USADA to strip Lance Armstrong of 7 Tour titles

[BamaAla]

Sure he was doping; that entire sport was doping. Cycling is worse than baseball in that regard. With that said, he 7 times beat a field full of dopers. I'm all for cleaning up all sports (especially my favorite - baseball,) but this was nothing more than a witch hunt.

 

[RickyJ]

Is that really a "fact?" I had a better view of humanity than that.

You think too highly of humanity. Look at all the people here that think they have a "right" to download copyrighted works.

 

[liveandletlive]

Sure he was doping; that entire sport was doping. Cycling is worse than baseball in that regard. With that said, he 7 times beat a field full of dopers. I'm all for cleaning up all sports (especially my favorite - baseball,) but this was nothing more than a witch hunt.

so because he's a better doper than everyone else, it makes it ok?

I'm sure he had some sort of natural ability, but the cancer hindered him.

I think taking something like testosterone is actually pretty good to prolong someone's life and help curb the aging process and heal from injuries.

But Lance should have waited till he stopped competing to roid up

 

[Bruno]

According to someone in this thread his teammates were threatened with having their own accomplishments taken away if they didn't turn on him. If that is true then nothing any of them say can be trusted.

Landis as an example isn't valid. He tested positive. Armstrong never once tested positive.

But Landis is claiming Armstrong showed him how to do, encourged him and others to do it, as cited above.

Lance is right and all these other guys are just upset and willing to lie because he was better than them and they were overshadowed by his greatness.

Or...they are tired of him on his high horse when they knew he cheated just like most of them did.

I feel he cheated. You don't. We can agree on that much.

 

[RickyJ]

Sure he was doping; that entire sport was doping. Cycling is worse than baseball in that regard. With that said, he 7 times beat a field full of dopers. I'm all for cleaning up all sports (especially my favorite - baseball,) but this was nothing more than a witch hunt.

His excuse for the doping was the anti-cancer drugs he was using when he tested positive for it. They overlooked it for that reason and because he actually won the thing and it made a good story, a guy coming back from cancer to win the Tour De France. It was a big win for cycling and got tons of people interested in the sport for the first time. They used him to build up cycling when it was dropping in popularity.

 

[RickyJ]

Landis as an example isn't valid. He tested positive. Armstrong never once tested positive.

Lance tested positive twice for banned substances. He claimed it was still in his system due to the anti-cancer drugs he had been taking. Most people in cycling do not buy that.

 

[idiom]

Bloody non-profit, non-governmental voluntary organisations...

 

[farreri]

I have no doubt that Lanced doped all those years, but why is the federal govt getting involved?

 

[RickyJ]

I have no doubt that Lanced doped all those years, but why is the federal govt getting involved?

Yeah, that is nuts! Let cycling deal with it. If it doesn't bother them, then it shouldn't bother the federal government.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

Lance tested positive twice for banned substances. He claimed it was still in his system due to the anti-cancer drugs he had been taking. Most people in cycling do not buy that.

After a quick search I found that supposedly his urine from 1999 and blood samples from 2009 and 2010 tested positive for banned substances.

 

[angelatc]

Lance tested positive twice for banned substances. He claimed it was still in his system due to the anti-cancer drugs he had been taking. Most people in cycling do not buy that.

I don't follow this, but I can only find one report of him testing positive, and that was hear-say from a bitter teammate who indeed tested positive.

Googling it now, everything I can find indicates that Armstrong never actually tested positive for anything. There were some other instances of cortosteroids found in his bloodstream, but not enough to trigger a positive result, and the charges related to that find were dropped when it was traced back to a cream he was using on a surgical wound.

I suppose it's a good thing he didn't eat poppy seed muffins.

And let's not talk about the accuracy of the tests. Even if the test is 99.9% accurate, a positive only has a 50% chance of being accurate.

Having said that...he's an Obama voter. He likes seeing the government take things away. The USADA needs scalps on its wall to justify its existence.

 

[tttppp]

Many other cyclists and supporters of the sport have said he was doping too. I think he probably was, but honestly, I don't care. Most people will cheat if they think they can get away with it, that is a fact, and I am sure he wasn't the only one doing it.

Exactly, its not cheating if everyone else is taking steroids. Plus, who do they give his titles to? The highest ranking player who just hasn't gotten caught yet?

 

[BamaAla]

so because he's a better doper than everyone else, it makes it ok?

I'm sure he had some sort of natural ability, but the cancer hindered him.

I think taking something like testosterone is actually pretty good to prolong someone's life and help curb the aging process and heal from injuries.

But Lance should have waited till he stopped competing to roid up

No, that's not what I was saying. I said that I want all sports cleaned up, but from jump street, they were acting like cycling was clean and the only folks juicing up were the US Postal team and Lance; in hindsight, that's a crock...the entire sport was dirty. To a large degree, Lance was singled out because he was a super successful American and the French hated that in their event. Lance was doping, but so was everyone else. Let sleeping dogs lie and clean up a dirty sport (probably the dirtiest) going forward. That's the same thing I want for baseball.

 

[Carehn]

I don't see what is wrong with performance enhancing drugs. It should just be part of the sport. Like exercise, eating right, practice in high altitudes, saving your blood up and injecting it before the game. all of these are actions people do to enhance performance, why say its all cool till you get to some chemicals?

Let um juice and let it just be part of being an athlete if you want.

 

[BamaAla]

His excuse for the doping was the anti-cancer drugs he was using when he tested positive for it. They overlooked it for that reason and because he actually won the thing and it made a good story, a guy coming back from cancer to win the Tour De France. It was a big win for cycling and got tons of people interested in the sport for the first time. They used him to build up cycling when it was dropping in popularity.

Absolutely. They followed the baseball model. The only thing that saved baseball from their latest strike was the steroid era. Clean them both up, but let's not act like there were only a few (Lance, Landis, Bonds, McGwire, Clemens) and try to make an example of them.

 

[tttppp]

My gut feeling tells me he was doping the whole time, encouraged others to do so, most everyone in the top in this sport does it, and they all feel like they had to in order to win and compete at that level.

See: Baseball and steroids

Also see NBA and NFL. Both have huge steroid problems which are not being reported. In the NFL they are making a big deal about the health element of their sport, but they are ignoring steroids.

 

[libertyjam]

His excuse for the doping was the anti-cancer drugs he was using when he tested positive for it. They overlooked it for that reason and because he actually won the thing and it made a good story, a guy coming back from cancer to win the Tour De France. It was a big win for cycling and got tons of people interested in the sport for the first time. They used him to build up cycling when it was dropping in popularity.

Exactly, EPO is a therapy for overcoming Chemo. So I'm sure he learned all about it in conjunction w/ his cancer treatments.

 

[libertyjam]

I don't see what is wrong with performance enhancing drugs. It should just be part of the sport. Like exercise, eating right, practice in high altitudes, saving your blood up and injecting it before the game. all of these are actions people do to enhance performance, why say its all cool till you get to some chemicals?

Let um juice and let it just be part of being an athlete if you want.

I don't even know why they are called drugs or 'doping', when they are actually hormones and nothing like drugs.

 

[tttppp]

Exactly, EPO is a therapy for overcoming Chemo. So I'm sure he learned all about it in conjunction w/ his cancer treatments.

What exactly is EPO?

 

[libertyjam]

What exactly is EPO?

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/performanceenhancingdrugs/a/EPO.htm

Erythropoietin is available as a therapeutic agent produced by recombinant DNA technology in mammalian cell culture. It is used in treating anemia resulting from chronic kidney disease and myelodysplasia, from the treatment of cancer (chemotherapy and radiation). Current research suggests that, aminoacid R103 to E mutation in erythropoietin makes it neuroprotective and non-erythropoietic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythropoietin