Lance Armstrong reaction round-up: Conflicting views from cycling and beyond as Texan gets back in saddle despite ban

hairyairey wrote:

...I think it's indicative of someone who is desperate for approval (which supposedly is a female trait...)

WTF? We ALL (man, woman, child) look for approval, if only to make sure we 'fit in' to the society or group in which we find ourselves!

Paul J wrote:

Cue the comments from the Lance-trolls parroting Lance's blatant "Never failed a test" lie.

He tested positive for corticosteriods in the '99 tour. 6 of his samples from the '99 tour tested positive for EPO, when a test for EPO was later developed and retrospectively applied. He had a "suspicious result" for EPO in the '01 Tour de Suisse - before the EPO test had been fine-tuned. Though we don't know the details yet, USADA say they have blood data that indicates doping from his comeback.

Lance *has* tested positive alright, he's just never been *sanctioned* for these positives - big difference. For some reason the UCI tends to behave very strangely when it comes to Lance and doping allegations - unlike how it would behave with any other athlete. The large amounts of cash Lance has paid to UCI have nothing to do with that, no doubt...

Exactly.

Exact and true ! It's crazy to see how people are still trying to defend him. Against logic against evidence, against testimonies...... What do they need ? À confession ? By the way he did it to its doctor when he dicover cancer the wife of one of his mate was there and testified, he never talk to him and her after, she get sacked and threathened by phone .........she was working with/for Oakley the glasses he wears and partially owns, like Trek bikes.
LA is powerful in the sport business and very rich also but nobody knows this part of the story they have the LA légend ...... big lies, dirty games with Uci, ASO and only one race le tour de France for 10 years. Come on wake up imagine he was Italian, Spanish or even kazakh how will you consider him ?

aloxe wrote:

Exact and true ! It's crazy to see how people are still trying to defend him. Against logic against evidence, against testimonies...... What do they need ? À confession ? By the way he did it to its doctor when he dicover cancer the wife of one of his mate was there and testified, he never talk to him and her after, she get sacked and threathened by phone .........she was working with/for Oakley the glasses he wears and partially owns, like Trek bikes.

The woman you are thinking of is Betsy Andreu, the wife of cyclist Frankie Andreu. She made the allegation in a civil case between Armstrong and one his sponsors. Supposedly she visited him right after his brain surgery where the doctors asked him if he's on any controlled substance, and Betsy Andreu claimed Armstrong admitted to taking basically everything under the sun. The thing is this incident was not remembered by any other of the dozen or so people present in the room at the time nor was it in Armstrong's long medical record. She visited Armstrong several times during his illness, and one explanation put forward was that she misremembered from another occasion when someone was explaining to her the drug used in his treatment, which included EPO and various steroids.

Betsy Andreu didn't work for Oakley, the Oakley woman you are thinking of is Stephanie McIlvain, who was Armstrong's liaison there. Greg Lemond said McIlvain told him that she heard Armstrong admitting to using various drugs. McIlvain denies that she had ever said such things.

As for the 1999 corticosteroid positive - they found traces of it in his urine, but it was under the positive range. He was later cleared by the UCI because he had previously obtained permission to use a skin cream containing corticosteroid to treat saddle sore. For what it's worth corticosteroid is basically the most common ingredient in prescription topical creams. All of the above is from reading VeloNews, so do check it out there if you have doubts.

As for the retroactive EPO tests, I don't know very much about them, so I don't have much to say. He could very well have failed them.

Although I do find the idea of retroactive doping controls interesting (ie saving samples so that they could be tested at a later date with better technology). IIRC in the Contador clenbuterol case it was said the amount found was so minute that just a few years ago it would have not turned a positive. While I personally believe that he was most likely guilty (especially after they found traces of plasticisers in his blood as well), there is a not inconsiderable chance that his tainted beef story could be true. That's because there was a huge health scare in China some time afterwards when several hundred people got food poisoning from clenbuterol used on pigs.

The thing is, a lot of substances banned by in sports are used legally or illegally in agriculture, mostly notably various steroids. And it's not inconceivable that they would be present in athletes' bodies after consumption, but just at a level that is not detectable with the technology we have today. But if samples are saved, they could very well return a positive some time in the future. The same goes for legitimate and sanctioned (as in having received permission) medical usage.

So would retroactive testing lead to more positives? And if results are going to be retroactively changed who will be the real winners? We are already seeing this in Armstrong's case, as pretty much every rider in the top five or six of the 1999-2005 Tours have been later convicted of some drug offence. Who should we name as the winners? Only riders who have placed low enough so that they were not adequately tested then and whose samples were saved?

Shanghaied wrote:

As for the 1999 corticosteroid positive - they found traces of it in his urine, but it was under the positive range. He was later cleared by the UCI because he had previously obtained permission to use a skin cream containing corticosteroid to treat saddle sore. For what it's worth corticosteroid is basically the most common ingredient in prescription topical creams. All of the above is from reading VeloNews, so do check it out there if you have doubts.

Shanghaied,

Interesting you should mention that, Emma O'Reilly, LA's masseuse remembers that incident very differently...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/26/lance-armstrong-doping-whist...

It saddens me that pro-cycling's love affair with EPO from 1990s continues to taint the sport's reputation today.

Sorry for confusing the two ladies, i've just watched her interview in front of à TV where she was repeating clearly what she heard, she also testified in court in the Sca promotions trial.
May be she was wrong, the doctor didn't remember in fact having heard this.
But the LA fondation made 1,5 million dollar donation to this hospital 2 dans before the hearing.

But Fortunately I remember better the name of Landis, hincapie, Hamilton... May be they are wrong too....

The fact that Heras, Joachim, Landis, Padrnos his team mate were all convince of doping, the fact that during this period all the podium of tour de France including 2nd and third where suspected to dope but the n1 never ??
The fact that after Simeoni testimony against Dr Ferrari, LA called him a liar and sue him for diffamation ( it's true ) litigation been settled by money, like with Lemond and remains confidential.

LA has a big mouth he barks a lot but never goes to court until the end, always he makes a deal before the decision, in a way even in front of Usada he prefers pull out before having to justify himself and discuss the facts, because he sold a story to the american people he fooled the mass with this and people have bought it, they are emotionnally involved but most of it is bull....

Shame for Basson who wanted to stay clean and that he bans from the peloton, Simeoni who report Dr Ferrari as a doping doctor and been harrassed by LA for this, shame for this sport and for LA himself who doesn't know what he really worth as a cyclist, who he really is.
Definitely a man with a will but far from a champion and furthermore a hero

Paul J - No he hasn't been convicted and he has never tested positive and he has never been sanctioned and he still has not been proven with evidnece he has tested postive.

The problem here is that this causes more problems. If the USADA have this evidence they claim they should have presented it and and got a definitive answer but they chose not to. You have to ask why. Probably because they had no evidence because there is no evidence that Lance ever tested positive.

Now they have left an open field for people to be judges claiming this is the truth. maybe the police here should act in the same way. You're speeding, No I'm not, well we don't care your convicted, where;s the evidence you shout, we don't need any and we don't need to show it. Now that should be a great way to act. Most people would cry out in anger but why here do we say this form of law if justified.

The most disturbing thing here is that sports people can now be convicted without evidence and just of the say so of discredited bodies like the USADA. Who as far as I can see have an agenda that has nothing to do with cleaning up sports. More likely has a lot to do with political

The USADA bully with substantial jail terms for people to support there case. If Lance had avoided 500 + testing procedures where is the criminal proceeding against the UCI and those people in authority that colluded with him to avoid these test. there is none. There is no evidence except in the mob that are baying for blood and no evidence to support there case except conjecture and possibilities described on pages like this.