The case against Lance Armstrong

[Trippy]

In the 90s yes.  Today this is not the case.

Gaps are up and they are going slower.  Everyone is still pushing for an edge but much of it is legal expensive type.  Still a few outliners doping in cycling but far less then many other sports.

I have been watching the time trial today and have watched all the prior dopers (Vinokourov, Basso and Valverde, for example) who used to be top riders and are now middle of the pack riders at best.  I think that, logically, I have to disagree with the idea that doping isn't still widespread.  For a guy to fall that far is pretty much in line with the estimations of a 10-20% increase in production in cycling when you dope.  Additionally, I find it difficult to believe that prior GC contenders are that much worse than all of the current top guys if those other top riders aren't also doping.  You would have to see a serious decrease in the overall times of the peloton for doping to be out, and a slight drop is not indicative of major progress. 

Those guys also just got older.

Except Vino, apparently, who won the Olympics Road Race

[ghost]

Except Vino, apparently, who won the Olympics Road Race

 

[angry.bob]

I could care less about any of this since pretty much all sports above a 5th grade level are corrupt shitpiles of entitled crybaby morons and the shitpile retard fans who empower them. Any fan of any sport should fucking set themselves on fire for maknig the world a shittier place. That being said, HIPAA allows people to waive priivacy, so whatever retard bicycle group could require people to waive privacy regarding HcT, RBC, CBC, Hgb, or whatever else they feel they need. The bad side of any sort of doping test is that unless they've invented some sort of magic or StarTrek level device, anything that would look like doping can be caused by a dozen different things that a person might not be aware of happening to them. Dehydration being one of the big things, and probably pretty common in people who ride bicycles all day.

[lamaros]

Why are you in the sports forum then? Take your poorly articulated bile back to politics.

[angry.bob]

Why are you in the sports forum then? Take your poorly articulated bile back to politics.

Boredom mostly. I ran out of other human misery threads to read and decided to see what was being said about the popular sports activity of boy-fucking and how far schools will go to cover it up. Sadly, not nearly enough people are going to go to jail, and the school is not going to lose nearly enough money. But hey, that's what you get when sports are the most important thing ever. Just thought I'd clarify that aspect of HIPAA and that there's no legitimate way to test for doping. You can test for having a high RBC, but that doesn't mean shit.

As far as poorly articulated, this is the sports forum. You should be used to it judging by the athelete interviews I've seen.

[ghost]

Go back to Politics with that shit.   

[Pezzle]

angry.bob makes me laugh!  I cannot fathom how so many can tolerate watching your typical sporting events on tv, let alone the extras. 

[ghost]

Well, it appears as though [urlhttp://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/story/_/id/8298135/usada-ban-lance-armstrong-life-strip-seven-tour-de-france-titles-charges-used-performance-enhancing-drugs-cycling-career]the case is closed[/url].  Lance will not defend his case against the USADA.  

I have mixed feelings about this.  One would think that, if he was innocent, he would try and defend himself no matter what.  But if the evidence is against him even if he didn't to it what's the point?  I'm under the assumption that he doped, but I also don't particularly care all that much myself.  I'm just not sure what the USADA is trying to prove with this.  


Just to point out the guilty athletes......

[Merusk]

Silly mindset to have.  It's the same one that says an innocent man would never plead guilty when being grilled by the cops.  They do all the time.

I'd have given-up long ago, quite aware that they were going to hound until I conceded or gave up. 

Do I think he doped?  Possibly the last year or two, but not the first 5. In any event the tests at the time said no, I don't see why they're going after it so vehemently now, 11 years later.  Seems like a witch hunt and I have no idea why.

[ghost]

I've always wondered if he didn't have some sort of deal concocted with Bruyneel to make the other guys on the team think he was doping just to get them doing so.  Having a great team can be just as big of a boost as actually doping.  At this point it's all spilt milk for the USADA and anyone else who cares, however, as he's retired and apparently doesn't give a shit anymore. 

[Xuri]

If he won't fight the charges, I guess that means we'll never get to see what the evidence against him was? If so, that's pretty convenient for him, as he can then maintain his innocence/"woe is me, it's a witch-hunt!"-claims indefinitely.

[Cyrrex]

If he won't fight the charges, I guess that means we'll never get to see what the evidence against him was? If so, that's pretty convenient for him, as he can then maintain his innocence/"woe is me, it's a witch-hunt!"-claims indefinitely.

I have in the past stated that "I don't care" about all the doping stuff, much of my attitude due to weariness.  I am just sick of hearing about it.

But what really boils me, what really fucking pisses me off, is that there is an actual government agency that must be costing shitloads of money, that seems to spend all of its time investigating retired people.  Sometimes these people testify in front of congress?  What the fuck?

I love sports.  But they are just sports.  Let them govern themselves (or not).

I don't particularly like Lance.  He's an arrogant dick.  But as far as I am concerned it was a level playing each and every time he won.  Fucking leave it alone already.

[Tale]

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. - Lance Armstrong

[Ingmar]

The USADA is not actually a government agency, but it does get a large chunk of its funding from the government.

EDIT:

It occurs to me that if we assume he wasn't doping, and managed to win 7 in a row in dominant fashion while fighting cancer yadda yadda, doping really can't be all that helpful, can it? If it was effective to any kind of reasonable degree one of the dopers behind him would have beaten him at least once in there. OR.... he was doping.

[Maledict]

One of the main reasons for continuing to investigate people for doping in sports years after their win is that masking technology and drug development is years ahead of drug testing. Often athletes are convicted years after their win because it's only years later that someone figures out a way to detect the drugs people are using. That's why the samples are kept for so many years.

Unfortunately, doping is endemic in many sports. It'll be just as sad when Bolt gets done years down the line as well...

[Cyrrex]

The USADA is not actually a government agency, but it does get a large chunk of its funding from the government.

EDIT:

It occurs to me that if we assume he wasn't doping, and managed to win 7 in a row in dominant fashion while fighting cancer yadda yadda, doping really can't be all that helpful, can it? If it was effective to any kind of reasonable degree one of the dopers behind him would have beaten him at least once in there. OR.... he was doping.

Doping or no doping, he is a bit of a genetic freak.  Assuming he was doping, he absolutely demolished a field of others who were also doping.  Over and over again.  If he wasn't doping, it just makes the feat doubly impressive.  So either way, he was better than them.

edit:  spelling

[Tale]

It occurs to me that if we assume he wasn't doping, and managed to win 7 in a row in dominant fashion while fighting cancer yadda yadda, doping really can't be all that helpful, can it? If it was effective to any kind of reasonable degree one of the dopers behind him would have beaten him at least once in there. OR.... he was doping.

Let me extricate you from your bizarre fantasy version of events. I have followed pro cycling as a fan and professionally and have read Lance's best selling autobiography It's Not About the Bike.

He was the "strong as a bull" kind of young pro cyclist through his 20s. The kind that wins stages of races, not overall wins. Then he got testicular cancer that had metastized into his lungs and brain by the time he was diagnosed. He lost a testicle and underwent full-on chemotherapy, with an estimated 5% chance of survival. He became a skeletal Auschwitz-looking figure, unable to exercise.

Note: he was not racing while he had cancer. His then team abandoned him and cut off his health insurance, leaving him for dead.

He survived. The cancer went into full remission. He built himself back up from less than nothing, until he could ride again. He emerged a smaller, wiry man compared to the bull-like figure he had been. Small, wiry riders are the kind that win Tour de Frances. He decided to target that race, even though people doubted him. He trained and trained until he was an elite pro cyclist again.

All of that is undisputed. The allegations are about what he did after that. Because what he did then was win seven consecutive Tours.

He had the unique combination of a strong, powerful cycling form that had been brutally reduced into a wiry, smaller body. He had the focus and pain tolerance of a guy who had stared down death. And he always had the best team (cycling being a team sport where your teammates sacrifice their chances by cutting through the wind resistance for you, while you sit behind, conserving your energy for key moments at the end).

These factors are why he was uniquely suited to winning the race. The question is whether he went a further step, and how much that affected things.

[Nebu]

Here's what I don't understand about this whole thing: The guy passed EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DRUG TEST.  How can you charge him with anything if YOUR METHODS OF DETECTION FAILED?

Seems like a witch hunt with some political backdrop to me.

[Cyrrex]

Yar.  I imagine nailing one of the biggest sporting icons around helps with their credibility and doesn't do anything to hurt their chances of continued funding, either.  Witch hunt no matter how you look at it, guilty or no.

[Maledict]

Here's what I don't understand about this whole thing: The guy passed EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DRUG TEST.  How can you charge him with anything if YOUR METHODS OF DETECTION FAILED?

Seems like a witch hunt with some political backdrop to me.

Um, the list of people who passed every drug test and then were found to have been doping is as long as your arm plus mine. Bjarne Riis won the TDF in 1996? He always denied the doping charges and had exactly the same line as Armstrong - he had *never* failed a drug test. In 2007 he admitted using EPO, Cortisone and HGH.

The technology to detect doping is about 5 years behind the actual doping technology at the very least. Armstrong isn't in any way unique by being accused of drug taking despite no failed tests, and he won't be the last whose found out to have cheated years afterwards despite passing the tests.

[ghost]

Here's what I don't understand about this whole thing: The guy passed EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DRUG TEST.  How can you charge him with anything if YOUR METHODS OF DETECTION FAILED?

Seems like a witch hunt with some political backdrop to me.

Um, the list of people who passed every drug test and then were found to have been doping is as long as your arm plus mine. Bjarne Riis won the TDF in 1996? He always denied the doping charges and had exactly the same line as Armstrong - he had *never* failed a drug test. In 2007 he admitted using EPO, Cortisone and HGH.

The technology to detect doping is about 5 years behind the actual doping technology at the very least. Armstrong isn't in any way unique by being accused of drug taking despite no failed tests, and he won't be the last whose found out to have cheated years afterwards despite passing the tests.

This very fact would call into question the point of testing at all, at least in the now.  It appears as though baseball is starting to catch some folks, but I suspect it's just because the culture was so lax for so long that people are still getting used to the testing procedures.

[Paelos]

I don't think the doping thing is the huge story in this case.

It's that Lance Armstrong, the pinnacle person of the "Never give up, never quit, never surrender" is now giving up. I think that's more damaging to my view of him than anything.

[ghost]

Actually, this may be the real story in the case.......

[Paelos]

That article got me looking at Livestrong's non-profit filings. What I found was horrifying.

Livestrong pulled in over $40M in contributions in 2009. It spend almost $5M on salaries alone. That's actually slightly more than it gave in grants to cancer organizations during the year ($4.9M). Over $1M went to legal costs. $8M went to "Other" professional contractors. $2.2M went to advertising. $5M went to office expenses and travel.

The organization netted $12M in unused revenue after their funcational expenses. That means that 30% of whatever they took in went directly to their investment portfolio instead of helping anybody. Livestrong in 2009 was sitting on over $25M in straight cash and investments at the end of the year.

Here's the really scary thing. They paid their officers $1.8M across 10 employees. All of them with 6 figure incomes to run an organization that literally pays less than 13% of it's revenues to actual grants.

So when they say that's he's raised $500M for cancer? No, he raised $65M for cancer and $435 for running a "non-profit" behemoth.

[01101010]

That article got me looking at Livestrong's non-profit filings. What I found was horrifying.

Livestrong pulled in over $40M in contributions in 2009. It spend almost $5M on salaries alone. That's actually slightly more than it gave in grants to cancer organizations during the year ($4.9M). Over $1M went to legal costs. $8M went to "Other" professional contractors. $2.2M went to advertising. $5M went to office expenses and travel.

The organization netted $12M in unused revenue after their funcational expenses. That means that 30% of whatever they took in went directly to their investment portfolio instead of helping anybody. Livestrong in 2009 was sitting on over $25M in straight cash and investments at the end of the year.

Here's the really scary thing. They paid their officers $1.8M across 10 employees. All of them with 6 figure incomes to run an organization that literally pays less than 13% of it's revenues to actual grants.

So when they say that's he's raised $500M for cancer? No, he raised $65M for cancer and $435 for running a "non-profit" behemoth.

Job creators rule! 

[ghost]

THE FOUNDATION considers this money well spent, but if I were a Livestrong supporter I’d also ask: What’s the product here? If not research, then what do I get for my $100 donation?

“I think the product is hope,” says Mark McKinnon, the renowned GOP political consultant and a Livestrong board member. Armstrong’s team approached McKinnon in 2001, seeking advice on positioning Lance for a postcycling career. McKinnon, a media strategist for President George W. Bush, introduced Armstrong to another client, Bono. The two hit it off, and soon Armstrong seemed to be aiming toward a Bono-like role as a global cancer statesman.

 

[Nebu]

So... this is analogous to bringing Capone down for tax evasion?  They have no proof that he doped but are doing everything they can to destroy his marketing empire that does little to actually help people with Cancer. 

I also agree with Ghost.  If he tested negative EVERY time, it's an indictment of their testing system.  They are spending a lot of time and money on worthless drug testing methods. 

[ghost]

One would also have to wonder if there isn't rampant fraud within the WADA and UCI doping control systems over in Europe.  It's certainly true that Lance Armstrong made the sport of cycling, as a whole, a shitload of money.  They would have had good reason to not see him busted for doping.

[Sir T]

*smug mode*

[ghost]

What is there to be smug about?

[ghost]

Here's an interesting run down of the runners up in the Tour de France on the years Armstrong won. 

[Maledict]

So... this is analogous to bringing Capone down for tax evasion?  They have no proof that he doped but are doing everything they can to destroy his marketing empire that does little to actually help people with Cancer. 

I also agree with Ghost.  If he tested negative EVERY time, it's an indictment of their testing system.  They are spending a lot of time and money on worthless drug testing methods. 

They do have proof he doped. They have more proof than you need to get convicted for murder for goodness sakes. They have 10 people who will testify under oath he doped, as well as failed test results from 2009 to 2011 apparently as well as other stuff. The evidence will apparently come out at some point as the investigation continues to the rest of the team.

The only reason we can't see the evidence now is because Armstrong has decided not to contest it.

So what's more likely? The guy famous for not giving up and for his amazing wins has given up and is willing to see his entire career and reputation destroyed because 'he's tired' despite the fact they have no proof and he's innocent OR they have the proof, he knows it, and this is the best way to protect his image?

[Merusk]

So when they say that's he's raised $500M for cancer? No, he raised $65M for cancer and $435 for running a "non-profit" behemoth.

I've heard this is the same for just about every non-profit is out there, so I'm not really shocked.  Can you give us something similar for the Red Cross, American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen and United Way as well?  I ask because you're the professional and going to know where to look and compare fairly quicker than I will.

[ghost]

Actually, according to the figures in one of these articles Komen (while certainly no bastion of credibility) gives a lot more to research than Livestrong.  You should read the longish article from Outdoorsonline.com about it.  It is a pretty good piece.

[Mosesandstick]

I've heard this is the same for just about every non-profit is out there, so I'm not really shocked.  Can you give us something similar for the Red Cross, American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen and United Way as well?  I ask because you're the professional and going to know where to look and compare fairly quicker than I will.

Charity Navigator

Hopefully that will give you some answers.