelling, but I find the constant whispering and sniping tiresome.

I can't really believe that if he was such a rampant cheat as his detractors would have us believe that he was not caught, especially given the huge effort that's put into doping testing.

Can we look back at anyone in the last 30 years and say for definite that they were clean ?

Lance, like Ali, took one fight too many whilst believing he was invincible. That does not however detract from the 7 tour titles he holds and a record that I believe will never be touched.

As for the allegations, we've seen WADA, the French anti-doping authorities, L'Equipe and various authors / biographers all try and fail to proove guilt. Now it's the turn of the American Food and Drug Agency, backed by the dubious evidence provided by Floyd Landis. We are all aware that Armstrong remains the must tested athlete of his generation and as he has constantly stated "how do you proove a negative?" These claims are without foundation and again will be dismissed.

If nothing else, his legacy will always be to inspire others that face the kind of adversity that he battled. In 2008 my son lay in a coma for 2 weeks following a serious car crash. Like Lance, I put my faith in the doctors, nurses and staff that treated him. It's Not About The Bike and Every Second Counts, not the Bible got me through this time, because I figured if he could do it, so could my boy.

We spend so much energy building up icons only to tear them apart.

Thanks for the memories Lance - Sestriere, Ventoux, the Metz time trial, Ulrich's crash, the Texan flag on the Hotel de Crillon, Luz Ardidenne - the list is endless.

Allez Lance!

Floyd Landis is one of the least credible people in the entire sporting world.

Lance Armstrong probably shouldn't have come back, but perhaps the fact that his first retirement was such a fairytale ending was the catalyst for his return - he'd gone out on top, and not experienced a crushing failure, injury, or diminishment of ability, so he felt he could come back and dominate again.

Two points,

Firstly, his success was always undermined in my eyes slightly by the composition of his season: completely geared towards winning the Tour de France, while his comptetitors had to ride most other events, he was able to do a season that allowed him to peak at le Tour. I still think he was absolutely phenomenal however.

Secondly, he is quite possibly the most tested athlete in history, so until someone can provide evidence of an irrefutably failed test, or another form of genuine evidence I see no reason to believe that he was a drug cheat.
The claims of the disgraced Floyd Landis, who dragged cycling through the mud as he attempted to overturn his ban and regain his Tour 'victory', only to finally confess everything and point the finger at others when all his other options were gone, are evidence of nothing.

Mr Slater, you definitely seem to be sitting on the Lance is guilty side of the fence. And comeback a failure. Lance has said that he wanted to come back to show he was still a good cyclist. Point proven, he came 3rd in the first tour de france back. To engage the public, again point proven.
As for the Landis accusation, whether Armstrong came back or not I am sure there would have been finger pointing.
Lets do what we what we all think is fair, innocent until proven guilty. Having said that that hasn't necessarily worked in the Contador affair.

I've met Lane, I spent some time with him and USP in 2003 during the centenary Tour. I've looked him in the eye and when he's spoken about the doping accusations. I believe 100% that he is clean. And it would take irrefutable evidence to convince me otherwise.

I spent time with Tyler Hamilton and CSC during the same race. And when the doping issue came up with Tyler I always felt he had something to hide.

Now maybe Lance is just the greatest actor of his generation....... however, in my view, the truth is that he is the greatest cyclist and it humours me to see his many critics continuing to desperately find something to pin on him.

You've been at it for 12 years and not proved a jot.

There is also the fact which evreyone overlooks from the 2010 Tour, Lance started a new team who ended up on the podium as the Team champions, not an insignificant feat! And from what I remember the last person to stand on the podium was Lance!

I certainly feel that LA is more of a Tour Legend than Contador ever will be after this year's farce, whatever happened to athletes being responsible for what goes into their body's?

Great athlete and an excellent ambassador for cycling, it's a shame that jealous rivals and the media have tried to ruin his legacy with constant accusations of doping none of which have ever been proven!

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It will all come out that which everyone knows . I don't doubt Paul kimmage for a moment

I see the same old arguments for and against being wheeled out.
Regardless of whether he did or didn't - he was the best cyclist of his generation and served as an inspiration to a great many; these are two accomplishments to be celebrated.

So, he's never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and he's been tested at least as often as the athletes who have been caught.
That suggests
a) he doesn't use the drugs he's been tested for
b) he's very good at hiding the banned substances in his system
c) the testing system is a bit rubbish

Although C is perfectly possible, it is the same system for all cyclists so if one is tested, found positive and banned, then if another cyclist is tested under the same sytem and found negative the results must stand.
B is frankly unlikely, even if LA does have extraordinary physical attributes. There is no evidence to suggest that having large-volume lungs helps you to process and remove illict substances from your system more quickly than any other human.
That leaves A.
But as the man says, he can't prove a negative.

I'm agnostic on whether he's guilty or not but thing that really bothers me is this 'most tested athlete in the world' carry on. Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery never tested positive and nobody is under any illusions that both weren't juiced. As long as the monetary rewards are high the drug makers will stay ahead of the testers. Jones in particular had a husband, partner and trainer done for drug cheating yet resolutely denied any cheating and always claimed that she was the most tested female athlete on the circuit. Look at all Armstrong's former team mates who were caught, Heras, Hamilton, Beltran, Andreu, Mondini, Landis etc. Look at his rivals that he destroyed, Pantani, Basso and Ulrich, they've subsequently had run-ins involving doping (not all clear cut cases I'll admit). I can understand those that are suspicious, he routinely massacred a peleton with its fair share of users, you've got to ask questions.

On the other hand I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he was that damn good. He has a very good natural VO2 Max level (not superhuman compared with LeMond) and an amazing lactate threshold, a combination that lends itself to endurance sports. Every so often nature produces someone who's just so far out on the bell curve, look at Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps, I can't say for certain that neither are on something but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt considering their obvious natural advantages. Maybe Armstrong was one of those. For people who try to defend Armstrong against his detractors here's where I'd start the argument.

Interesting question would be, if you had to stake your life on the issue, where would you fall?

Matt, why are you so keen to portray Lance's comeback as failure? I can only imagine how OTT your reaction (and that of your fellow 91Èȱ¬ journalists) would be if Bradley Wiggins ever managed to get on the podium in Paris, never mind if he was aged 37 and had been retired for four years. Even finishing 23rd in 2010 is actually not a bad achievement given the number of set backs Lance encountered that were out of his control.
You seem to equate his comeback to renowned and unsuccesful sporting comebacks such as Bjorn Borg etc. I think you are being rather simplistic and cliched.
Given that you seem more interested in the non-sporting aspects of sport, I'm sure you're crossing your fingers hoping that the investigation concludes against Lance Armstrong? That surely would make your day!

why does LA provoke such black and white opinions like no other athlete before.

Is it because he achieved what no one had ever thought was possible for a pro cyclist, let alone one who had come back from a prognosis that was basically terminal?
He, in my opinion, is not the greatest cyclist ever, that title belongs to eddy mercx, however he has transcended his sport in a way that very few have ever done. is this the reason that people want to shoot him down, based on the word of the least credible accuser anyone has ever had?
Whatever your opinions there is no doubt that he has become an inspiration to others, mostly non cyclists, by virtue of his own belief in his abilities to overcome the problems that life throws at all of us to a greater or lesser extent.

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I can't believe the amount of people that fall for the most test athlete in the world, he's not even the most tested athlete in the Us with the surname Armstrong.

Before the mods shut me down on this, go look it up, it's in the public domain on USADA.

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Let's see. A man comes back from cancer (for which i will always respect him for), and wins the Tour de France, in an era of "two-speed" cycling, where you either had a HT level of 60%, a la Bjarne Riis (Mods, check his autobiography), or your were a rider such as Christophe Bassons.

(Oh. Actually, why dont all of you check out the story behind Lance and Christophe Bassons. Some of you might be enlightened by that)

Look at his peers, most of them have gone down for doping, or admitted it once their careers had finished.

And the most damming thing? His biggest rival, Jan Ullrich, had this to say about the sport at the time:

"if you can't add 1 + 1 then i can't help you"

There's the black, the white, and the grey. The Lance story is covered in grey, but too many people the white or the black.

He didn't do anything different to everyone else, yet we pillorise him in a way we don't with any other rider, save for Ricarrdo Ricco.

The questions I ask are only whether or not he enjoyed his return and did it help or hinder the causes he believes in. I hope he enjoyed it, and I do not believe it harmed anything he believes in. His legacy is and always will be safe. Both as true champion and, I believe, as a clean athlete. If he always rode clean, and the evidence suggests he did, he proved that you can win without cheating. He is an inspiration to millions both inside and outside cycling.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

As others have pointed out already this article hardly represents an unbiased view.It is indeed quite obvious which side of the fence that the author sits regards Armstrong.... and as such is shoddy journalism,which I have to say surprises me as Matt Slater usually writes in a very objective and balanced manner.

You know what, there's a reason the article reads in a "baised" fashion. The reason might be because the author is clearly trying to bring across what is going on with the FDA investigation, and how, regardless of what happens (found guilty or otherwise), this will forever tarnish the reputation of Lance.

Hmm. Back to Ullrich again to highlight my. You know he was never ever nailed for doping, don't you? But how many of you assume he was?

Take.
The.
Blinkers.
Off.

The great shame of these constant and, as yet unproven, allegations is that no matter the result they will do millions of dollars of damage to the Livestrong Foundation. To what purpose? Lance Armstrong has now retired, with an astonishing record of overcoming fearsome odds. Nothing will change that.

Whether you like LA the man or the cyclist, whether you judge him a cheat or a hero, if you make unproven accusations that take money from his charities and deprive critical care to people in mortal need, then you have blood on your hands.

Perhaps Floyd Landis and other such pillars of integrity should have considered that before unleashing their petty jealousy. It makes them look even more pitiful.

With all due "respect" BenEnglish, your post is balderdash.

"as yet unproven" - Yeah, so Micheal Ashenden, one of the main people at the UCI behing the Bio-Passport scheme, and fervent aint-doping doctor, just happens to be lying about seeing 6 samples positive for EPO from the 1999 tour when they were re-tested after a more developed test was produced for finding EPO.

"millions of dollars of damage" - no it won't. His fan base won't change now, nobodies going to stop giving money to cancer charities because Armstrong may or may not have doped are they?

Why would people in this country donate to the LAF? Cancer Research UK has done untold amounts of more work into the research of curing cancer, and the well being of sufferers. Why would Aussies, the McGrath Foundation started by Glenn McGrath after the loss of his wife to cancer does masses of work in Aus.

Why don't you go and find out the distinct between "Livestrong.org", the non-profit cancer organisation,and "Livestrong.COM", the FOR-profit, money making machine, that has come off the back of the LiveStrong campaign.

RE Landis:

Yes, he was busted, but there's something very fishy about that. Read this transcript of an interview Landis had with Kimmage very recently, it makes interesting reading, and you might just see another side to Landis.

(As to the "fishy" point, Testosterone would have had no use for Landis on the day he went on the rampage in the Alp's. Landis has admitted he was blood doping then, but, and there's are many cases of this, of testosterone coming up as a "false positive" in samples. Joe Papp, a retired cyclist, who supplied PED's to rider and other sportsmen, said only today that he got busted for the big T, when there was no in his system, he had 3 different drugs, none of them big-T related. False Positive, and i believe that's what happened with Landis, but he's now decided to come clean about everything.)

But hey, what would i know?

#7 A very good point.
Much of Armstrong's success was through the work of his team, several of whom later tested positive once they had moved to other teams. Now perhaps they only turned to PEDs once they moved from being super-domestiques for Armstrong and wanted to step up a level and compete with him, perhaps they only got unlucky once they had left USP/Discovery.
Is there a possibility that Armstrong was clean but achieving his success through riders who were not?

As to why people want to shoot Armstrong down, I think for many who follow cycling throughout the year it has something to do with the way he has portrayed cycling to the wider public as all about the Tour de France at the expense of so many other great races and traditions. He has distorted the sport they love and put out his own version of it (ok, counter argument - at least he probably brought more people into following the sport, who might then have discovered more of what was on offer)

In short, it was all about Lance Armstrong, forget cycling (or the bike!)

#31 reminds me of another reason why some people might want to shoot him down. Yes, he's done some great work to raise cancer awareness but that should not give him protection for anything else he may have done. Trying to suggest that because of his cancer work, we shouldn't try to get to the bottom of anything else is going to make some people less keen to support him

#30 Ulrich was in fact caught - maybe not in a direct test, but he was caught nonetheless, when bags of his blood were found in a doping lab with JA emblazoned on them. His DNA was in the blood.
Lance's blood was not there.

I keep hearing people say he never tested positive this is in fact not not the case. Firstly in the 1999 tour he tested positive for cortisone (a steroid) and under the strict laws of liability should have been excluded from the race. Unfortunately the organisers fearing the race would be damaged following on from the 1998 debacle chose to simply waive the rules and bought his fairly ridiculous saddle cream excuse. Secondly in 2005 samples from that 1999 tour were found to contain EPO following the development of a more sophisticated doping test which used the 1999 B samples as a test pool. B samples of Armstrong's tested positive on 5 occasions. At the time Armstrong claimed the lab had somehow spiked the sample which is of course a fairly absurd claim which had no supporting evidence. Again Armstrong escaped censure as the original A samples had not been retained so a counter analysis was not possible meaning that in a legal sense it was not possible to ratify the original finding. Incidentally Armstrong never disputed the B samples were his.

If i'm gonna post links, i guess i should past them into my comment huh?



That's not the edited interview or anything, that is the whole transcript of a 7 hour interview.

Tunner's, Ullrich was never charged with doping. He was thrown off the 2006 in the midst of the ASO/UCI power struggle, and yes, the blood was matched up, BUT, he retired before anything ever came of it.

Lance's blood wouldn't have been anywhere near the Operacion Puerto blood bags. Puerto dealt with Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and he's clients, and was based in Spain.

Lance used to work with a Doctor Michale Ferrari, who worked out of Italy.

Trying to link the fact that Ulle's blood got matched to the fact that "Lance didn't have any there" is a bit of a red herring.

Also, had Lance NOT comeback to the sport, i doubt we would have seen this whole situation blow up. Well done Ulle for seeing what was coming, and just getting out the way.

It always makes me laugh, journalists hypothesizing about whether sportsmen and women are dishonest or not. Get real! It is a human condition - get every advantage you can in life and then deny, deny, deny. Karma will catch up with him eventually.

Here we go again....just like Matt's last blog.

Regardless of your opinion of Armstrong, one thing that has to be debunked is the myth that he has never tested positive. Urine belonging to Armstrong collected during the 1999 Tour de France tested positive for EPO. That is an indisputable (and shouldn't be moderated) fact. Even Armstrong acknowledges it. He merely disputes how it got there. He believes it was either contamination or sabotage. The world's anti-doping scientists, including Mike Ashenden as mentioned above my Millsy believe this to be nonsense as demonstrated here quite brilliantly:



Whatever opinion people form of Armstrong, it should at least include the facts, rather than buying into the propaganda. Read that article, THEN decide whether it matters regarding cancer charity, inspiration etc.

I've made it clear where I stand. The fact that on Matt's last blog a good majority of my posts were removed by moderators should make that position obvious. Pro-Armstrong comments don't get removed...

"the Texan has become a belief system, a matter of faith"

Very true. People who support him will defend him illogically. People who don't continue to dismiss everything about him. It's his character outside of cycling that says volumes about him.

Don't know, barely care if he took drugs... he wouldn't be the only one in cycling.

Even if he was drugged to the gills, though, he still beat cancer. That's given some people a life-changing amount of hope.

# 32 Answer: NOTHING
Your post is practically unintelligible as well as conjecture.

Matt thanks for the kind words.

I'm lucky enough to be an ex pat living in the Niagara region of Canada, home to Canadian and tour legend Steve Bauer. Steve run's cycling tours in the area and I was fortunate enough to ride with him last year. We talked about Lance and his return / legacy then.

The verdict was simple - why dope and risk the same fate as Pantani when you can beat anyone in the field through sheer will and spotless tactics?

I'm with those people who have stated that Lance, and by association Bruyneel and the entire UPS / Discovery team, built their year around the Tour and victory. So what?

Michael Schumacher had a team built for him purely with one purpose.

Sir Steve Redgrave put it all on the line every 4 years and built towards a peak at the Olympics.

The Chicago Bulls were built for one player, Michael Jordan.

Armstrong has always acknowledged the role played by his team, in particular Bruyneel and Hincapie. What's wrong with a team built from willing participants whose sole purpose is to see their leader win the big prize? Not a lot......unless one of those participants defects to his own team, dopes and vents his vitriol.

At the end of the day what Britain still retains in abundance is a sense of fairness. Skill, emotion, dedication and a mental toughness that is hard to imagine all make up the David Beckham's of the world. Hard work and focus, sacrifice does count.....Cycling is a very different sport, alone with your fears it must be hard to be the best at what you do.

Until proven Lance Armstrong is the leading example of brilliance in his sport.

What concerned and still concern outsiders...for I am not a cyclist is that a large part of the people he trained and rode with and against have had a problem with drugs. The question should be what can be done to clean up the cycling environment in a manner that can be seen as normal and natural.

However, everyone should realize the implications. Lance Armstrong transcends his sport and represents the best of what can be achieved when you are faced with options that generally lead to failure, when simply trying is not enough but winning is what matters because it sets the example that gives hope.

The fact is that too many people want something to be wrong and so the story goes on. Society made Lance Armstrong but it is also true that Lance Armstrong cultivated Lance Armstrong, the myth.

This Lance Armstrong has done remarkable well. I applaud the hope he has given to so many people both young and old. As a man if it is proven that enhancement of any kind occurred then the man and the myth become just another story and I am sure this will attract the worst of journalism as it has done with Tiger Woods. (How many times do we see footballers spitting and this has always been accepted as necessary, of course golf is a sport of gentleman and you must control your spitting...and of course it was newsworthy!) A mistake is what it is, a mistake but if repeated can your character ever be repaired. This is what Lance Armstrong will have to confront.

Why the world love a loser is beyond me but even worse plotting the fall of a winner should be unworthy of comment or note.

@43, smallvizier,

His cancer survival was not that remarkable. 80% of people survive metastatic testicular cancer (probably the best survival rate of any metastatic cancer), and plenty of people survive it every day. Their story isn't any less special than Armstrong's. Why doesn't their story give people a "life-changing amount of hope"?What makes Armstrong's cancer survival remarkable? His story is so special because of his return to competitive cycling with 7 TdF wins. If the latter part of that achievement was fraudulent, what are we left with when you take it away? A guy who survived a survivable cancer; his achievement is no more remarkable than your average Joe Bloggs testicular cancer sufferer and survivor. His Livestrong campaign is built on the premise that you can come back strong after cancer and do something amazing, like win the TdF. But if that wasn't done legitimately, the whole premise is false. People will have been conned. The inspiration cancer sufferers have been given will have been based on a lie.
I guess the big question is will those people who have taken inspiration, or donated money, feel conned or not. I can't answer that as I am not either.

So the findings of any potential investigations about doping are hugely important. And as I said earlier, it is an indisputable fact that Armstrong's urine from the 1999 TdF contained EPO.

@ 45:

Well done sir, a wonderful example of attacking my writing style, without any attempt to back up why i'm wrong.

If he doped or didn't is academic anyway. Every good rider doped in his reign, so he would have probably had to do it to stay competitive. People get too bogged down in this and usually people who don't know much about the sport or Armstrong's background. He was a competitive triathlete at the age of 15, matching the likes of Dave Scott and Mark Allen. That is insane! World Champion at the age of 21, beating Miguel Indurain in the process... nuff said.

Matt - no idea how fit you are - but I'm training now for the Etap du Tour in July (as I have been doing for 5 weeks) so today in fog and snow I was hauling myself up over as many vertical feet as I could - 6000 feet today- (much as you'd find Lance doing in any Tour year) - feel free to join me, in fact feel free to join me climbing 10,400 feet on one day in July (not 21 as the Tour riders do) and let me show you just what hard work and determination can achieve, otherwise shut up and respect the greatest athlete (and role model) for that which he's achieved.

Lance Armstrong will still be regarded as one of the greatest. There was too much expectation that he could perform just as well at the age of 39 than he did when he won his first Tour De France. Many of the greatest either carried on for too long or made the ill fated return to the ring so to speak. Mohammed Ali faded fast in the later years of his career yet is still regarded as one if not the greatest. Michael Schumacher's return to Formula 1 wasn't exactly tremendous yet he won seven world championships and will be rated alongside Senna, Fangio et al and we all know what happened to Maradonna. These people were the greatest because of what they achieved in their prime not for what they failed to achieve later on.

I just found this article from Nature a few years ago, its mainly opinion but pretty interesting stuff about doping controls.



I have no idea at all whether Armstrong's claim to be the most tested athlete in history stand up or not, but it does raise an interesting point (kind of linked to the article above). The more tests that are performed on him, the more likely a false positive is (assuming the tests are any less than 100% reliable which seems pretty reasonable). In theory, enough tests would lead to the conclusion that a false positive is all but inevitable.

I'm not suggesting at all that this is the case for Armstrong (I have no idea about the statistics involved) but its an interesting thought for drug testing in general.

The article I've linked to claims that the data simply isn't available for anyone independent to assess the reliability of doping controls, anyone know if this has been rectified at all?

The world of pro-cycling is riddled with doping corruption and this problem will never be eradicated when money and sponsorship are the most important elements. Pressure is immense on riders to get contracts to retain their means of living or chase glory and the temptation to cheat can be unbearable. Only stern sanctions against riders can deter this course like when tested positive they face a lifetime ban from the 3 grand tours, world championship and the main one day classics (which are the only races that really matter to the cycling interested public) as well as the standard total 2 year ban. Of course this will never happen because we dont wish to 'spoil' the spectacle.