The case against Lance Armstrong

[Korachia]

That's the gut feeling I have as well. He is not in immediate need of financial capital since he does have a job for a bicycle team. So money is out of the equation. if it's revenge he is after, well he can fulfill that need by just telling the truth considering the wickedness of bicycling sport. Hopefully the anti-doping agencies are following up on all the leads and while many can't be convicted, I still hope they publish everything to shame the people involved. Than sponsors can pressure all the involved out of the teams. Riis among many others should definitely be the first one up against the wall. 

[Korachia]

Exactly! How the hell did that British team all of the sudden produce such exceptional riders? New techniques from a swimming couch? Bloody unlikely! ..Unless they were referring to doping techniques 

[ghost]

This is kind of an interesting blog article.  Emphasis mine.

But it does seem drugs have gotten much more powerful in the last 20 years. For example, the stage of the Tour de France to Luz Ardiden Greg LeMond on Luz Ardiden in 1990generally follows the same pattern: 60-80km of relatively flat roads to the base of the Col d’Aspin. From there they ride over the Aspin, Tourmalet, and finally up Luz Ardiden. The first time they rode this stage was 1985 and the average speed was around 25 km per hour. The next year, Greg LeMond finished the same stage in 26 km per hour; roughly the same speed. Then, in 1990, LeMond raced to the top of that mountain at 39 km per hour. That’s a significant improvement. Today the speeds are even higher; Lance Armstrong won the stage in 2003 at around 42 km per hour. Training practices and equipment have become much, much better than they were in the 80′s, but I find it hard to account for the difference between 1986 and 1990 by just those factors. The late 80′s and early 90′s coincides precisely with the time that EPO is rumored to have arrived in the pro ranks and it likely accounts for at least some portion of the increase in speed we’re seeing.

I think it's almost guaranteed that LeMond was doping.  The loudest denier is usually guilty. 

[ghost]

I think you'd find this article interesting, too.  

 


CAN PERFORMANCE BE USED AS AN INDICATOR OF DOPING?
July 11, 2013
by Wade Wallace | Photography by Wade Wallace

While cycling is supposedly going through a “new era” of clean performance, fans are still jaded by the lies and deceit of the recent past. Team Sky has come under heavy scrutiny, not because of anything in particular the riders have done wrong, only because they’ve shown such dominance.

After Sky’s remarkable performance on stage 8 of this year’s Tour de France the critics have come out and scrutinised Froome’s win. Without access to direct power data, the critics have had to rely on mathematical modelling, climb times, elevation data and a handful of assumptions in their attempt to quantify Froome’s performance and speculate about whether he has doped or not.

But can performance actually be used as an indicator of doping? Of course climbing up Alp d’Huez in 30 minutes raises red flags, but these aren’t the types of margins we’re dealing with.

VeloNews’s Andrew Hood did an interview with David Brailsford last week in which he asked the Team Sky principal why the team’s riders won’t release their power data to the public. Brailsford replied:

“There is so much pseudo-science out there right now. If you release the data, there are very few people who can properly interpret and understand that data. All you’re going to do is create a lot of noise for people who are pseudo-scientists. You can even write magazines about it.”

Brailsford is referring to “Not Normal”, a magazine released by French journalist and former Festina trainer Antoine Vayer. Released just before the Tour de France, “Not Normal” took 21 of the most successful riders from LeMond to Armstrong to Evans, quantified their performances and then ranked them across an index of suspicion.

The three categories Vayer used were “suspicious” — a power output of 410 watts at threshold — “miraculous” — above 430 watts — and “mutant” — above 450 watts. Note that Vayer standardises the performances of riders against an “average” rider weight of 70kg, allowing him to compare the performances of heavier and lighter riders on the same scale.

Vayer wrote a couple days ago that he calculated Froome’s power output on the stage 8 Ax-3-Domaines climb as 446 watts (scaled to a 70kg rider; the equivalent of 6.4 w/kg for Froome). In the article for Le Monde he described Froome’s performance as “miraculous”; on the phone to me he labelled it “not human”.

Sky is so dirty.

Edit- More numbers. 

[Korachia]

Hahaha, they badly need a name change. Team Dirt is more fitting by far.

The blog you highlighted also has this little insight:

But we should also be realistic and recognize that doping has been a major part of the sport since the beginning. Especially in Europe, cyclists are brought up on a doping regimen from the amateur ranks all the way up through the pro ranks. And, upon retirement, many pros become Director Sportifs. It is no small wonder then, that there is organized, systematic doping throughout most of the pro teams.

That's the whole damn problem. There is a viable feeding chain here and it just continues on until somebody cuts the knot. If you got busted by doping, even if it's 20 years ago, they still should not be let near a bicycle at all. It's the only medicine that will cure this dying patient that is bicycle sport.

Edit: By the the second piece of the interview is up http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/lance-armstrong-exclusive-interview-part-2 . Guess who is being a dick again 

[jakonovski]

I know this is necromantic, but the first instance of mechanical doping in cycling has now been recorded, a young Belgian rider in the cyclocross world champs:

http://road.cc/content/tech-news/177135-breaking-suspected-hidden-engine-bike-2016-cyclocross-world-champs

It puts old videos like this to a new light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nd13ARuvVE

There's lots more chatter going around, my fave being the rumours about $200,000 electromagnetic rear wheels: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/electromagnetic-wheels-are-the-new-frontier-of-mechanical-doping-claims-gazzetta-dello-sport/

[ghost]

I've always found this video of Ryder Hesjedal to be particularly damning.  People try to explain it away by saying that the tire and wheel still had momentum.  I call bullshit because the bike stops with the tire crammed into the pavement and then accelerates.  It defies logic and physics.  And it's clear Cancellara has been up to something for years.


Heh-  apparently her brother, Niels, is suspended for doping and also Niels and her father got arrested for trying to steal several hundred thousand dollars worth of exotic birds.