- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
Lance Armstrong after crashing on Stage 8 of the 2010 Tour de France © PhotoSport International.jpgLess a smoking gun, more a nuclear bomb: USADA publishes Lance Armstrong evidence in full
Less the smoking gun that many expected and more a nuclear explosion, the fallout from which will continue for months, years, to come. That’s the initial impression given by USADA’s publication this evening of its full reasoned decision plus supporting documents in the Lance Armstrong case on its website.
It also shatters the myth that many Armstrong supporters continued to cling to, that the agency's evidence was based on "hearsay," backed by statements from a handful of self-confessed dopers.
The material USADA has made public damns not only Armstrong, but many others active in the sport during what is now termed the "dark years," and who continue to be involved in it. It's not an exaggeration to say that after today, none of us will view the sport in the same way ever again.
The sheer volume of evidence, and the minute detail it goes into, is astonishing and there is little chance of making sense of the whole so soon after its publication on USADA’s website, apparently brought forward due to the main document being leaked on the internet while still under embargo.
We’ll be analysing the contents and their implications more fully in the days ahead, but for now, here are some key points that emerge:
Armstrong was invited to meet with USADA prior to his being charged. He declined that offer, “setting in motion the sequence of event that led to USADA’s charges and ultimately [his] sanction.”
USADA says “the achievements of USPS/Discovery Channel… including those of Lance Armstrong as its leader, were accomplished through a massive doping conspiracy… Armstrong’s career on USPS/Discovery Channel… was fuelled from start to finish by doping.”
For reasons of transparency, USADA has discussed its evidence “in significant detail, just as an arbitration panel would have done had Mr Amstrong been willing to allow the evidence in his case to be heard by independent arbitrators.”
It’s worth pointing out that had Armstrong elected to go to arbitration, he would have had to allow the retesting of suspect samples or accept USADA’s findings on those issues; as it is, he can continue to protest that incorrect testing protocols were used, or that the samples were just suspect, and not hard evidence of doping. Such protestations now have an increasingly hollow ring.
Witness testimony from a number of former USPS riders including George Hincapie and Jonathan Vaughters asserts that Armstrong was openly using EPO and cortisone from the time he joined the team following his return to the sport in 1998 after beating cancer.
Following the arrival of Johan Bruyneel and Dr Luis Garcia Del Moral from ONCE in 1999, doping is alleged to have been systemic at USPS in pursuit of the sole ambition of winning the Tour de France. Dr Michele Ferrari, who had been working with Armstrong for several years, was closely involved in team training camps. By now, it is said that a system was in place to ensure distribution of EPO to riders.
USADA has witness statements asserting that Armstrong was able to escape sanction in repect of a positive test for cortisone on the 1999 Tour de France only because of a backdated prescription from Del Moral for a saddle sore cream containing the substance. Witnesses state that the saddle sore cream story was a fabrication and that the presence of cortisone was due to an injection.
The agency say that by the 2000 season, doping at USPS had gone beyond the use of EPO and testosterone and now also encompassed blood doping at Bruyneel’s instigation.
During the same season, Armstrong allegedly abandoned a race in Spain after Hincapie, who says in his affidavit that he knew that his team leader had just taken testosterone, texted him to warn him that drug testing personnel had arrived at the team hotel. By the year end, Hincapie, like other team mates, would have been invited to work with Ferrari in exchange for a substantial slice of his annual income.
By now, Armstrong had become the biggest story in sport; the man who had beaten seemingly terminal cancer and come back to win possibly the toughest event in any sport. True, uncomfortable questions were already being asked, but at that point, the doubters were a tiny minority.
However, USADA’s documentation reveals how year after depressing year, as the myth of Armstrong was being carefully nurtured, the doping programme at USPS was being carefully nurtured.
Its evidence for that isn’t from a handful of jealous rivals or former team mates who had lied under oath about their own drug use – yes, Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis are among the witnesses, but they are heavily outnumbered by riders who, before opening up to USADA, had unblemished reputations.
In painstaking detail, USADA catalogues the allegations made against Armstrong by a succession of those who provided it with detailed affidavits; the training with Ferrari, the team’s systematic approach to doping, the clandestine transfusions in hotel rooms, the evasion of drugs testers. The attention to detail is immaculate, each assertion carefully footnoted with a direction to the affidavit where it is made.
Revelations in the reasoned decision and its supporting documentation range from the truly mundane to the absolutely shocking.
An example of the former lies in a trip by Armstrong to Italy to meet with Dr Michele Ferrari being identified because his then wife Kristin, who accompanied him, asked Betsy Andreu, wife of US Postal rider Frankie Andreu, if she “would make some risotto if the Armstrongs brought the ingredients from Italy.”
An illustration of the latter is the allegation by former US Postal rider Jonathan Vaughters that Armstrong had told him that he blamed the UCI for the extent of the cancer that nearly killed him, because its doping controls had not picked up high levels of HCG in his system when the disease was at its early stage.
Vaughters claims that Armstrong told him: “If I ever have a doping problem, I have this card to play.”
As it turned out, Armstrong folded his cards the moment a US district court judge ruled that USADA did have jurisdiction in the case.
Whatever his protestations that he was the victim of a witch hunt, and that USADA lacked powers to sanction him, the body of evidence made public by the agency today leaves one with the overriding impression that Armstrong knew his opponent had been dealt an unbeatable hand.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- Dnnnnnn 1 sec ago
Which BBC far right nonsense aren't you watching?
- momove 6 min 50 sec ago
As a public body, they are....
- mitsky 17 min 28 sec ago
Intersting article in The Spectator advocating drivers who have a dashcam to "snitch" on littering/flytipping by other drivers....
- mitsky 18 min 32 sec ago
Intersting article in The Spectator advocating drivers who have a dashcam to "snitch" on littering/flytipping by other drivers....
- mitsky 18 min 47 sec ago
Intersting article in The Spectator advocating drivers who have a dashcam to "snitch" on littering/flytipping by other drivers....
- mitsky 21 min 16 sec ago
Is the clip of drivers illegally using the cyele lane in Shadwell meant to be their (drivers) response to the clip from Ludgate Hall...?
- Rendel Harris 1 hour 20 min ago
May not be in her manifesto but she has frequently said in interviews that she will remove any cycle lane that impedes traffic flow - obviously a...
- andystow 1 hour 42 min ago
My granny started driving before driving tests were implemented. When they were, she was grandfathered (grandmothered?) in, and she ticked all the...
- Hirsute 1 hour 52 min ago
Road was closed so I had no choice https://youtu.be/NV7XHFiXhyU
- Bungle_52 2 hours 27 min ago
Thank you for all the considered comments. I have thought about what happened a great deal over the last few days....
Add new comment
66 comments
Ok, so Armstrong was a serial doper. How then did he get around every dope test at every stage win in every race ?
At the height of his fame he was the most drug tested man in sport.
you didn't read it then, no?
Have you just come out of a coma or summink?
Wow!
Excellent point, michophull. Incidentally, I have a business venture you might be interested in. You need to forward some money into my Nigerian bank account so that we can together secure a consignment of gold...
Oh good grief! Thought I’d scan the comments here just because I was curious to find YOU. I knew there had to be some deluded fool still clinging to Armstrong’s soundbites about being tested blah blah ad infinitum.
Read the report. Or any of the several exposé books that have been released. They all detail – in depth – exactly how he beat the tests…but let’s face it, you’re not gonna read it are you? If you were at all inclined to learn the unpalatable truth, you wouldn’t be here babbling inane nonsense about how wonderful the emperor’s clothes look.
Erm...I didn't say I'm doubting the evidence and no I haven't read all of those USADA online reports. Frankly I've got better things to worry about. So, can someone tell me in plain English how he got round all of the doping controls when so many didn't ?
There were lots of ways to beat the tests:
*When Armstrong first used EPO there was no test for it so he could use it to win in 1999 and not get caught.
*After the EPO test was introduced he switched to mainly using blood doping of which there was no test for.
*For a long time there was little out of competition testing and no whereabout system. So if he wanted to take drugs he could just go somewhere the testers could not find him.
*He used a altitude tent to mask the taking of micro-doses of EPO.
*He used saline drips to reduce his haemocrit levels to below the 50% allowed limit before being tested.
*He used expensive doctors who knew what amount of drugs could be taken to avoid detection and how long the drug would remain detectable.
*Dr. Ferrari knew exactly how the EPO test worked because he was a friend and colleague of Conconi who developed the test.
*He used medical exemption certificates for fake injuries to allow him to take drugs including one that was backdated after he failed a test.
*He made late changes to his whereabouts submissions in order to confuse out of competition testers.
*On occasions he had prior warning of testers arriving or used delaying tactics to allow him enough time to mask his dug taking.
Thank you Neil. That's all I wanted to know. What's equally damning about this is the rank incompetence of the TdF doping controls. When one considers that the French had it in for Armstrong from the off it's ludicrous that he wasn't caught in the act. The big question now of course is who *really* won those seven tours if Armstrong didn't ?
Take a look at this:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-finishers-of-th...
List all the finishers tainted by doping during, or after, each tour de france.
Not many names left...
Sorry michophull - that was perhaps a little harsh, I just couldn't believe I was still hearing that jaded old line about being continually tested etc.
It looks like this has already been answered but in short, he beat the testers through:
a) there not being a test for EPO in the early years (which is why they found EPO in Lance's stored samples from 99 when they retested them years later.)
b) micro-dosing EPO directly into the vein rather than subcutaneously (under the skin) - it clears through the body faster and is detectable for a shorter period (a period they apparently described as their 'glow time')
c) Use of actual blood transfusions - usually on a rest day of the tour apparently - and there is no ratified test for this. (Although WADA are trying to gain acceptance for a test that detects the plasticizers of the blood bags that are used for this - it was this they apparently detected in Contador's samples during the whole 'contaminated steak' farce, and another reason they were reluctant to buy his excuses (though for now the test remains unratified)).
d) foreknowledge of when they would be tested - allowing them a window of time to infuse a saline drip (and thus lower hematocrit to allowed levels) Or just evading the testers - through avoidance (changing their whereabouts at short notice, and in one case apparently quitting a race to avoid testers at the finish) or delaying tactics to allow other measures to be taken before the test.
e) paying lots of money to the world's top doping doctor (Michele Ferrari) to receive a training plan with performance enhancing drugs integrated in the most effective way along with the dosages and timescales and masking systems necessary to evade detection.
The other key thing to bear in mind is that whilst many people were caught, there are a great many names (including several who have testified against LA now) who have never failed a dope test - just as Lance (untruthfully) asserts - and yet have now admitted to doping during this period - and they have also outlined the methods they used to achieve this.
This whole thing makes me sick!
I hold my hand up and say I was a fan of Lance. I had friends doubt him but I always thought the better of him.
Funnily enough it was on his return from cancer I routed for him (before that I thought he was flash and brash - incl. his triathlete days).
I did wear a livestrong band the year it was 'big' and even owned a Nike 'Lance 4' watch at one stage.
My favoritie team was always the USP or Discovery team too.
Slowly, over the last few years my view has changed. The 'comeback' made things worse in my mind. Can't put my finger on why but it just did.
There are still elements in the report, well in the bits I've read plus the things highlighted on SSN last night, that don't add up but overall it just looks SO bad. Most importantly SO bad on the sport I enjoy and love.
Last night I was going to read this month's Procycling but after watching the report on SSN I just wanted to leave cycling alone.
Things that don't add up?
What? No-one caught on to a guy on a motorbike visiting with a rucksack every few days? Really? Tour after Tour? With the press and the like so out to nail LA?
Also, make up over needle marks? Impressive make up given the volumes of fluid sweated.
But still, they are minor points compared to the bigger picture.
With so many doping at that time I have heard it argued that it was a level playing field at the top of the sport and where do you draw the line - how far down the results list? How far back in time?
BUT, this is different - its a culture through a team by the sound of it and an intimidating one at that for younger riders, etc.
I don't know what a 'good' outcome from all of this would be but if there is one, then lets hope that it happens.
it certainly wasn't a level playing field: read Vaughter's affidavit about the different cultures at USPS/Discovery and ALM, for example
I'm finding it a bit convenient that those without a positive - Barry, Hincapie etc and others sufdenly stopped doping in 2006. It makes out that Armstrong was the architect of doping in pro cycling. It's preposterous.
I know UDADA's remit was doping on the USA team, but surely down the line someone will offer contradictory evidence post 2006 and the whole can of worms will reopen and the witnesses in the USADA case may look discredited.
I don't buy it.
I found that strange too, if you read the statements it looks as if a lot of riders were doping before Armstrong and Bruyneel joined the team and whilst some were encouraged to do start doping others like Leipheimer and Hincapie made the choice themselves.
What the evidence shows though is how organised it was ubder Armstrong and Bruyneel.
You don't have to, you may not like it but it's head-in-sand time just to say it's preposterous and you don't buy it. That's a Verbruggen response. USADA's investigation was into Armstrong and those associated with his doping, not the 'USA team'. It doesn't make out that Armstrong was 'the architect of doping in pro cycling' - have you actually read it? It depicts in great detail and with evidence the systems, pogrammes, procedures, coercion and influence by which Armstrong and his teams doped with the connivance and complicity of those around him and his teams and in cycling more widely. And your point about somebody offering contradictory evidence post 2006 (why just post 2006?) which would discredit the USADA report, is just bizarre.
Dullard - wrong end of the stick mate. I've read it several times. They're all guilty as charged.
Maybe re-read my post again?
When I say I don't buy it, I mean I don't buy the inference that once Armstrong retired everyone cleaned up. It's scapgoating. They're as guilty as Armstrong but taking none of the flack. Their fame, earnings and endorsements all increased as well. Hamilton and Landis continued to dope long after they left Armstrong.
My statement about post 2006 refers to those who claim they've been clean since then (Hincapie).
If another scandal breaks contradicting these claims then their evidence in the USADA case will be tainted.
I get the 2006 date, they're all basically saying that their doping was enabled through being part of USPS/Discovery and when Lance quit and they all went their separate ways the culture changed. Some moved to cleaner teams (by the sounds of it they couldn't have found a dirtier one) and others, out from under the influence of LA, decided it was time to change and clean their act up. From reading the report you get the feeling that without LA many may not have chosen to dope and that their was immense pressure on them to 'join the gang'. Once the pressure was gone it's not surprising that some changed their habits.
I just feel the 2006 watershed is all a bit convenient and ducks what's been happening since then. If they'd admitted to doping after 2006 we would be talking about more people than Armstrong.
Anyone care to discuss the illustrious carer of Bjarne Riis? How many riders have now been caught/confessed to doping on his teams?
To tar Armstrong as the Bogeyman, and i'm not for one minute saying he's not guilty as charged, but it's simplistic and ducks a lot more questions than it answers.
I don't believe things magically changed in 2006 when he retired.
There are more clean riders now but doping is still a huge problem.
To me it's not the fact that USP ran a doping programme that gets me, it's just the odd sentence that shows the current prevalence - such as in Danielson's Affidavit "The team doctor (who is currently the team doctor for Liquigas-
Cannondale) said that some riders had second or third apartments which they used to store their
performance enhancing drugs." Pretty damn depressing stuff. Especially about LL too, one of my favourite riders ....
Just a snippet from page 161 to vindicate Paul Kimmage and David Millar's comments on the UCI acquiescence in the doping culture . . .
"As set forth in the affidavit of former professional cyclist Jörg Jaksche, the UCI has responded with similar disdain and disinterest towards other cyclists that have tried to bring forth evidence of the serious extent of doping within the peloton. After coming forward and admitting doping in 2007, Mr. Jaksche spoke with UCI lawyers and officials, including Mr. McQuaid, seeking to explain the level of doping that had been taking place on Team Telekom, ONCE, CSC and Liberty Seguros, however, according to Mr. Jaksche, “the UCI showed zero interest in hearing the full story about doping on these teams and did not seek to follow up with me.”839 Rather, Jaksche reports that “McQuaid told me he would have liked me to have handled things differently from which I can only conclude he wished I had not been as forthcoming regarding the degree of doping that was taking place in the peloton.”840 "
What’s interesting is there are a lot of “I was told” or “I understood” which I understand are not allowed in our courts of law but few actual witnesses to Armstrong actually doping, except from those whom I understand might have an axe to grind.
It will be interesting to see LA’s lawyer’s reply
@Mixte Rider
No, statements of this nature are very much allowed in any court - it's what evidence is very largely made up of, and don't forget that these statements must be sworn (hence 'affidavit' in the report), not just 'some bloke told me' stories after a couple of pints in the pub. And, if you turn out to have lied, you're guilty of perjury which (in the UK at any rate) is a prisonable offence. What weight this type of evidence is given depends on who gives it and how many others substantiate it and what their characters are; this is probably why George Hincapie's evidence is seen as a killer blow. I think that Hincapie gives direct testimony about Armstrong's doping in any case. Also remember that the civil burden of proof, 'on the balance of probabilities', is easily overcome here, particularly in view of Armstrong's refusal to present his own case against USADA's file.
[[[[[[ Yes...and if, as has been suggested, half the riders in the Grand Tour pelotons have been at it for years, then why are all the fingers pointing only at Armstrong? Signed, Mystified.
P.R.
Thank heavens for amateur sport? Didn't a young UK am get caught in the last 24 months? Wasn't there also a report of something like 5 riders from a US Grand Fondo having been caught using EPO?
One has to accept that there are ultra competitive people in ALL walks of life for whom any route to success is acceptable.
As someone said recently - have the bankers who have ruined peoples lives been exposed to quite the same level of hate as LA seems to be getting? Yes they were castigated but continue on with their careers getting bonuses and salaries that us mortals (and a lot of pro cyclists) can ny dream of.
I'm not supporting what LA is said to have done I just wonder why cycling is such a target.
Wow, amazing reading. We knew it was bad but seeing it all laid out like that. Frack them all really (riders, teams, friendly media). Makes all that pro stuff just meaningless. Sad for those who got done over on the way.
Thank goodness for amateur sport and that riding a bike is still a great thing to do just for itself.
AND he runs red lights.
So what about the Kimmage allegations? Is their sufficient to support his position against the UCI?
The report says that Armstrong 2001 Tour de Suisse test result was suspicious, but not positive. Therefore technically the UCI did not cover up a positive test result.
Landis was found guilty of defamation and looks like Kimmage might be too.
No youngsters there, and no squeeky clean teams. Yes plenty of the peloton may turn out to have been involved, but hope for the future?? Compare with the progress of exposure in athletics, tennis, footie etc, not to mention the World Series of American sports.
Pages