The case against Lance Armstrong

[ghost]

No, they didn't. Why not come out and say you're allowing it publically?

The UCI, by covering all this up and allowing it to happen, was essentially regulating and condoning the activity.  Additionally, lighten up, Francis.  

Addendum-  Look.  You'll never, ever be able to prevent doping in sport.  There will always be the next big thing that will be undetectable for a period of time.  My point is that they had reached a sort of equilibrium where they could detect some of the drugs, chose not to, and the end result is that most of the peloton was using essentially the same shit.  There was no need for further development of regimens or, more specifically, new drugs because they were escaping detection and were seeing some results.  Those results were that they were competitive with the rest of the doping schleps.  Sure, eventually the new "big thing" would have come up eventually, but the competition to get to that drug is not enhanced. 

[DraconianOne]

I'm sure I'm repeating myself - as Ghost says, we've been over this before - but anyway:

Institutionalisation and regulation of PEDs in sport would not solve the doping problem. It's not about the drugs, it's about circumventing the rules of the sport to gain an advantage i.e. cheating. If you permitted doping but only allowed some drugs or raised the permissible amounts, some people would still take the banned drugs, or more than was legally permitted, just to get that edge. So the only way for doping not to be a problem is to go back to the 50s approach of "anything goes".

[ghost]

I've heard talk about how we've "cleaned up baseball" and that US sports' drug programs work because we've caught people.  I seriously doubt that this is true. 

[Nebu]

Catching people only means that they were terrible cheaters.  People are mad at Lance because he was a better cheater than most.  Bad cheaters are always jealous of good cheaters.  In sports and life, cheaters seem to think that the only thing they did wrong was to get caught.

I don't really give a shit about cheating in sports.  It's trivial compared to the cheating we see in business and politics.  That's the cheating that really ruins lives. 

[01101010]

Well it is not cheating if you don't get caught... 

[ghost]

I don't really give a shit about cheating in sports.  It's trivial compared to the cheating we see in business and politics.  That's the cheating that really ruins lives. 

You're definitely undermining my already shaky confidence in the human race, Nebu.   

[Nebu]

You're definitely undermining my already shaky confidence in the human race, Nebu.   

You work in health care.  How the hell could you have any confidence at all? 

I think you need to have 10 more children and breed your own human race.  It may be our only hope.  If nothing else, then you and Cheddar could have a mini Olympics with your kids.

[ghost]

You're definitely undermining my already shaky confidence in the human race, Nebu.   

You work in health care.  How the hell could you have any confidence at all? 

I think you need to have 10 more children and breed your own human race.  It may be our only hope.  If nothing else, then you and Cheddar could have a mini Olympics with your kids.

I was shooting for a soccer team, but the wife chose scorched earth this time.  Alas, it looks as though we're done unless we adopt (which may be an option for us).

I almost think we need to find ways, as a society, to buffer (yet still allow) cheating in almost all aspects of life.  It happens everywhere and for everything.  There has to be a model which allows for it to happen yet buffers the negative effects.  Get your monkey model out and get to work!

As an aside, I hate research on monkeys.  There was a guy in my pharmacology PhD program (that I did 6 months of before figuring out it wasn't for me) that would put monkeys in this special chair, brain them with a sharp object and take special readings on their fluids and neural responses as they died.  Disgusting business.

[ghost]

And actually, right on cue, Slate has come out with a very nice article comparing doping in cycling (and sport) to the cheating that goes on with Wall Street.  You sure you're not a writer for Slate, Nebu?

I have gotten to where I really like Slate's opinion pieces. 

[Nebu]

You sure you're not a writer for Slate, Nebu?

You've read my posts.  You know I could never get paid to write.  I don't have the Haemish touch.

[Ingmar]

If cycling really cared, they would house all of the participants in a restricted dorm during multi-day races.  Never... gonna... happen.

And make them use the same equipment.

[ghost]

If cycling really cared, they would house all of the participants in a restricted dorm during multi-day races.  Never... gonna... happen.

And make them use the same equipment.

They do have some rules on the minimum available weight, but this is a good point. 

[ghost]

Now this would be the real fucking bombshell of the situation.  Nike denies paying the UCI to cover up Armstrong's positive test....

According to New York Daily News reporter Michael O'Keeffe, a 2006 deposition by Kathy LeMond, wife of American cyclist Greg LeMond, implicated Nike as one of Armstrong's allies in a suspected coverup:

USADA's explosive "reasoned decision" has focused new attention on people who have claimed for years that the cyclist's success was fueled by performance-enhancing drugs – critics who found themselves threatened by Armstrong and his lawyers and marginalized in the media. One of those critics is Kathy LeMond, the wife of American cyclist Greg LeMond, who testified under oath during a 2006 deposition that Nike paid former UCI president Hein Verbruggen $500,000 to cover up a positive drug test.

[Tale]

This network of Armstrong's mirrors western-style corruption in the corporate and government environments. It's widespread and entrenched, but never admitted. All while they criticise the developing world's open corruption, just as Armstrong criticised cheats who didn't have the wherewithal or resources to cover it up. I doubt this will bring down his sponsors, but this is how Armstrong got away with it: he behaved like they do.

[UnsGub]

Package of Services investigation in Italy.  Doping is just a small part of pushing the rules.

[cmlancas]

So we can close this thread now, right?

 

[sickrubik]

Not yet.

Rabobank Ends Sponsorship, and a Warning Shot to World Cycling Is Fired

I'm sure thta they knew of what was going on, but that's still huge news. This whole thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[ghost]

Wow.  Rabobank has been a stalwart sponsor over the years.  This is a big deal. 

[Paelos]

Good. The only way this gets remotely on the beam again is if all the sponsors get fed up.

[ghost]

Good. The only way this gets remotely on the beam again is if all the sponsors get fed up.

That's the thing.  Cycling has never been on the beam.  The history of dirtiness and doping is so ingrained that it may not be possible to get it there. 

[Nebu]

You realize that doping is happening in every big money sport, right?  As long as their are sponsorships to win, there will be doping.  The only way to remove doping from sports is to remove money from sports... and that's NEVER happening.

[Paelos]

You realize that doping is happening in every big money sport, right?  As long as their are sponsorships to win, there will be doping.  The only way to remove doping from sports is to remove money from sports... and that's NEVER happening.

Absolutely I realize it. It's not shock that injuries and concussions are up in the NFL. The size and speed of the players is through the roof. I'm not stupid enough to believe that it's due to better conditioning programs. Frankly, it's going to come to a head soon as well. I can't believe it hasn't yet with all the concussion talk.

Tennis is rife with doping. I don't believe for one second that Serena Williams is clean. She's out serving men on the tour, and goes into a panic room the moment she's due for a test. The men are even worse. Top serve speeds across the board have spiked in the last decade.

I'm not for it at all. I want them to crack down on it, but they keep saying it's not a problem. Well, it's not until they uncover the fact that sponsors are paying for positive tests to be covered up.

[Nebu]

It costs money to stop doping in sports.  More money than is lost due to doping.  That being the case, there is no profit motive to stop doping until the spectators generate enough outrage that the policing of it all becomes worth it financially.  I think that the spectators just want spectacle and will tolerate some amount of cheating to watch records being broken.  Each generation wants its heroes regardless of how they came to be heroes. 

[Paelos]

Meh I think baseball flies in the face of that logic. The guys who broke the records aren't exactly seen as heroes.

[cmlancas]

Meh I think baseball flies in the face of that logic. The guys who broke the records aren't exactly seen as heroes.

That's funny, I thought of baseball as the case in point.  It wasn't until everyone's superheroes of BigMac and Sammy were unmasked as doping cheaters before outrage spiked and baseball cracked down some.

But, when you think about it...really fans?  You really didn't think they were cheating and they got that big.   

[Paelos]

Nebu's right about one point. Fans will forgive amazing amounts of stupid bullshit as long as they are entertained. HOWEVER, if it turns out that you were lying to them to entertain? The next best thing to cheering you as a fan is fucking burying people we once loved.

Listen to sports radio. Fans are ridiculously reactionary. They have zero perspective. They will rationalize anything and everything because they've created a narrative in their heads, and they will seek to find examples that fit that narrative.

[Nebu]

Cheating takes many forms.  Look at pitching in baseball.  We love cheaters.  America loves the villain almost as much as the hero.  It's as if we need the villain as much as the hero to elevate the hero a tad more. 

[Ingmar]

The reaction to steroid use in baseball is a weird outlier as these things go, IMO. Everyone loves the pitcher that throws spitballs, nobody cares when they use amphetamines to get through the season (which has at least as much of a performance enhancing effect as steroids), players lying about their age gets teams pissed off but elicits nothing but eyerolls from fans, etc. Hell, steroid use in the NFL gets barely a passing shrug.

[Tale]

Comments I liked.

UCI strips Armstrong of Tour titles

Stu 22:49 AEST, Mon 22 Oct 2012
Now, somebody strip the UCI and LETS GET BACK TO CYCLING - PLEASE!

Paul.P 22:47 AEST, Mon 22 Oct 2012
So in summary, LA doped, UCI implicated in USADA report for being aware of it and covering up, UCI culture of denial established by USADA, UCI forced to make a call on LA after rubbishing USADA process, UCI forced to "face the music" and accept 'reasoned decision', LA stripped of 7 TDF, UCI now use LA as their scapegoat to save own backsides to appear to be doing something, UCI cronies to this point escape, no real new UCI action or response, business as usual for UCI. What a joke!

[Rasix]

Tennis is rife with doping. I don't believe for one second that Serena Williams is clean. She's out serving men on the tour, and goes into a panic room the moment she's due for a test. The men are even worse. Top serve speeds across the board have spiked in the last decade.

I'd argue that you're not terribly accurate about tennis, and speaking directly out your backside.  Higher average serve speeds can be attributed mostly to racquet and string technology being leaps and bounds better than it used to be. And with the string and racquet changes have been changes in technique.  You can hit the ball a lot differently when you're using a space age polymer rather than wood and strings that can be set to really low tensions without any reduction in swing speed.  The western forehand  changed the game as much as wood to metal. Plus, have you seen pictures of older tennis matches? They're actual athletes now.  

Serena is a weird outlier. She's just way better than anyone else.  In form and in just overall athleticism.  She serves about 10-15 MPH faster than most of her peers.  Oddly enough, her thin and more feminine (yet tall) sister serves just as fast, yet doesn't have as good of a technique.  There's a few Germans that can serve up some high speeds, they just don't have the accuracy.  

There have been a few note worthy doping bans.  Mostly from South Americans. Just as common are bans for illicit drug use.

edit: Not saying it's clean, but "rife", probably not.  Ohh, I see why you'd bring this up, I guess Conte said something.   

[Paelos]

I bring it up because I think the guy over at the "Tennis has a steroid problem" blog has made a good case, and continually brings up the issues in other sports outside of tennis, along with the complete and abject failures behind tennis' testing process.

SEE: http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspot.com/

EDIT: It's actually very interesting stuff he posts. I think he's one of the few bloggers out there who actually digs into details, provides evidence, gives people links, questions the authorities on their bullshit, and takes the issue seriously.

[ghost]

All sports are rife with doping.  We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. 

[Xuri]

What, even dwarf-tossing?

[ghost]

Especially fucking dwarf tossing.  All the dwarfs are juicing.

[sickrubik]

I'm beginning to wonder if we'll see a lot more confessions in the next while...

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/exclusive-bobby-julich-doping-confession