You Think You Got Troubles?

The trouble with Lance is that he was and is an arrogant bully and asshole.

Barry Bonds was an asshole but he wasn’t a bully or mafia don.

And Barry was going to the Baseball Hall of Fame even before he started taking steroids. Can’t say the same for Lance. His whole career seems to have been built on doping.

The trouble with us, is not that we need to believe our heroes are pure, but that we will attack and smear anyone who dares to tell the truth, and we will look the other way when our “hero” does the same.

We are no victims but willing assholes and accomplices in the lies that our heroes tell.

And of course, think how close all this was to being swept under the rug. If Johan et al had simply offered Floyd a job last year, he would have stayed silent, retired and walked away, like so many others have. We’d be none the wiser now, everyone happy.

That’s just about a perfect piece, Rant. In a way that I deeply admire, you can hold a topic in one hand and examine it from every side.

Watching 60 mins reminded me how much I had wanted to believe Tyler years ago. It’s easy to think a bully is a cheater…it was harder to imagine it could be the nice guy.

Wonderful piece Rant…I actually just finished reading your ‘house of cards’ post (and ALL the comments…WOW!). Then I thoughtfully crafted my own comment to that post, totally forgetting that you had a newer post. Still playing catchup I guess. I sure don’t have a crystal ball to predict the overall outcome of this mess…but it surely has taken on a life of it’s own and will probably go in directions and have outcomes that we can’t fathom at this time. Will things be ‘better’ afterwards? I guess that depends on your defination of ‘better’. Different. That’s the word I’d use. The world is always changing, evolving (and not always for the better). What will be will be. Like it or not, here it comes.

Rant –

Interesting point in your comment above about Hamilton being uncomfortable. Why, then, did he appear on 60 Minutes? He had to testify before the Grand Jury, but he didn’t need to go on national TV. In particular … for a guy like Hamilton who professes to love cycling, he didn’t have to go on 60 Minutes at a time when we might otherwise have focused on the Tour of California. This is the second year in a row that an Armstrong accuser has chosen the week of the TofC to make headlines and (intentionally or not) distract attention from the race. It’s hard for me to think that the timing here was not intentional … perhaps by CBS if not by Hamilton.

I found Hamilton to be a credible witness, far more credible than Landis to be honest. It may not be Hamilton’s fault, but I found what he said to be short on details regarding his own doping. For example, he never admitted to the blood doping he was accused of in 2004. He also claimed that his failed steroid test was the result of a contaminated supplement — hard to believe given the amount of doping he confessed to during his career.

There are a lot of details of his story that don’t make sense to me. That Armstrong doped? Maybe. That Armstrong doped in front of all of his teammates, distributed PEDs to others, taught riders how to dope, shipped PEDs to his teammates when asked, even ran from rider to rider squirting everyone with liquid andriol? That Armstrong allowed Hamilton to be present as Armstrong received doping advice from Dr. Michele Ferrari? That’s a kind of sloppiness I wouldn’t associate with someone as careful and systematic as Armstrong … particularly since Armstrong was planning a very public career outside of cycling and after cycling. If I’m to believe Hamilton (and Landis), then Armstrong willingly set up dozens of people with the ability to blackmail him and destroy his career and reputation. Quite frankly, this part of Hamilton’s story (and Landis’ story) makes no sense to me.

That U.S. Postal distributed PEDs to riders in white lunch bags, to be stored in a rider’s refrigerator, to be discovered by wives, girlfriends, even casual visitors? Bizarre, particularly since Hamilton alleges that the doping program was carefully supervised, directed and managed by doctors and the team’s DS. What, exactly, was Hamilton supposed to do with that first vial of EPO? Most of us can be trained to inject ourselves with drugs, but most of us require that training.

The rumors about U.S. Postal and PEDs were that Bruyneel was some kind of doping genius, and that the team simply out-doped its competition. The program described by Hamilton is a DUMB program, haphazard, decentralized, easy to detect and easy to expose. With all the effort made during Lance’s career to out him as a doper, by L’Equipe, by David Walsh, how is it that no one thought to check Tyler Hamilton’s trash for used vials of EPO? If Armstrong is a doper and Hamilton is telling us the truth, then David Walsh and his cronies are the worst investigative journalists of all time … and journalists like Woodward and Bernstein (of Watergate fame) would have uncovered hard evidence of Armstrong’s doping in the course of a casual afternoon.

Here’s another part of the story that doesn’t make sense. Every story like this has a cover-up. Armstrong is a wealthy man, with powerful contacts in the government and throughout corporate America. Once Armstrong learned that Landis was about to talk, and Hamilton, and others, why wasn’t a cover-up attempted? The situation with Landis is particularly confusing, as Landis essentially demanded a slot on the Radio Shack 2010 Tour of California team in exchange for his silence, and in response Armstrong essentially told Landis to speak to anyone who would listen. OK, maybe Armstrong could not hire Landis to ride on his pro team, but he could have given Landis a cushy job at Livestrong, or directed any of his corporate friends to hire Landis to do anything at all. From all we can tell, Armstrong has done nothing to put a lid on this story … acting as if he has nothing to hide. This is strange, because even if Armstrong never doped, these stories HAVE been damaging to his reputation.

There’s another part of the story that makes no sense to me. I get the part that Armstrong was willing to do just about anything to win. Was he willing to kill himself in the process? There have always been rumors that Armstrong used PEDs pre-cancer, and that these drugs may have led to his cancer. With Armstrong’s cancer history, both EPO and synthetic testosterone were dangerous drugs. http://bit.ly/cHfED1 http://bit.ly/kSSFyL Either could have led to a recurrence of his cancer. I’ve spoken over the past 5 years to people who know Armstrong, and the best evidence is that Armstrong was (probably is) VERY frightened by the thought that he might have to battle cancer a second time.

All of these are reasons why I’m not rushing to judge Armstrong. As a lawyer, I’m used to hearing some strange stories and trying to make sense of them. No story in the history of the world has ever completely added up … but this one does not make sense in too many fundamental ways for me to trust it entirely.

Hamilton’s lifetime ban came from a second offense involving DHEA. While on Rock Racing, he knowingly and intentionally took the supplement. He admits he knew he was doing it, and claims it was out of desperation in looking for a medication to treat his clinical depression.

I do not doubt his illness or seriousness of it. And fairly, he didn’t disclose he knowingly and intentionally took DHEA until he was notified of a positive test result by USADA. Depression is a serious illness, and considering all Tyler has been through, I empathize. He has lost everything, yet claims in his letter to family and friends that he is well. Wow.

I did not think Tyler looked comfortable at all. I have the opposite impression that Floyd looks a lot better on camera. Tyler looked very hesitant and uncomfortable.

I am more than a little surprised the LA Machine(tm) has not directly attacked Tyler’s credibility on the grounds that he has a verified mental illness. It would be very LA.

We will hear more about the testimony to be presented after the indictments are complete. Who else has testified? LeMond? Ex- Mrs. Armstrong? Cheryl Crowe? Ferrari? Allen Lim? Johan Bruneel? Levi?

Big Tex going to jail. He’ll get the cell that Marion Jones warmed up for him. This isn’t about lying anymore – it is a conspiracy to defraud the US Federal Government. They hate that. The only people the government hates worse than liars is those that seize airplanes and fly them into buildings.

Worth remembering that the Government wields awesome power. They have standing armies. They may lie, they may cheat, they may do all kinds of icky, icky things. But you defy their power at your peril.

One more Tyler question. He started his piece on 60 Minutes stating that NO one in his family knew till just very recently. Well, from all the OP stuff I read back in 2006-09, his then wife facilitated. Tyler adamantly denied having anything to do with Fuentes, but if I remember correctly, the evidence against him was stronger than for many of the others (I think I remember seeing a doping calendar for him). So, how can he say NO one in his ‘family’ knew? Even if she’s his EX-wife NOW, she was his family then.

As for the timing – come on, you KNEW it would have been dropped during the ToC or the Tour! That’s the only time the American mainstream sports media & most non-cycling fan Americans are even CONSCIENCE of cycling. Since it seems Lance knew 60 Minutes has been working on this for at least 6 months, I see now why he retired BEFORE the ToC. If he had been there, the chaos would have made last year’s bombshell look like a tea party. Bet CBS was pissed! 😉 😉

Hein Verbruggen says Big Tex never doped. Never, never, never.

“If you ordered that dope tests weren’t to be touched, and your orders are always followed, then why is Lance in danger? Why would it be necessary to dope test him?”

SMTML,

“Do I think each guy is probably telling at least SOME truth? Yes. But, it’s also a classic defense to try & shift some or all of the blame to someone else.”

So do you believe Lance took EPO at some point in his career as they both testified?

SMTML,

Thanks for your reply.

“As for 1998 & after, I’m 50-50 now.”

I guess you don’t believe those 5 retrospective positives for EPO for the 1999 TDF then? LOL! Not to mention Landis’s (ha, ha) and Hamilton’s testimony.

And of course after they started testing for EPO, blood doping became more important.

I loved watching the TDF on TV also (although I don’t get VERSUS anymore on my cable) so have to follow it on the internet. It is one gorgeous pageant as you say. But I have to take the actual GC competition as an entertainment, since many of the top riders, like Contador are likely still doping, despite the heightened testing. So I wind up cheering for the weak French teams and their riders when they manage to win a stage here and there.

I actually wonder what the effect of nailing Lance will be. If they nail him and the doctors and the owners/directors on criminal charges, I think it will have a much more lasting effect than penalizing Contador for 2 years which is just business as usual. After Balco, the steroid era in baseball is pretty much over.

I think the odds of an indictment are still only 70-80%, and the odds of nailing Lance are still only 50%. My boy Barry pretty much beat the charges at trial, although I’m pretty sure the Feds will refile.

M,

I’m not saying that I believe he (LA) didn’t dope. I’m just saying that it would appear there are possibilities…food for thought. I did say “WHAT IF”, didn’t I? This is all discussion…which requires all sides to be looked at. What I’m saying is that I believe I have an open mind and don’t have any real idea FOR ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY if he did or didn’t. Do you? It would seem you’ve already decided and don’t appear willing to even listen to any other possibilities. I NEVER SAID that I don’t believe he didn’t dope.

I believe that I DO wear rose colored glasses and I trust and believe in the best of people in general, until it’s proven my faith was misplaced. IF LA were to come out tomorrow and do a Floyd or Tyler (yes, I did it), well…sure I would be disappointed. Will I still LOVE to watch the races and ride my bike(s)? You-betch-a. Because in the end, whether he did or didn’t really doesn’t change my life ONE TINY BIT. And IF they all were (are?) doping all along, well, hey….it makes great viewing doesn’t it? Isn’t that what pro sports are all about in the end? Bonds ripping the cover off the ball, Lance (or Alberto, or whoever) setting an impossible pace up an impossible climb…it’s why we watch. Nobody wants to see me crawling up the Alp d’ Huez (except me). Every single pro sport out there is entertainment in the end, pure and simple, existing only to make money. If it wasn’t good entertainment, there would be no money and it wouldn’t last.

I’m still stuck by the hypocrisy of WADA and the UCI. EPO/CERA: illegal, hyperbaric chambers (altitude tents): legal. I don’t need to go much further than that to see that something stinks with the rules and who makes them.

And I still think that Larry brought up a lot of really good points earlier that bear pondering. If that’s ‘fandom rearing up, the beast that refuses to die’, oh well. It appears that ‘anti-fandom’ is also rearing up and refuses to die. He hasn’t had his day in court yet (except the court of public opinion I mean). I’m waiting for irrefutable proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict. If that existed at this moment then he’d already be in jail. Tyler and Floyd, they are POOR POOR POOR. Do they have an agenda? I would think so. Does being poor and discredited make what they say lying? No. But it also doesn’t mean they are telling the truth. I don’t know. Only they (and possibly a VERY few others) do know for sure. Anybody who does know for sure please speak up.

And also please let me know who killed Kennedy…that one’s been bothering me for a while now too.

Like Larry, I think there’s a lot of strange things about Ty and Floyd’s stories. Doesn’t mean that they aren’t true, but then just because their stories fit some people’s opinions doesn’t mean that they are true either.

Ty’s story about the TdS test and bribe does seem to corroborate Floyd’s, but then Ty has had a year to cook up his tail and make sure what he says agrees with what Floyd said, if that’s the way he wanted to go.

Lance is a big, bright target, like other famous people. Go to the paper with a story about how your neighbor is having an affair and you won’t get anywhere. But if you have a story about how some well known person is having an affair and you just might get somewhere.

1. As to the Tour de Suisse, there is corroborating documentary and interview evidence from the lab and it’s then director which bolsters Hamilton’s story. It was not made up out of whole cloth.

2. Seems pretty clear now that Lance took EPO in winning the 1999 TDF.

First we have the 6 positive tests for EPO which Michael Ashenden, who has reviewed the tests, explains are pretty much conclusive in this detailed interview. http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden Having read this I have to laugh again at the Verbruggen commissioned whitewash. “Chain of custody” my ass. LOL! It was a load of crap then and it’s still a load of crap.

Now we have Hamilton’s testimony confirming that Lance took EPO in 1999 at the Tour and that the Radio Shack team had been promoting and condoning doping for years before.

One other thing for those who claim that Lance was just doing what everybody else was doing. Other than Lance, only 8% of the 1999 TDF samples (taken primarly from the top finishers in each stag) tested positive for EPO. So at least in 1999 in doesn’t appear that the peloton was doped out. I’m pretty sure that changed in later years.

3. I don’t find it very peculiar that Hamilton, Hincapie or others were privy to Lance’s and each other’s doping. They were brothers and teammates in doping who adhered to the culture of Omerta. Lance was the greatest proponent and believer in that culture of Omerta. Indeed, Hamilton was doping on Radio Shack before Lance and may have introduced him to the doping (although there is evidence that Lance was doping years before). Why not trust your supplier, especially since he is as “guilty” as you are.

One thing to remember is that it is almost impossible to dope alone. You need others to supply and advise you.

As to Hamilton and Lance visiting Doctor Ferrari together, in a team sport, the leader needs to make sure that his supporting team members are doping properly otherwise his own doping will go to waste.

And the white paper bags? Well this was in 1997, before Lance and before they even had a test for EPO, so things may have tightened up later. But from what is reported there was quite the culture of doping in those early years. Some doctor reported that he was let go after he reported to the team director that Hamilton asked about doping in 1996. Another rider stated he was told to dope in the year before Armstrong arrived. Nobody was worried about girlfriends.

4. And interestingly, the only wife or girlfriend who put her foot down, was not Lance’s, Tyler’s or Floyd’s, but Betsy Andreu, the wife of Frankie Andreu who admitted taking EPO during the 1999 TDF. Betsy told him to stop doping or she would leave him.

““It was the first mountain stage (1999 TDF), the one to Sestriere, and as they began the climb Frankie was at the front of a line of Postal riders. Frankie is about as much a climber as the Pope is an atheist. ‘What the hell is this about,’ I said.” She called her husband and said she didn’t believe he was clean any more. He was too wasted to argue. ”
http://shorttext.com/jqurzblrsyf

You do wonder what pressure all that doping and omerta put on the wives. All three of the big dopers are divorced. Only Frankie who stopped doping and Betsy are still together.

Larry,

“But note that the sport continues to protect the people who helped enable Landis’ and Hamilton’s doping after they left U.S. Postal.”

Who are you speaking of here?

Rant,

According to “Python” over on cyclingnews forums, while a test for EPO was adapted by WADA in the 2000 olympics and apparently was a combination blood/urine test, the UCI only adapted a urine test starting in 2001, and he has this to say about it:

“The 60 minutes seems to confirm the idea when they referred to the usada letter pointing to a suspicious test consistent with epo. the inconclusive or suspicious simply means (i am speculating here) that the scientific threshold for a positive (80% bap at that time) may not have been reached or just barely crossed. (for a backgrounder recall this was the first year the epo test was introduced and there was no wada technical guidance yet obligatory now. only 3 labs then could test for epo and the general mood was that of caution as with anything brand new).”

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=532258&postcount=26

See the discussion that follows also for more on the Swiss lab and the testing in 2001.
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?p=532268#post532268

Rant

I may be mistaken, but didn’t Landis finger Lim as helping him with transfusions? Hard to keep track of all of this, but I seem to recall that cam out in some forum from Landis (emails, B Ford article).

Larry

I am not sure any of your analysis makes sense when the $125K in donations to the UCI is factored into the equation, and the varied explanations provided by LA about the payments. I imagine that $125K didn’t dent LA’s account balances, but I would think that he would have remembered the amount and reasons for donations clearly.

RM

Rant –

Nice! You’ve explained why USADA never heard about the alleged positive test, because UCI allegedly never told them. That’s reasonable. I can buy that.

Let’s dive deeper into this business of borderline test results. (1) Lab finds a borderline result and decides to declare it a positive. (2) Lab informs UCI, and UCI exclaims, that’s Lance Armstrong, our best and most marketable rider, are you SURE it’s a positive? (3) Lab says (a) yes we’re sure, or (b) it’s borderline but we’re calling it a positive. My assumption is that (a) is more likely, and that the basis for much of what I wrote above. You’re assuming that (b) is more likely, so for the moment let’s proceed on that assumption.

If UCI knows that it has a borderline positive doping test on its best, most famous and most marketable rider, my assumption is that they would have pushed to see if the test result could be quashed, legitimately if possible, but discretely in any event (that’s a paraphrase from “Casablanca”). But I can imagine a more sinister UCI going to Armstrong first and demanding a quid pro quo, and Armstrong paying it. That makes perfect sense, if we’re buying into the rest of this. What makes no sense is then having Armstrong’s people meet with the lab. Once UCI got its bribe, UCI would have quashed the test results without brokering any meeting.

Look at it this way: either UCI quashed the test (i) for (what it thought was) the good of cycling, or (ii) in order to make a buck.

If (i), then there was no reason to let Armstrong know about it – it would only have given Armstrong knowledge that Armstrong could use to blackmail UCI if he ever tested positive again. Sure, the UCI might have given Armstrong word indirectly (in a way that Armstrong could never prove came from UCI) that he was coming close to testing positive for EPO, so please dial back the use of the EPO. But there was no reason for UCI to spill any of the details.

If (ii), then of course UCI would have informed Armstrong of the details – there would have been no way to extract a bribe out of Armstrong in any other way. But in such a case, the UCI would have been loathe to set up a meeting with the lab, for two reasons. First, there was always the chance that Armstrong and his team could have persuaded the lab to drop the charges, either legitimately or by bribing the lab. In either case UCI would not have received its bribe. Second, any Armstrong – lab meeting would necessarily have expanded the number of people in on the conspiracy and the number of people Armstrong would have to pay to keep silent. Bribery in a conspiracy is pretty much a zero sum game – whatever gets paid to the other guy does NOT get paid to you. Moreover, the UCI had the same motivation as everyone else to keep the number of conspirators down to a bare minimum, so that the truth of its extortion and bribe-taking would never come to light.

So, for me, the detail of the lab-Armstrong meeting is the killer detail, the one that doesn’t fit no matter how I reshape and retell the story. That, and the fact that Armstrong was willing to spill the details of this alleged conspiracy to Hamilton and Landis. I still can’t make this story make sense, except if Armstrong did not test positive.

CAS is postponing Contador’s hearing, per AC’s defense team request. What GARBAGE!

It is DISGUSTING that Pistol Punk is riding in the Giro, but to allow him to compete in the Tour too? OUTRAGEOUS!! This is the kind of crap that will one day force me to finally give up my beloved spectator sport.

I choose to suspend my disbelief just so I can watch & enjoy cycling. But, when they BREAK THE 3RD WALL by allowing a posititive-doper to compete, that kills it.

The 1999 TdF test results may or may not contain epo associated with Armstrong’s samples. It doesn’t matter one way or the other, except for salacious content.

The storage of those samples, and the data associated with them, came with a commitment of confidentiality and a promise they would be used only on an experimental basis to further anti-doping science. Armstrong has hired two lawyers who have had success interning the feds around when they seized results from MLB’s supposedly anonymous testing from the recent past.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lance-armstrong-bolsters-legal-team

I’ve been on record as being no particular fan of Lance Armstrong, but fair is fair. Aside from the impossible to correct problems with CoC, the 1999 samples are out of the conversation because it was promised they would never be in any potential conversation in the first place.

As for the delay in the Contador CAS hearing, good for him. Governance at the top level of road bike racing is so unbelievably fu&$ed up now, let’s screw it up some more so that there may, at some point, be an outcry that is actually listened to, and acted upon, to get the bureaucrats to clean up their acts, earn their money, and actually take some care in governing the sport. YMMV.

Aahhh yes, we all know the lab shouldn’t know which sample goes w/ which rider….except maybe when they are testing the TDF leader, or more accuratly, the EX-leader fighting to come back.

And based on their history (all the info that SOMEHOW gets leaked to L’equip among other places), I have a hard time believing that the UCI hasn’t been doing other ‘less than honorable things’ such as leaning on the labs to some extent (OK, so here’s the next batch of samples. And uhmmm, hey…. you MIGHT want to take a REALLY good look at THIS ONE…I’m not sayin’ who’s it is mind you….but when you are done, send me the results in this here yellow folder if you would please).

It would appear that over the years, the UCI has more leaks than the Bismark. You’d think they might be trying to nail down the source of those. Can’t be THAT many people who know this stuff (for example: the list matching riders with sample #’s, and now the infamous ‘rider suspectibility list’).

Great discussion going, keep it up!

Jeff and MattC,

For folks who claim you aren’t Lance fanboys you sure are in strong denial mode. LOL!.

MattC, in case you forgot it was the UCI that whitewashed the 1999 TDF EPO test results, and called Landis and Hamilton liars. Why, as custodians of Lance’s sample numbers, would they have leaked that to the Lab? We know how the reporter got those numbers. He asked Lance for his doping forms and Lance said OK. There is no evidence that the lab knew the identity of the sample.

Jeff,

LOL! You and your chain of custody. As if that had anything to do with whether those tests showed EPO. Ashendon shows conclusively that they do and that they were not tampered with.

If you want to put your head in the sand and ignore the compelling evidence that Lance doped in the 1999 TDF fine.

We know he cannot be sanctioned now based on those B samples. So what. It’s the truth we are talking about now.

MattC,

I stand corrected.

The lab knew they were testing Landis’s B sample. No way around that. What’s your evidence that they knew the identity of the A sample. I don’t recall any.

You seem to be saying that the UCI was out to get Landis. On the other hand they appear to have done nothing but protect Lance.

Why the difference?

History is rife with guys doing things proven and alleged that defy logic and reason….Tiger and his mistresses, Arnold and his love child, head of IMF, John Edwards….Power and Hubris clouds judgement, and when viewed in hindsight we ask ourselves “How did they think they would get away with it?”

M, If you actually are an attorney, you have an awfully casual attitude about CoC. Just saying….

There probably is epo in the ’99 samples. The samples in question probably belong to LA. That doesn’t change the fact that there is no way to positively tie the samples to LA because of reckless CoC practices associated with the lot of samples from ’99. From a casual standpoint, sure, you can say the samples are a likely indication LA used epo in the 1999 TdF. From a legal standpoint, no way and good luck. If the Feds attempt to introduce data from those samples as evidence, LA’s new lawyers will make sure those samples are a non-issue, just as they did with the Major League players supposedly anonymous samples, and there is precedent.

Regardless, CoC is irrelevant. As the Landis/USADA Malibu hearing confirmed, the samples belong to UCI. UCI guaranteed the samples would be kept anonymous and that they would only be used to further anti-doping research. That they failed to uphold their guarantee further demonstrates UCI’s high level of incompetence.

It’s an academic exercise for me anyway. I don’t care if the peloton was doped. I assume they were. They didn’t have a bloody test for epo in ’99. That pretty much invited its use. I also assume there is no way to come even close to retroactively adjust the results to reward the handful or so of clean riders from that era. I don’t think anyone was robbed. In field sports, you adjust your play based upon how the refs are calling the game. The riders did no different in ’99 and I find it difficult to fault them for adjusting to how their races were being officiated. YMMV.

I admire the French for laughing at Americans from the USA who get their panties in a twist over adulterous affairs related to our political figures. I assume they have a private life, a public life, and they should be capable of keeping the two separate. Given their mature attitude toward sex and politics, I’m perplexed as to why the French have chosen to get all “puritanical” about chemical assistance in bike racing. It’s not like they were not in on the ground floor. As I’ve written before, I favor a more health based approach. HCT within reasonable limits, no crack, no meth, no cyanide. Heroine is probably bad too? YMMV.

That said, you’d be hard pressed to find a person with more contempt for LA off the bike. I just don’t see anything there to admire. Accusing me of being a LA fanboy is laughable.

Thanks for the laugh, Jeff

Partial confirmation of Floyd’s & Tyler’s account of the 2001 TdS LA failed drug test, but far from a home run.

Martial Saugy confirms meeting with “Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong to discuss details of the early EPO test method”. Saugy indicates there were “suspicious” tests from the 2001 TdS, but denies there were positive tests associated with Armstrong.

As for Armstrong’s side, they don’t have any recollection of meeting with Saugy.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/swiss-lab-director-confirms-meeting-bruyneel-and-armstrong-over-suspect-samples

And thanks Larry for the detailed account of the ’99 samples. Well done sir.

Jeff, thanks for pointing out that article.

Saugy says that there were four suspect samples from the 2001 TdS — those would have been samples with a 70% to 80% score for synthetic EPO parameters, when a score of 80% or higher was required to test positive (according to the article, the positive requirement was later raised to 85%). Saugy would not have known whose samples these were, since the samples did not test positive, so they never would have been (officially) identified to particular riders.

Also according to Saugy, the meeting did not take place in 2001, as implied by 60 Minutes. It took place in 2002. So, as I suspected (and many here agreed), the meeting had nothing to do with any plot to suppress a 2001 positive doping result. Also according to Saugy, the meeting did not take place at the Swiss lab, but during a trip made to collect blood samples. “And it also wasn’t about discussing a particular result or to cover up anything. I explained how the EPO test worked and why there were suspect samples as well as positive ones. This information was part of a lecture that I had been giving in various locations.”

So if we are to believe Saugy, he gave members of the Armstrong team a private version of the same lecture he’d been giving publicly. It wasn’t wrong for the Armstrong team to have an interest in publicly available information about doping testing – many of us who comment here share this interest. The “meeting” sounds like an informal kind of thing, which perhaps explains why no one on the Armstrong team remembers the meeting. Also, the meeting took place 10 years ago. I personally do not remember every meeting I attended in 2002.

Also quite obviously, it would not be necessary for UCI to broker any such meeting, or for Armstrong to pay a six-figure bribe to learn information about EPO testing that he could have received at a public lecture.

OK. None of this disproves the conspiracy theorists. There could have been two meetings: a secret one in 2001 to quash the positive test, and a second more innocent meeting in 2002 to discuss EPO testing. Or Saugy could be lying about the whole business because, you know, he was in on the conspiracy because, you know, Armstrong bribed Saugy too. It’s the great thing about conspiracy theories, you can’t ever disprove them, something like you can never prove that an athlete didn’t dope.

If I were prosecuting Armstrong, I’d drop the whole “secret meeting with Saugy” angle, because it could only hurt my case.

Hi,

There is no need of samples to know for sure that Lance doped.

Lance was physiologic “tested” for the Olympic Games of 1996, the conclusion is : average recovering abilities.
His results before he was in relation with Dr. Ferrari, the well-known blood doping doctor, were insignifiant on TDF, he was unable to pass mountains, just a rider able to win a flatland stage.

With biological passport and the publication of his blood parameters, we now know for sure too that he blood doped when he got values clearly above 45% at the end of TDF. There is no reason for a rider to be dehydrated before a stage, and if it were, how could he has perforled well in that condition.

The entourage of Lance is full of people connected to doping: that is Carmichael involved in the doping of the junior team; Bruyneel aka the Hog for his strong appetit of “pillules”, Dr. Del Moral and Ferrari.

About Vrijman, few people are knowing that Verdruggen and Vrijman are close friends… strange to select his friend for an independent report.
Larry , why don’t you mention the strong words of WADA about the Vrijman report that has been qualified of farcical:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/5043260.stm
“The Vrijman report is so lacking in professionalism and objectivity that it borders on farcical.

Were the matter not so serious and the allegations it contains so irresponsible, we would be inclined to give it the complete lack of attention it deserves.”

A good lecture http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/wada_official_statement_vrijman_report.pdf

I am sure that everyone can understand that a new test can not follow the UCI rules of the old test… but for people close of science research they know that because if was the validation process of research, the retrotesting of 1999 samples were done with higher standard than usual test done for WADA or UCI anti-doping process. Because those testing should have to be replicated by any lab, there is documents specifiying the whole processus. Most important, those document were reviewed by scientists of other labs… Who can review a UCI antidoping test?

So there is clear facts ( hematocrit; EPO tests, ..), there is Lance physiology, his incredible transformation within 2 years, his links with doping, the multiple doping affairs, the multiple testimonies, to beat EPO riders like Pantani; Ullrich, Virenque… how could we reasonnably believe in a clean Lance? That makes no sense.

No need to discredit people who are speaking the truth about a doper.

Jean C, good to hear from you.

The focus in this post was originally the Hamilton interview, it then expanded to the allegation of a suppressed positive test result from the 2001 TdS, then sidetracked over to the L’Equipe revelations from 2005 and the Vrijman Report, and now we’re opening up Armstrong’s physiological state and the character of the people he’s associated with.

All of this is a reminder to me: either there’s been a whirlwind of circumstantial doping evidence surrounding Armstrong since he started cycling, or else there’s been a massive effort over the years (some of it more respectable than others) to try to pin a doping charge on Armstrong. Maybe both of these statements are true, depending on your point of view.

The physiological arguments are interesting, but it’s hard to say what they prove. The guys who run http://www.sportsscientists.com/ have discussed natural limits on the power a human being can generate on a bicycle, and have speculated that doping must be involved when these limits are exceeded. I acknowledge that the Science of Sport guys are about as smart as they come, but I still have problems with their arguments. The business of setting the natural limit of bicycle power depends on measuring a group of exceptional and clean riders, but you can’t ever be sure that the group represents the limit of human physiology (or for that matter, that the group is clean). Also, maximum power appears to increase as a rider’s weight increases (more muscle = more weight = more power), meaning that we’re not talking about an absolute limit. Also, for practical purposes, we’re looking at the ability of a rider to generate power over a specified time – over 5 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour – so we have to get a precise measurement for all these time periods. Then if we’re looking at an actual race, we have to consider temperature, road conditions, the ability of a rider to ride behind and utilize the draft of other riders, etc. This is a complicated business. I’m persuaded by the Science of Sport guys that there’s good science behind this inquiry, but I don’t think we can tell yet from power ratings who is doping and who is not. I know that we’ve looked at power readings for various races and racers over the years, but I don’t think we can reach any hard and fast doping conclusions from these readings. Suspicions, yes.

The Science of Sport guys have also written a number of terrific pieces about the biological passport, very much worth reading. See for example http://bit.ly/gkf4NK. A 45% hematocrit reading may be suspicious, but it’s not proof of doping, and it’s certainly not enough information to prove that Armstrong would have violated the parameters of his biological passport.

Regarding Armstrong’s entourage: “guilt by association” is not regarded as a good proof. Look at it this way: what if Armstrong had been careful throughout his career to associate only with the “right” kind of people – would we regard this as proof that he never doped? Or would we see this merely as Armstrong engaging in “public relations”, trying to make a false impression? If we can reach the same conclusion regardless of who Armstrong chose as his associates, then this choice does not amount to much in the way of proof.

On to the Vrijman report. In my comment, I cited to the full WADA report, the same one you cited to. I noted in my comment that WADA did not like the Vrijman Report – I’m sorry if I didn’t say this strongly enough. WADA rejected the Vrijman Report in its entirety, in the strongest possible terms. MY point is that WADA never answered the specific substantive arguments made by Vrijman concerning the LNDD’s testing. For example, Vrijman stated that LNDD tested the 1999 samples using a new testing method that was never validated. WADA never came out and said, “you’re wrong Mr. Vrijman, this new method is validated, peer reviewed and WADA authorized.” Neither did LNDD. WADA may not agree with VRijman’s findings –for example, WADA may not agree that EPO is not stable in frozen urine (even though Dr. Ayotte has said this, and there have been peer reviewed scientific studies to this effect), but WADA never came out and said that EPO IS stable in frozen urine.

WADA had every opportunity to answer the Vrijman Report with its own detailed report defending the work done by the LNDD. It never did so. Neither did the LNDD.

Let’s look at it this way: let’s say that Vrijman was instructed by the UCI to write a report favorable to Armstrong. I’m not saying that this is what happened, but let’s assume you’re right about this. If you’re right, then Vrijman in effect acted as Armstrong’s lawyer on this case, and not as an objective judge of the facts. If you’re right, the Vrijman Report is something like a legal brief that that attorney for one side submits to the judge in a legal case. A legal brief cannot be tossed in the garbage simply because it is written by the advocate for one of the parties. There’s often a lot of terrific information to be found in a legal brief, as we all know from having lived through the Landis arbitrations and having read some of these briefs. In a case, both sides get to brief their positions – then we compare and contrast the arguments. If only one side briefs their case and the other side is silent, the side that briefs their case usually wins. If one side briefs their case and the other side responds only in part, then the unresponded parts of the first side’s brief tends to win the day.

Vrijman argued (persuasively, in my view) that these LNDD test results do not prove doping because the LNDD was using a new “accelerated” method to find EPO, and this new test method was never validated. In simplest language, LNDD did not know at the time whether the new method worked. To my knowledge: (1) this “accelerated” test method has not been validated since 2005, (2) it was never published, (3) it was never peer reviewed, (4) it was never approved by WADA and (5) it is not in use today. So regardless of what we think of Vrijman, he’s presented a strong argument here, one based in a simple fact of scientific procedure: you have to prove your test method before the test method can itself be used to prove anything else. WADA never disputed this claim, and neither did LNDD. This is why I said that “the testing proved nothing” – not because I meant to discredit anyone, but because of the nature of the scientific value of what LNDD was trying to achieve.

Perhaps Vrijman was Armstrong’s advocate in this case. Regardless, Vrijman’s substantive arguments were never refuted by LNDD or WADA, and I think they carry the day.

I know I did not respond to everything you wrote about Armstrong. It will be easier if we can focus on one argument at a time.

Larry,

Lance’s hematocrit is around 41% as he said and as we can see in his published blood values.
During TDF, hematocrit goes down by 5-7% but never goes up!
So Lance should had have around 38-40% at best at the end of TDF, but he had values around 48% for the most important that were in the 3rd week!
As we have seen in 2009, he was not able ro reproduce that kind of values? Why not if he had done naturally by the past and as suggested us Carmichael in his statement that Lance were stronger or as stronger as in the past.
Everything of Lance goes to doping, nothing is coherent with a clean rider.

No doubt Hincapie testified. No doubt what was leaked is the truth.. But my question in all this, just how did the Hincapie information get out? How did 60 minutes get it? And was the leak, in fact, illegal as Lance’s lawyers are saying. If it was in fact illegal, what does that mean? Does the leakee get jail time for leaking grand jury testimony? Does someone/team lance need to file some type of complaint/action for that to happen? Can team Lance somehow use this to get that actual testimony thrown out even? Can CBS get in trouble/fined/etc for leaking grand jury testimony to the public?

Larry, Thanks. Very interesting.

Some food for thoughts.

We now know that Landis learned to dope with Armstrong, so
when Landis tested positive Lance could have been disappointed. But why did he encourage Floyd to lie about his doping? Why did he trash the lab? Revenge des pite his own doping?

Jean C, we know why Armstrong trashed the LNDD lab in Paris — that lab was actively involved in the illegal leak to L’Equipe of “test” results on Armstrong’s 1999 samples just one year prior.

I don’t know that Armstrong encouraged Landis to lie about his doping. According to Landis as reported in the Kimmage interview, Armstrong called Landis after his disastrous “I would say no” press conference, and Armstrong said “that’s not the way you do it.” That’s not advice for Landis to lie — that’s advice on how to most effectively fight a doping charge.

Landis said that Vaughters told him to tell the truth but not name the names of anyone else. Landis said that McQuaid told him that there was no way he could win if he fought the doping charge, and that he should just stay home and keep his money. What if Armstrong had given Landis the same advice that McQuaid allegedly gave Landis, or that Vaughters allegedly gave Landis? Our conclusion would not change. Of course, if Armstrong DID dope and he advised Landis to tell the whole truth and name all names (including Armstrong’s), then that would have been the best evidence of all that Armstrong doped!

Again, we’re looking at a situation where there’s nothing Armstrong could have done that would be regarded positively at this point. Those that have concluded that Armstrong doped look back on things Armstrong has done during his career and see those things as proof that he doped. But there’s no proof content in some of these things, not if we’d be drawing the same conclusions about Armstrong if he’d done the opposite thing.

It is interesting, looking back at the Kimmage interview, how Landis excuses his decision to lie back in 2006. Landis describes this decision in the context of text messages he exchanged with Vaughters after the positive test result. According to Landis, Vaughters told Landis: “Just say what you know about you and don’t say anything about anyone else.” Apparently, Landis could not abide this advice, and Landis responded: “Yeah, but Jonathan, this story involves other people. How do I tell the story without that? What do I do when they say ‘Who helped you dope on the Postal Service team?’”

The way Landis describes it, it would be a “half-truth” to do what David Millar did, confess his own doping, and be silent about who helped him. In Landis’ mind, a half-truth is the same thing as a lie, so if Landis was going to lie he might as well lie all the way, which is what he decided to do (including, of course, lying to SMTML and thousands of others to get the money he needed to persist in lying all the way). Landis put it this way to Kimmage: “In my mind there was no difference between saying ‘I didn’t do it’ and telling a half-truth like David Millar did … That’s not what I was going to do. If I was telling the truth, then I was telling the truth and if I was going to feel guilty about lying then f*** it, I’ll just lie and hope for the best … And that’s why I thought ‘Well, if I’m going to lie, why don’t I just save myself too? I’m saving everyone else!’”

Of course, it’s possible that Landis has told the whole truth to USADA or the Grand Jury. But Landis told Kimmage that if he was going to admit doping to the PRESS, he’d have to tell the whole truth to the PRESS. According to Landis, Vaughters advised Landis to tell the truth about his own doping, but to say “it’s none of your business” if they asked about other people. According to Landis, he responded: “Vaughters, have you ever talked to the press? Saying ‘none of your business’ is probably the worst thing you can say. In my mind the truth was complex. In his mind it was ‘Yeah, I doped now just go home.’ That’s what he was trying to tell me to say.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Landis just told you what the truth will look like when he decides to tell it: he’ll not only tell us THAT he doped, but HOW he doped. He’ll tell us the names of everyone who helped him. Landis has not done this: he’s only named the names of some of his enemies on U.S. Postal. But, for example, he’s never named the names of the people who helped him dope on team Phonak. He’s still telling us what he personally considers to be a half-truth, which he personally considers to be a lie, and when Landis tells us a lie he feels no hesitation to lie all the way.

This is why I don’t believe Landis now.

Rant, you forget, I live only a few miles from the corner of Pico and Sepulveda.

Jean C,
The Landis defense failed 2 times in WADA’s closed bureaucracy protected system. I’m not sure where you count the 3rd instance? Independent experts had little good to say about LNDD practices. Also, experts formerly employed under the WADA umbrella, but no longer employed during the period of the Malibu hearing were not supportive, with one notable witness having a damning comment or two while on the stand. Regardless, LNDD was pilloried in the court of public opinion. Funding was cut – coincidence or not? LNDD has not come close to defending their practices from the time of testing the Landis samples or from the scathing review they much earlier received in the Vrijman Report. For a HVB crony, Vrijman did a thorough job of discrediting LNDD and LNDD failed to rehabilitate its reputation or image in any meaningful way. Lots of screaming, hand waving, and other forms of gesticulations, but no attempt to refute point for point on a scientific basis. Now WADA has adjusted the rules to prevent the sort of sunshine they bathed in when LNDD was challenged in Malibu, CA. Too bad. If they were confident in their ethics, methodology, and science, then they would welcome public review as a confirmation of their competence and expertise. Sadly for WADA and LNDD, that is, and has not been the case.

In its move to squash any further review, the likes of which we were able to witness at the Malibu hearing, WADA seems to have inadvertently adopted a South Park Officer Barbrady sound clip as their unofficial motto:
http://www.hark.com/clips/wszpqzwsys-nothing-to-see

On to more current anti-doping blundering and Results Management of the benign race fixing variety:http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/bmc-reactivates-ballan-santambrogio
BMC has, once again, reinstated Ballan (I don’t recall if Santambrogio has been benched before?). Ballan was scheduled to ride the Giro, but was pulled because of rumors of an investigation related to actions he may, or may not, have taken prior to joining BMC. BMC reinstates the riders because of the absence of any formal notification. If the goal was to keep the riders out of the Giro, then well done by serially employing this unethical tactic on a number of riders over the course of a decade or so.

Jean C, for the moment at least, I’ll avoid a discussion of how L’Equipe got hold of the information for its 2005 article. The focus here has been on information pertaining to whether Armstrong doped, and that’s a large enough topic already.

Thanks for pointing me to the fable of the fox and the crow. I’m sure I’ll be able to make use of it sometime!

LOL!

I’ve been out in the woods camping. Too much reading to catch up on.

But some replies to some prior points.

Jeff,

1. Any violation of chain of custody rules is pretty much irrelevant because the proper sample ID numbers were recorded properly on each sample vial at the time of the race. There is no doubt about whose sample was being tested, when they could be matched with the rider number kept by UCI. The only doubt is if you believe the samples were spiked or the labels changed. But if that is the case, then it doesn’t matter if the chain of custody rules were followed or not, because you have to believe someone in the lab is crooked anyway. And if you believe the lab personnel spiked the samples then you are in the realm of Lance and Landis fanboy fantasy. (you know like maybe some hacker just happened to hack into the lab and send Landis the stolen info) If they spiked it on a research project, why didn’t they do it in the real race when it might matter.

Larry,

1. If you took it personally that I was pissed off at you for miss-characterizing my arguments then so be it. And when I said, I had to laugh, I did, at both you and Rant spinning out long speculative scenarios to make sense of why Lance would say anything incriminating to a friend. Of course I was a little guilty of that also. But it was based on a simple reading of Lance’s “brash” or ass hole personality. Riddle me this: Why did a Barry Bonds let his personal shopper watch him be injected by his trainer? Why did Gary Hart dare the reporters to follow him around when he was shacked up with that dishy blond? Or why did Tim Montgomery and Christie Gaines admit to Kelly White they were taking the steroid the Clear? Who knows? We could spin long scenarios about why they would never do this, or we could call it “brashness”.

2. I see you remember the Kelly White cases also. LOL! CAS found that her testimony alone, uncorroborated by other witnesses or evidence, was sufficient to find a doping violation against Tim Montgomery and Christie Gaines. In those cases, each of the accused made statements to Kelly (an admitted doper herself) that could be, and were taken by CAS, to constitute admissions of taking the “Clear”, the Balco designer steroid. For example, Kelli heard Montgomery say to a third party “She said it (the Clear) makes her calves tight too”. The “too” made it an admission of doping by Montgomery.

It’s true, that both Tim and Christie did not testify to contradict this testimony (probably because they were being criminally investigated in connection with BALCO) and this played a big part in the decision. But it’s not clear that Lance will testify either. It’s pretty risky. Barry Bonds didn’t. It’s also true, that those CAS cases involved an implied admission of doping by the accused, and not an allegation of wrong doing by third parties like the UCI. I’m not sure what difference that would make here as to proving Lance’s culpability, as opposed to the UCI’s. But I had simply noted that such unsupported confessions to a witness had been sufficient to sustain a doping violation. Which appears to be true based on the Kelli White cases.

So here we have both Landis and Tyler testifying (as I am sure they would) that Lance admitted to them on separate occasions that he had tested positive in the 2001 TdS and that it was covered up. It was enough in my mind to require further independent criminal investigation to see whether the UCI was corrupt. Not more cover-up, as you seem to want with your claim of privacy when I suggested that Lance’s 1991 test results be disclosed. Btw, I assume that these results would be available in a criminal investigation, but I don’t know Swiss law.

3. Larry thanks for the summary on the Verbrugen commissioned whitewash report. That’s you at your best.
I don’t have access to the report so I’m going to take your points somewhat at face value, even though I think the report was basically a lawyer’s brief to exonerate Lance, not some independent inquiry.

These were some of the points you made:

“(1) the tested samples had been opened and used for earlier tests, (2) there is evidence that naturally occurring EPO can undergo changes in storage that cause it to test positive for synthetic EPO, and (3) there is evidence (substantiated in the report by a statement of Dr. Christiane Ayotte, the head of the WADA Montreal lab) that EPO testing doesn’t work on urine samples stored long-term, since EPO is not stable in urine even when it is frozen.”

And this is what Michale Ashenden has to say

“One of the things, I guess there’s been misinformation in this particular area – is that the samples weren’t analyzed properly, that they were analyzed using a different protocol than what was used in proper dope controls – and that’s just not correct. Obviously in research where the data you come up with is going to govern how you do testing in the future, you’re exceptionally careful with these measurements. You want to make sure that you don’t make any mistakes. And you want to make sure that you, for example, weren’t looking at urine that has been contaminated with bacteria, or isn’t what we call unstable urine, where sometimes the bands shift not because of EPO use, but because of some other factors. So all of these checks and cross checks were put in place with these samples, so the data is valid. The laboratory, I’ve checked with the people who did the analysis, and I very carefully went through it with them. They’re absolutely 100% sure that these results are valid.

And as far as the fluctuations you speak of, when we took the samples’ dates, and matched them with the percentage of isoforms, and overlaid that with the performances during the Tour de France, then a clear pattern begins to emerge. You can see that on some days there’s a preponderance of EPO in the urine sample, perhaps on the next day they come down a little bit, then they come back up, which is suggesting you’ve taken another EPO injection.”

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden
(there’s a lot more there worth reading)

So in his view the study was done reliably and with proper procedure.

Let me make some other comments:

1. As to opening the vials or leaving them open. Why wouldn’t the lab personnel be just as careful not to contaminate samples when doing a scientific study as a doping control. In both cases, the results are meaningless if you mix or contaminate samples. In fact they might actually be more careful, since they are not under the time constraints of the assembly line dope testing.

2. As to degradation of the samples. In that case you would get no results. Here you got results.

3. As to “evidence” that instability could cause false positives. This is an important point that should be looked at, but I don’t know what that “evidence” is. Although Ashenden makes the point that the samples appeared stable.

However, there is one statistical point that cuts against the false positives exoneration:

“So out of the 87 usable samples that they gathered, they got 13 positives and 6 of them belonged to Lance Armstrong.”

According to Ashenden the chances of Lance getting 6 positives in that situation, assuming the false positives occur randomly, is 1 in 300. Recall that the standard used for testing the statistical validity of most scientific hypotheses is 1 in 100, or strictly speaking 5 or 2 out of 100 (95% and 98% validity).

So the chances that you could get these results from false positives, or contamination, or random spiking of the samples is very, very low.

From a scientific point of view I think these test results are very strong evidence that Lance took EPO during the 1999 TDF, especially if bolstered with Tyler’s testimony and likely Hincapie’s that they observed Lance doping at this time.

And also recall we now have at least 2 leading riders on Lance’s 1999 team admitting they took EPO, Frankie Andrieu and Tyler Hamilton, and probably a third, Hincapie.

Of course, Lance was the one clean one.

Armstrong’s letter demanding a 60 Minutes apology is here.
http://assets.espn.go.com/preview/May_31_Letter.pdf

The letter is worth reading, but I WOULD say that, because the letter makes essentially the same critique of the 60 Minutes piece that I made earlier in these comments.

A good discussion of the Montgomery and Gaines cases is here: http://bit.ly/mkrLIv. Anyone can read this discussion and see why these cases cannot be applied to prove a doping case against Armstrong based solely on his alleged statements to Hamilton and Landis that he failed a doping test. I can explain in the (unlikely) event that anyone is interested.

It seems that Saugy is now claiming some knowledge of “suspicious” test results from the 2001 TdF for Armstrong.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CYC_DOPING_ARMSTRONG?SITE=SCGRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Question: how did he know the samples in question belonged to Armstrong? A lab is not supposed to have any knowledge of who samples belong to.

I also notice this contradicts information he has provided federal authorities (but not under oath). So which version do we believe?

William, just a reminder that the same Martial Saugy once pronounced that 47 riders either blood doped or used EPO during the 2007 Tour de France, and that 80% of the peloton was using HGH. Saugy just “knows” things that the rest of us can only guess at.

By the way, next time some government official promises to keep your secret, remember to ask them to cross their heart and hope to die. That might work.

And for you Lance and Landis fanboy types who believe in the fantasy possibility that the lab doctored the results:

Besides the statistical 300 to 1 odds against the claim Lance’s samples could have been randomly spiked or tampered with, Ashenden also shows why even if Lance’s samples were somehow identified and targeted, spiking was pretty impossible here.

*********************

“AS: And of course, if you take it to the next level, let’s say, not only will they have to spike it, they have to spike it in a way that when positive samples are on concurrent days, the second day has to be a lower percentage. And not only that, when they spike the prologue sample they have to spike it really high because it was after a short effort and it was tested earlier in the day. Now if you take those factors into consideration the odds become astronomical, don’t they?

MA: I honestly can’t conceive how you could possibly do that. I don’t understand how you could inject enough EPO so that the percentage was slightly lower on the next day, it just beggars belief that you could adjust the amount of EPO you put in a sample by such a miniscule amount. And to be quite frank, it doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny, it’s a fantastic claim in the literal sense of the word, it’s not backed up by a shred of evidence at all, and I think it needs to be taken on that merit.”

I have a secret to reveal here. By revealing this secret, I hope we can put to rest any further discussion of the LNDD’s 2004 round of testing on the Armstrong 1999 samples, the testing that was the basis for the L’Equipe article and the Vrijman Report.

Here’s my secret. In my back yard there lives a magical squirrel named Herman. At least I call him Herman. Actually, I don’t even know if the squirrel is a he or a she. But Herman lives in my back yard just the same, and Herman is Magic. Herman may not know a lot about a lot of things, but Herman knows doping. I can ask Herman whether so-and-so is doping, and Herman answers, and Herman is always right. Herman reminds me a lot of some commenters I know on cycling web sites, only those commenters aren’t magic, and Herman is.

Now, I’ve said that Herman is always right. Back in 1998, I asked Herman about the Festina scandal, and whether the cyclists caught up in that scandal were doping. Herman kind of froze for a moment, pretending not to look at me, and then scampered away. I took it as a sign. Not every oracle pops up with a clear answer like a magic 8-ball – entrails and tea leaves require interpretation. I decided that Herman’s “freeze then run” action was an answer meaning that the Festina cyclists were doping … and as it turned out, they WERE doping! Herman was right.

I’ve consulted Herman many times since. Herman was right about Hamilton, and Landis, and probably Ullrich, and a host of others. Herman is also expert on doping cases in other sports – he was right about Marion Jones and Barry Bonds – the labs couldn’t catch those dopers, but Herman did. In fact, Herman has never been wrong: in every case, Herman freezes a moment, then scurries away and I know the truth.

One caveat: I say that Herman is never wrong, but the truth is that Herman has never been proven wrong. For example, Herman is convinced that Armstrong doped, and that Contador doped too. He’s probably right, but I don’t have confirmation yet. I should also report that Herman thinks that Mother Theresa used EPO and that Mister Rogers liked anabolic steroids. I kind of hope that Herman is wrong, at least about Mr. Rogers, but I’m probably being naïve. You don’t rise to the top of the world of children’s television on just organic food and distilled water.

I meant to ask Herman about Diana Taurasi, but I forgot to do so promptly after the Turkish lab mistakenly announced that she was doping. I’ve always wanted to know how Herman would communicate that someone WASN’T doping. Of course, Herman might know about some other unreported issue with Taurasi, just the way he knows that Charles Dickens didn’t really write “A Tale of Two Cities”, and that Helen of Troy’s figure was surgically enhanced.

I’ve been trying to explain to Herman how anti-doping labs are supposed to work, but I don’t think Herman understands. To Herman, the work of the anti-doping lab is correct when it verifies what he already knows, and I have to admit that this is first-class reasoning when it comes to squirrels. I find it hard to explain to Herman the difference between a lab producing a valid result, compared to when a lab produces a result that just turns out to be right.

You can really understand the problem if you take Herman’s point of view. Right is right. If the labs follow a validated procedure and do not reveal the truth, what good is that? If a lab follows no validated procedure and reaches the right conclusion, why should I have a problem with that? I’ve tried to explain to Herman the subtleties of WADA’s ISL, or ISO 17025, but to be honest Herman has no patience for the scientific method, and given his perfect record, I can’t say that I blame him.

(the preceding tale was inspired by Jean C’s earlier tale of the crow and the fox)

I’ve said we need to see Lance’s 2001 TdS test results since we can’t necessarily believe what the UCI is telling us, but Larry is shocked that we would request such private and privileged information.

Then Saugy “told a Swiss newspaper that the lab found suspicious levels of EPO, a blood-boosting drug, in four urine samples from the race Armstrong won. But Saugy said he didn’t know if any belonged to the seven-time Tour de France winner.”

Now we have this:

“The director of the Swiss anti-doping laboratory informed federal authorities last fall that Lance Armstrong’s test results from the 2001 Tour de Suisse were “suspicious” and “consistent with EPO use,” The Associated Press has learned”

“The AP has learned that on three occasions, Saugy told authorities about the Armstrong tests and had agreed to turn over the results to anti-doping officials. But he never produced them, which prompted the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to send him a letter in April asking for the evidence.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/news/story?id=6614413

“Never produced them.” WTF?

Smells like …..maybe ……cover-up? Or cover you own ass?

Maybe I’m turning into a Lance fanboy type to think that a lab director might doctor or hide test results.

No way. LOL!

Very curious.

Like I said this really deserves further investigation.

There is a word to describe those who think that only criminals (and their friends) have an interest in enforcing privacy rights, and who view any person’s concern for privacy rights as proof that the person has something to hide. Not a nice word either.

Regarding Saugy, either his stories are not being reported correctly, or else he’s told two inconsistent stories. If it’s the former, then we should soon be able to set matters straight. If it’s the latter, I’m not sure why a lab director’s inability to tell consistent stories is grounds for violating a third party’s rights of privacy. But you know me, omerta-enabler.

Of course, Saugy’s own right of privacy has been violated by the leak of his confidential testimony. I TRULY hope he complains about it. The irony of a WADA lab director complaining about a breach of privacy!

In all likelihood, Saugy was talking out of his … er … HAT … when he said he had proof of suspicious test results. Because, as Rant and William pointed out, Saugy would not have the ability to identify the test results of any rider without reporting a positive test result. Also, Saugy has a history of talking out of his … er … HAT. http://www.b.dk/sport/47-naesten-positive-proever-under-tour-de-france. In any event, that would explain why Saugy hasn’t produced the test results, because he was talking out of his … er … HAT … and he doesn’t have the test results to produce.

Of course, this could be a COVER UP! Saugy could be part of a massive conspiracy to hide the fact that Armstrong produced a “suspicious” test result … which he is covering up by telling federal officials and USADA that there was a suspicious test result and promising to provide it, then not providing it. Because, you know, that is the way people cover up the existence of something, by telling federal officials that the something exists and promising to provide it to federal officials. That always works. Once you tell the government you have something and promise to give it to them, they just … forget about it! And you’ve covered it up.

Excuse me, but I think I’ll go have an intelligent conversation with Herman The Magic Squirrel.

Medical privacy is a complicated area, governed in the U.S. by state and federal law as well as by private contract. We can assume that these laws are equally complicated in Europe. No one’s medical privacy rights are absolute (use of the word “privileged” in this context is probably not accurate, though there is a doctor-patient privilege of confidentiality that can complicate this discussion). At the same time, the right of government officials to view confidential patient records is not absolute, either. Even a legitimate government request for private medical information may need to be specific and limited in scope.

Sorry M, you haven’t hit on why CoC is important here. But glad we agree the samples won’t be used as evidence, although for somewhat different reasons, so we don’t need to split hairs.

As for Saugy, if reports are to be believed, he’s a loose and contradictory cannon. He’s made some sensational accusations about the number of dopers in a particular and somewhat recent TdF. He might be right?, but has done nothing to back up those claims. Sensational unsubstantiated accusations and contradictory statements on the subject in question do not make him a candidate for a reliable witness. YMMV.

Question: How do the labs know which rider’s samples they are testing?
Answer: Sometimes it’s a matter of deduction. Batch of samples coming in from a race in progress. Limited number of riders tested each day. Known pattern to the riders being selected for testing (with a few wild cards). TUE’s sometimes are a dead giveaway. Bureaucratic mismanagement not already covered. Other factors. And for conspiracy theorists, Bureaucratic Cheating. (Although I’d say the conspiracy theory isn’t so far fetched in this case because of the characters we are dealing with at UCI/WADA/some Labs?) If they are willing to lie about & manipulate the small things…… YMMV.

Larry,

I’m still talking to you, even though you aren’t talking to me. -)

1. You make much of Ayotte’s critical comments. Apparently she never saw the test results, only the news reports, because she mistakenly thought the test must have been just mathematical recalculations rather than new tests. She is quoted as stating EPO breaks down in 2 or 3 months even if frozen. This seems weird, since why are they talking about retesting samples now with new technology if that is the case.

In any case Ashenden, explains that if there is degradation then you would get no results, whereas here you got positive results.

“There is no way that synthetic EPO can suddenly appear. It can disappear, you could conceivably have degradation where synthetic EPO could break down, it’s not likely but it’s conceivable. But in that scenario you’ve got synthetic EPO disappearing, not appearing. It’s breaking a pretty fundamental law of physics to say you can generate a molecule of EPO from nothing.”

Moreover, you have the statistical evidence. Even if the degradation generated false positives, the odds are 300 to 1 that you could have gotten 6 Lance positives out the 13 positives in this sample of 89 if the degradation occurred randomly.

The 6 positives also correct for the lack of A sample confirmatory tests, which was another of Ayotte’s criticisms.

2. You make much of the claim that the lab supposedly didn’t follow a certain protocol. What I’d like to know, and what I assume the whitewash doesn’t answer is what steps didn’t they follow in that protocol, and does it make any difference to the validity of the results. Not yet having waded through the report I’ll assume the the whitewash just pulled a gotcha, and didn’t actually investigate or document that. Thus they use words like “accelerated”, but don’t explain what was left out.

Now Ashenden says he went over the results carefully and thoroughly with the lab staff and was satisfied that the results were reliable.

Ashenden explains the tests were to evaluate how different positivity values might affect the number of positives in a sample of actual doping riders so they used the 1999 TdF. They would be using essentially the same test as they do now just looking at different cut-off values.
……….
“I mentioned earlier there’d been revisions over time of what the positivity criteria were. Initially it was 80% basic isoforms. The research that was conducted with these samples was informing them of whether new criteria they were considering applying would have been effective in catching athletes in previous events.

The only kind of samples that are useful in that context are samples that have got EPO in them, ’cause then you could say by criteria A you’d fail, but by criteria B you didn’t fail, and by criteria C we saw nothing at all. And that was the purpose of the Paris investigation – to go back, to look at samples, and to see how the different criteria applied”
……………………..

Then Ashenden explains that they are using pretty much the same test as they normally do.

………………………………………
“One of the things, I guess there’s been misinformation in this particular area – is that the samples weren’t analyzed properly, that they were analyzed using a different protocol than what was used in proper dope controls – and that’s just not correct.”
……………………………….

Then Ashenden explains that they corrected for any degradation in the samples.

………………………………………….
“You want to make sure that you don’t make any mistakes. And you want to make sure that you, for example, weren’t looking at urine that has been contaminated with bacteria, or isn’t what we call unstable urine, where sometimes the bands shift not because of EPO use, but because of some other factors. So all of these checks and cross checks were put in place with these samples, so the data is valid. The laboratory, I’ve checked with the people who did the analysis, and I very carefully went through it with them. They’re absolutely 100% sure that these results are valid.”
……………………………………….

“I VERY CAREFULLY WENT THROUGH IT WITH THEM”

He didn’t just assume that the controls were in place as you seem to argue.

So from a scientific point of view Ashenden is persuaded.

Did they miss some step in the protocol? He doesn’t go through that. But if they did, it doesn’t appear that it affected the scientific validity of these results in his mind.

3. One other point. The positive results are consistent with how a rider would dope during the race.

“And as far as the fluctuations you speak of, when we took the samples’ dates, and matched them with the percentage of isoforms, and overlaid that with the performances during the Tour de France, then a clear pattern begins to emerge. You can see that on some days there’s a preponderance of EPO in the urine sample, perhaps on the next day they come down a little bit, then they come back up, which is suggesting you’ve taken another EPO injection.

You don’t have EPO every single day. You might take it every two or three days. So your values go up or down according to when you took those injections and when those urine samples were taken. Now, you overlay all of those data together and you can begin to see a pattern that’s consistent with EPO use.”

You can look at the chart in the article.

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden

M, I have not figured out how to argue with someone who’s been persistently and personally insulting without at the same time acknowledging their presence. An interesting rhetorical problem that I will ponder while I write this post.

So long as LNDD failed to use a validated test method, we cannot rely on the results they reached. There’s no exception to this rule, not even if the results look right to you or me or Dr. Ashenden. It doesn’t mean anything to look at the odds that non-validated tests might produce this result or that result. I’m not required to explain the results of non-validated tests, any more than I can explain why your tea leaves arranged themselves into a particular pattern. Either the test method is validated or it isn’t. If the test result is not validated, you cannot validate the test by showing it produced a result that looks valid to you … at least, not if you then want to turn around and use your unconventionally validated lab method to prove that the result is correct. That reasoning is circular.

(A quick aside: you’ve focused on how it would be impossible to spike samples with EPO. Actually, as part of LNDD’s 2004 studies, LNDD intentionally spiked urine with r-EPO in order to have positive samples to test. Nothing wrong with doing this in this context, of course.)

The Vrijman Report reached the conclusion that “The samples were analysed following a non-disclosed and non-validated ‘accelerated measurement procedure’ only, that departed in essential aspects from the mandatory provisions of WADA’s laboratory and testing standards in general and r-EPO testing requirements in particular.” Elsewhere in the report, Vrijman notes that “This ‘accelerated measurement procedure’ had been derived from the regular analytical procedures for conducting doping controls. A detailed description however, was not provided. According to the LNDD, this ‘accelerated measurement procedure’ allowed the laboratory to test the urine samples more rapidly, while, at the same time, producing data considered to be of sufficient quality for the limited purpose of the research the LNDD had been conducting, notwithstanding the fact that this procedure appears to differ considerably from the mandatory analysis procedure(s) for urine samples required by the ISL. However, the LNDD believed the use of the ‘accelerated measurement procedure’ to be justified, as the testing data were only meant to populate a database for a new mathematical model, which was being developed for a new detection method for r-EPO and not for doping control purposes. The ‘accelerated measurement procedure’ however, has to date not been disclosed or validated.”

According to Vrijman, LNDD representatives reported that (1) the analyses results had been obtained, using a part of the mandatory screening measurement procedure only; (2) only a single (measurement) standard had been used; no negative and positive control samples had been used; and (3) three different interpretation methods for r-EPO appear to have been used: i.e. a visual method, the so–called “direct urine test”, applying the so-called “80% BAP Standard” and the new “mathematical model”. Also, as I pointed out earlier, the LNDD reported to Vrijman that the lab did not conduct the stability tests described in TD2004EPO. But Vrijman also noted that LNDD officials appear to have told different stories to WADA. With the inconsistent stories and lack of documentation, Vrijman apparently decided that he could not specify exactly how LNDD deviated from the validated test method, which was probably a smart move on his part.

It’s not accurate to say that the Vrijman Report produced a “gotcha” or that the report did not try to explain what was left out. The Vrijman Report is FAR more detailed on these points than anything you’ve cited from WADA or Ashenden. The problem is not that Vrijman did not try to investigate here, but that LNDD told inconsistent stores and failed to produce adequate documentation of its accelerated lab method. For this reason, I’ve focused on the area of agreement between Vrijman’s conclusions and WADA’s conclusions, as you’ve read in my prior posts.

I’ve already addressed Dr. Ashenden’s willingness to accept the LNDD test results. Yes, Ashenden did say that it was “incorrect” to state that the lab used a different protocol “than what was used in proper dope controls”, and that “he very carefully went through it with them” (whether the “it” here is the lab’s method, its results or some combination is hard to say). Given your critique of the lack of detail on this point in the Vrijman Report, I’m surprised that you’d accept Ashenden’s use of the single word “carefully” as proof that LNDD used a validated lab method and that both Vrijman AND WADA are wrong on this point. In any event, we do not know what it was that Ashenden did “carefully” to verify that LNDD used a validated lab method. Did Ashenden visit LNDD, and if so, did LNDD have documentation of its procedures that it failed to show Vrijman and WADA? Or as I suspect, did Ashenden interview LNDD officials over the phone? When did this meeting or interview take place? Who did Ashenden speak to at LNDD? He says only that he “checked with the people who did the analysis” – a neat trick, since the identity of the lab technicians that performed this work has never been identified. We can guess that Ashenden spoke to Prof. de Ceaurriz, who was director of LNDD at the time the testing was performed and remained so until his death in 2010.

Let’s do what good lawyers do and try to read all of the evidence together. We know that publicly at least, LNDD has stood behind its data in this testing. It regards the results of the Armstrong sample testing as “unequivocal”. In fairness to the lab, it’s probably best to rephrase the lab’s position in more scientific terms, and instead say that the lab believes that it used a method that was “fit for purpose” to generate the data it needed for its new mathematical model. But the lab has blurred this point, not just in its public statements but in its conversations with Vrijman. When Vrijman asked whether the Armstrong findings truly constituted adverse analytical findings, the lab first responded “technically, yes; legally no.” But when Vrijman discussed “the mandatory analytical technical, as well the procedural requirements for analysing urine samples for doping control purposes as detailed in the ISL and ‘TD2004EPO’, as well as in the ISO/IEC 17025 international standard, both representatives of the LNDD concluded on their own that their reply had been incorrect and that the right answer was an ‘unquali?ed no’.”

Evidently, LNDD sees a distinction between whether it followed the right protocol and whether it found reliable results. Evidently, WADA saw the same distinction.

M, I gather that you have no respect for the Vrijman Report, even though you don’t appear to have read the report. So let’s look more closely at what WADA had to say, back in the day. WADA’s response to Vrijman goes on for 12 pages, but WADA spent only a paragraph responding to the points Vrijman raised about the LNDD’s testing methodology. Here is that paragraph:

“The process used by the French Laboratory in conducting its research was not the process used for analysing samples for the purpose of sanctions. Mr. Vrijman, at all times, confuses this fundamental difference and seems to indicate that, in conducting research, the laboratory was required to carry it out in the same manner as for analysing samples for adverse analytical findings. This is not the case, and Mr. Vrijman, in directing himself to the rules relating to samples collected for analysis rather than understanding the difference for research, has totally misdirected himself in his inquiry. This very basic error leads to ill-informed and incorrect outcomes. The laboratory has indicated publicly that it has no doubt whatsoever in the results of its analysis, and that no sample used for the research project was contaminated, manipulated or interfered with. There may be appropriately stored residue still available for DNA and other further analysis.”

What’s not to understand here? WADA is clearly stating that the LNDD did not follow the WADA process for EPO testing. WADA uses this point to criticize Vrijman, in essence saying that Vrijman was wrong to judge LNDD against the standards set forth in WADA’s testing rules. WADA made it clear: LNDD was conducting research, not testing for doping violations, so of course LNDD would follow some other testing protocol. Nonetheless, WADA seems willing to accept the LNDD results as fit for some purpose, presumably a research purpose.

So again, the facts lay out pretty clearly. If you ask WADA or LNDD about the validity of the test results on the Armstrong 1999 samples, both will say that these results are valid … just as Ashenden concluded from his “careful” investigation that these results were valid. But if you ask LNDD or WADA if the lab followed a validated method to produce these results, LNDD will answer “no” and WADA will give you a paragraph-length lecture about how the lab was not required to employ such a method. My assumption is that Ashenden never asked this second kind of question, because if he didn’t, the answer he received to his “careful” investigation would match up with the answers everyone else received. (If he DID ask that second question, then we’d have to follow up and ask why Ashenden got a different answer in 2009 than the one LNDD and WADA provided back in 2005.)

From a simplistic point of view, I’m saying that the lab engaged in a kind of double-speak, that the lab either endorsed or disavowed its results depending on the kind of question asked. But we’re (hopefully) smart enough here to understand this differently. Lab methods are not validated in a vacuum; they are validated as “fit for purpose”, meaning that the method is only valid for the purpose defined for the method. As an example: let’s say that I want to know the number of tax cheats in my neighborhood. A method “fit” for this purpose might be to develop a telephone survey. But the responses to my survey could not be used to convict tax cheats. The same thing goes here: LNDD used a lab method that it thought was “fit” for the purpose of developing an EPO database (whether LNDD validated its “accelerated” method as “fit” even for this limited purpose is something we just don’t know). The results generated by this method are not “fit” for the purpose of leveling accusations against Armstrong.

A few side points raised by your last post:

If Dr. Ayotte did not realize that the LNDD had run new tests, why would she have brought up the problems inherent in testing old samples? In any event her point stands: you can’t do EPO testing on samples stored for more than a couple of months. While you suggest that Ayotte must be wrong because the LNDD “found” r-EPO in five year old urine sample, I’ll argue back that Ayotte is right and that the lab must have found something other than r-EPO. (Remember, we’re just looking at bands on a graph – bands on a graph do not signify the “appearance” of r-EPO apart from a validated test method that tells us this is so.) But as I keep pointing out, there’s no point to this argument: the lab did not follow a validated protocol for EPO testing 5 year old urine samples, because the lab has told us that they did not follow any such protocol, and because no such protocol exists. I’m not required to explain what could happen if you test 5 year old samples without such a protocol, nor can we interpret results achieved in the absence of such a protocol.

I’ve already addressed Ashenden’s belief that LNDD followed TD2004EPO.

You argue that “from a scientific point of view Ashenden is persuaded”. How have you reached this conclusion? Because Ashenden is a scientist? Not everything a scientist does is scientific. Because Ashenden says he was “careful”? Science requires more than just being careful, and it certainly demands something more than Ashenden’s word for it. In any event we have the near-contemporaneous statements from LNDD and WADA on this point.

You argue that “the positive results are consistent with how a rider would dope during the race.” I think I’ve addressed the fact that you cannot use the results to confirm the test if you also expect to use the test to confirm the results. In any event, the whole question here is whether this rider doped. We don’t validate test results by saying they fit a pattern, any more than a rider can defend himself from a doping allegation by claiming that his results don’t fit a pattern. When it’s convenient for the ADAs, they will frequently argue that dopers do things we can’t expect. Not that the patterns matter here. What matters here is that you’re looking at patterns in data unrelated to a validated test method; if the data is not “fit for purpose”, then neither are the patterns.

I don’t know how you guys have the time or stamina to keep this debate going but kudos all round. I haven’t even had the chance to read the past week’s input but maybe tonight.

While skimming I did notice that The Oracle (aka His Highness) is once again professing his disdain for our man Larry & yet and YET, once AGAIN is also trying to intice him over to another blog. Hmmmm.

Anyway, I have some questions. 1st, where is all the outrage by the SPORTS/mainstream MEDIA (a group I hold in even lower esteem than the doping athletes they are all only NOW piling on) over all the doped-up baseball & football players thru-out the 90s & at least up until 2004? Where is the Dept of Justice on that? HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of tax-payer dollars are spent building those sport palace monstrosities that barely last 2 decades before being torn down & replaced with something even larger & 5 TIMES as expensive. Plus, the public almost always foots the bills for all the necessary highway alterations needed too. Compare those BILLIONS with the entire Postal team budget for the duration of its sponsorship. What a joke.

More questions – exactly how often are baseball, football, & Euro soccer players dope-tested TODAY? On the morning of every World Series game? Super Bowl? Championship Cup? Do ALL the players gest tested on the 1st day of training? 1st day of the season? Who has this information & why aren’t the test results made public? And what’s their punishment again for a positive? 1-2 MONTHS? Or maybe it’s to BAR the guy’s COUSIN from the team facilites. Oooooohhhhh, that’s positively draconian!

Why is it that Olympic-type sports (cycling, track, XC skiiing, swimming, etc) have such DIFFERENT doping regulations from the major pro sports & why does everyone accept it? Could you IMAGINE the wailing if a base/foot/soccer ball superstar test positive & then is suspended for TWO YEARS? HAH, it would NEVER happen because of the MONEY! For years I’ve read that the doping got “out of hand” in cycling
because of the “money”. HAH. Going by the sterling examples set by the major sports, there’s NOT ENOUGH MONEY.

Unitil ALL pro/elite level sports have the SAME doping regulations, then it’s all just a FARCE.

SMTML, I was actually writing a piece about the question of the end game when I read your comment, and now I’m not sure what to say.

Let’s think for a moment about life after the fall of Armstrong, which now seems to be inevitable (I don’t know what the feds will be able to prove, or what charges they will bring, but clearly there are few people left in the camp of Armstrong’s true believers, and few left in that other camp that thinks it’s an open question whether Armstrong doped). We are left with the following situation: cycling has the most extensive doping testing in the world of sport, but that doping testing seems to catch nearly no one. It still appears possible to dope and get away with it for a while. Most any rider who wins is going to be scrutinized as a potential doper (Carlos Sastre is about the only exception I can think of – he’s received very little scrutiny, and he might be regarded as the best rider of the last decade not to be generally regarded as a doper), and if the last decade is any guide, all the most successful dopers will eventually be revealed by ex-teammates, team employees or some doping “operacion” or grand jury somewhere.

But the PEDs are still out there, still easy to get, and by all reports they’re extremely helpful. It remains true that every cyclist eventually must decide whether or not to dope. The math here is easy: if the rider’s choice is between (a) doping and maybe getting caught (but probably not being caught until many years have passed and the rider’s old friends appear on “60 Minutes”), and (b) not doping and losing (or worse, not doping and therefore not riding strongly enough to even have a career), what is the rider going to choose? We’ve heard how Landis, Hamilton and Andreu all faced this choice and reached the sad but logical decision that they had to dope.

Have things changed since the U.S. Postal guys made this decision? There’s no way for us to know. If we assume that doping in cycling is the result of a few bad apples, then ridding the sport of the doping Americans and the short list of the “usual suspects” (Contador, Bruyneel) might do some good. If we assume that anyone is frightened (or deterred) by what’s happened to Armstrong, then maybe things have changed for the better. If we imagine that riders were once FORCED to dope, pressured into doping, told that they had to join a team’s doping program in order to ride for the team, then we might guess that this sort of thing has been driven underground, and that cyclists are able to compete clean if they want to and if they can keep up with everyone else. Also, we have the presence of the so-called clean teams, like Garmin-Cervelo, for what they are worth: they have had some success, though of course we can never know whether the riders on these teams are truly riding clean.

There’s also the biological passport. Yes, I know, the biological passport has not exactly swept up dozens of doping cyclists and tossed them into suspension. But it’s a highly sophisticated program. I’ve been part of a discussion with the scientists on the Science of Sport web site on the bio passport, and they’re impressed with it. They think the bio passport works, or that it at least keeps doping within certain limits. I personally have doubts, but those scientists outrank me!

Cycling probably IS cleaner today than it was 10 years ago. Of course, I have to go down the list of possible 2011 Tour winners and ask, would I conclude that any of these guys raced clean if they are able to win the Tour? Would anyone else reach that conclusion? I don’t want to name names – there’s a big difference between saying that there’s still doping in the peloton and calling Joe Jones a doper. But I return to that discussion I mentioned above, when every cyclist has to consider whether or not to dope, and ask if we’ve tipped the scales to the point where a cyclist can conclude that he “better not” dope, or that he doesn’t need to dope in order to compete. I don’t think we’ve tipped those scales yet, meaning that my best wild guess is that there’s still a lot of doping in the peloton. Maybe we have a few more clean riders, and maybe the dopers are doping more carefully and using fewer drugs at lower doses. But I’m guessing. I also have to guess that on average, without naming names, if someone finishes first in the Tour de France, then odds are that he’s one of the remaining dopers.

Is there an “end game”? If by “end game” you mean an end to doping, then no, I don’t think so. You put a group of 180 guys together, and some are going to cheat, particularly if they think (correctly or no) that they can get away with it. But I think that the anti-doping effort is worth it, as the effort may keep doping within certain limits and provide some deterrence.

But I think of the “end game” as something else. I think of the end game as being about you and me, our ability to watch the sport and think what we are watching is a fair competition. I think of the end game as being when a guy can make a living as an elite cyclist without becoming a suspect; when a guy can win a Tour without being a suspect; when a guy can hit the slopes of the Alps, kick everyone else’s butt and not be a suspect.

I’m not saying that the end game is to return to a state of innocence, where we think there’s no doping, or where we imagine that only the guys on the other teams (or the Russians!) are the ones doping. I’m saying that the end game is to put doping into a perspective where it becomes a minor part of the sport, one that stays (mostly) in the background of our thinking, the way that a baseball fan can (mostly) ignore that the pitcher may have doctored the baseball, the way a basketball fan can (mostly) live with the refs calling games in favor of the home team, the way a soccer fan can (mostly) put up with players flopping as if they were shot in order to get favorable calls.

We’ll have reached an end game of sorts when I don’t have the right to assume that anyone faster than the fastest guy on our team must be doping. We’ll have reached an end game of sorts when the Tour ends in late July, and I DON’T assume that I need to wait until October for a lab to tell me who REALLY won.

I’d LIKE to say that we’ll have reached an end game when the report of the lab is final, just like the umpire’s call on the field is final 99.99% of the time even if he screwed up. But the police work and grand jury stuff has become an integral part of the anti-doping effort, so I can’t say that the labs must have the final word. Not in cycling anyway. This bothers me, as I’m not sure I can ever warm up to a sport that requires the police to enforce its internal rules. Then again, we have to be pretty far from an end game when cyclists violate the law in order to compete. This is one area where I do not know where to find a suitable end game.

We’ll have reached an end game when we look at the anti-doping effort and sign off on it. Cycling has been in this impossible position where it does more than any other sport and it’s never good enough. WADA perpetuates this problem, by having no minimum standard for what a sport is supposed to do. At some point, you say that whatever is, is good enough. Or better, that whatever the doping program is, it’s close enough to “state of the art” to be good enough for the time being.

My critics will probably yell and scream that I’m taking too soft a stand on doping, that the end game is to do whatever it takes to stamp doping out altogether. To be certain, we could do more: we could have lifetime bans for anyone who dopes. We could do better, and put in place a lifetime ban for anyone who has information about anyone else doping, and who fails to disclose the information to the applicable authority (baseball has such a rule regarding players who “fix” a game). We could put video cameras in every rider’s hotel room, have each rider chaperoned 24-7-365 and do full body cavity searches daily. When I say “we” can have it, I really mean that someone else can have it, because I’m simply not interested in watching a sport that is an around-the-clock police action.

So, no: my end game does not require imposition of the most aggressive and repressive possible measures to stamp out doping. I don’t think that these measures would work, but I would not support these measures even if I thought they would work. My position is not based on what’s fair to the athlete, though I DO care about what’s fair for the athlete. My position is not based on a personal unwillingness to put the pedal to the metal, to dedicate a 100% effort to solving a problem. I just prefer to reserve these kinds of efforts for the problems that deserve them, like global poverty. Sports is a form of entertainment for me. If eradicating doping in sports requires full mobilization, martial law, tuning into the emergency broadcast system, fine. Someone else can work on that problem, and I’ll find some other way to entertain myself.

But I have not even begun to answer your question. Because, I think what you’re really saying is that once Armstrong is nailed as a doper, and Contador too, the effort will simply shift to the next guy in line, the new top gun in the peloton. Meet the new target, same as the old target. We know that there are still dopers out there. The cyclists who have doped and gotten caught were in some sense unlucky, when so many others dope and get away with it. That’s not fair. So fairness demands that we prove all of the other doping cases. Plus, consider all those cycling fans whose favorite cyclist was proved at some point to be a doper – all those fans become motivated to prove that their cyclist didn’t do anything more than everyone else did.

It never ends, does it?

You’ve written much more worth responding to, but I’ll pause for a while.

William, let’s walk through the record. By Bill Strickland’s account in Bicycling last year, the only potential clean cyclists on a Tour de France podium during the Armstrong era were Armstrong himself, Fernando Escartin and Andreas Kloden, and few people think that even those three rode clean. If Contador and Armstrong doped, then there hasn’t been a clean Tour de France podium since … 1995? 1991? Since Armstrong’s first retirement, we’ve had Landis, Rasmussen, Basso, Di Luca, Vinokourov, Valverde, Mayo, Kessler, Kohl, Hamilton, Dekker, Beltran and countless others named as dopers. If Contador is a doper, then since Armstrong’s first retirement, every winner of the Giro and Vuelta other than perhaps Denis Menchov and Vincenzo Nibali has been a doper.

The last 15 years of pro cycling have been a virtual wasteland of doping.

Yes, cycling can take credit for having the most comprehensive PED testing of any sport. FWIW. But when Armstrong points out that he never tested positive, we all roll our eyes, like he was a gangster bragging that he’d never done jail time. Cycling HAS its drug testing, but it doesn’t seem to accomplish much in practice. Armstrong never tested positive; neither did Ullrich (except for recreational drugs), Rasmussen, Riis, Virenque, Pantani, Zulle, Beloki, Basso or Valverde. Cycling takes credit for doping suspensions that really should be credited to the customs officials, police stings, grand jury investigations, Justice Department probes and newspaper reporting that actually uncovered the doping.

Also, let’s not forget that cycling’s governing federation, the UCI, seems to be a universal target of disrespect, and is viewed by many as a corrupt enabler of doping. Let’s not forget that cycling’s anti-doping program relies on the cooperation of national cycling federations, some of which take their jobs seriously (USADA), and others of which have been accused of acting primarily to protect the careers of their national heroes.

Yes, sure, cycling has probably taken a bad rap for doping, at least to the extent that other sports have doping problems that may be every bit as bad as cycling’s. Other sports, like baseball, need to strengthen their anti-doping programs (shameless plug upcoming to my own piece on baseball’s anti-doping program at ESPN.com: http://es.pn/gPkZIt).

But I’m not joining the pity party here. Cycling’s doping problem is real; it’s not just a matter of bad public relations or a sporting double-standard. Cycling’s doping problem stretches far into its past, and consistently so; its strong anti-doping program is a RESPONSE to its historic problems and not the cause of them. Other sports have had their doping crises of the moment, responded to them with anti-doping programs, and these crises abated – not because doping came to an end in these sports, but because the programs succeeded in curtailing the doping, making the doping more careful, driving the doping deep underground – and in truth, that’s all we can ask of an anti-doping program.

Cycling is the exception to this rule, as cyclists continue to risk getting caught in larger numbers than we see in other sports. Why this is so is complicated; part of the reason is that there’s not much money in this sport, so riders are willing to take big risks to get at the money that IS available. Part of the reason is that PEDs are so damn effective in cycling, more so than in a sport like baseball (where aerobic endurance is not a requirement, and where sheer strength is not nearly as important as muscle quickness and hand-eye coordination). But a big part of the reason is that cycling has always been connected with the spectacle of seeing how much a body (and a human will) was able to endure in terms of effort, and pain. When suffering is at the essence of a sport, OF COURSE the participants are going to consider ways to dull the pain. Read Rant’s book if you want the long version of this story.

When pain and suffering are at the heart of a sport, don’t be surprised if that sport is going to have a larger-than-average doping problem.

oops…sorry..Jeff, I must have missed your comment when you posted the same link….my bad (in the immortal words of Rosanna Rosanadanna: “never mind”). I”m still playing catchup since I last peeked in on Fri…

I don’t think there’s any possible way to stop ‘doping’. It’s human nature to want to do better. There doesn’t even have to BE any money (re the VN article about taking Ridalin /etc for even lowly amateurs). Then add the potential VAST amounts of money for making it to the pro’s in ANY sport. Money, FAME, POWER (which comes from money and fame). Does anybody think that ANY pro sport, (many with ULTRA-ludicrous salaries) is immune?

M, you mentioned many many comments ago something akin to ‘at least baseball is relatively clean now’. Seriously? You really think that? A Pro sport, where as the players age, they won’t do almost anything to remain competitive, stay on the team just another year, fend off mother nature another year or 2? No HGH or steroids (or whatever the latest wonder drug is)? And forget ‘as the players age’, cuz what kid won’t do whatever it takes to have a SHOT at making ‘THE SHOW’? More than likely (I have absolutely NO evidence here whatsoever) in any and all pro sports, they (because of the money/fame/power that is available) are already well ahead of any testing and are currently using the NEXT wonder drug to be stronger/faster for longer than they would be without).

Heck, forget sports. Who doesn’t want to be healthier/stronger/etc longer? Why is it just sports? EVERYBODY wants the same thing here. Only the more money that is available will set the tone for what kinds of ‘enhancement’ are available and used. The Weds group rides are using Costco bought 5 hour energy, or Monster energy drinks (or Redbull). The cat 3/4 guys are using Ritalin or Sudafed, or inhalers. Nobody is testing them. It’s all for pride. Who was the strongest that night?

I just saw a new supplement advertised in Road Bike Action last week: it’s called “EPO Boost”. It’s not actual EPO, but the claims are that it works the same, by increasing the RBC count. Interesting…what if it does? It’s legal (for now, as far as I know, but being a supplement, I’d think anybody under the WADA unbrella will be VERY skeptical). I guess it all still comes down to what has been decided as ‘banned substances’. Because all athletes at all levels are looking for whatever they can ‘use’ (eat,drink, whatever) to help them do better in whatever their chosen activity.

I recall many many years past I was playing Volleyball (indoor 6’s at the time) and had a wicked cold on league night. I was trying various concoctions of cold meds so I could function at work, and ended up having one of my best nights on the court ever…it was intriguing for sure. I never tried the concoction w/out having a cold, but I was thinking about it I must say. (I played B league btw, about as low as you can go and still be a ‘league’). The VN article about us all being dopers made me think of this.

Where am I going with all this? Sheesh…I don’t know. I don’t have an ‘endgame’ any more than this LA investigation does. My crystal ball is a piece of glass and doesn’t show much besides my reflection.

SMTML, I’ve thought about it. I thought I saw an end game, but now I think I was wrong. I simply don’t think we’re at a point to consider the end game.

My personal end game would be to take the conclusion of the Armstrong and Contador cases as a good stopping point for the anti-doping hysteria … that we do what most other sports do and treat all riders as innocent unless or until they fail a doping test. Cycling has the most comprehensive anti-doping system in the world, so let it do its work for whatever it is worth. We’ll leave a certain (probably substantial) number of doping riders in the peloton, and a certain number of these riders will win a certain number of big races. The same thing probably happens in other sports, and those sports survive. At minimum riders will be deterred to some extent by the anti-doping tests and all the other stuff that brought down 15 years’ worth of top cyclists. No system of deterrence is perfect, but cycling is doing about the best it can. But we’re dealing with sport here, not armed robbery, and the world is not going to end if a guy takes EPO and gets away with it. So we say thanks a lot to the Jeff Novitskys and the 60 Minutes pieces, not to mention the ADA infighting. We’ll just, you know, get back to the part where the cyclists race.

I think we both understand that this isn’t going to happen. We’ve got too many people who want to rid the sport of doping, and aren’t going to be willing to stop when (and I think it’s inevitable now) Armstrong and Contador fall. We have to break the Omerta! Increase the punishments! Drop the testing of “B” samples! Strip the national federations of the power to hear doping cases (actually, that last one might be a good idea)! Throw rider confidentiality out the window, and publish every doping test and biological passport profile on the Internet! Let loose the hounds, man the battle stations, attach the bayonets, and all that. I don’t think we’ve worked enough of the bile out of our collective systems to declare a cease fire.

I know I’m not popular for saying this, but each time a cycling star is proven to have doped, the fans of that star tend to become doping hawks. The only defense to your favorite rider being outed as a doper is to claim that everyone else was doping, too. Every one of our stars gets to have their moment on 60 Minutes when, blinking back tears, they publicly relive that moment when they realize they had to dope just to survive in the sport. We respond fighting back tears of our own: damn those other cyclists that forced our hero to dope! Let’s not rest until they are all uncovered for being the stinking pond scum that we know they are! And of course, national pride enters into it: how come the Americans are all being prosecuted for doping while the Spanish can hide behind their doping federations? More heads must roll!

We’ve let it go too far, we let it go on too long. Sports like baseball have the right idea: put a lesser system of anti-doping in place, keep control of anti-doping in house, reserve the serious punishment for repeat offenders, declare the problem solved and get on with the game. Yes, cycling fans and WADA regard baseball’s program as a joke, but baseball goes on … with sponsors and stars and billions of dollars. Meanwhile, cycling has an anti-doping program that overwhelms the sport (we had to kill cycling in order to save it). Cycling is no more impressive to watch, just because I know that a substantial number of cyclists dope in spite of the most impressive anti-doping system in sport! I mean, if the dog is going to have fleas anyway, why should I be impressed with the price of the flea collar?

But there’s no turning back now. We’re villagers with torches and pitchforks, chasing down monster after monster. Personally, I’m tired of it, but I sense I’m in the minority. There are too many monsters still out there, threatening our children and womenfolk. When all the barns in the village have been burnt to the ground and we’re feeling exhausted, blood-satiated and sick to our stomachs, we can discuss the end game, if there’s anything left to the game that’s worth discussing.

In the meantime, did you see that Denis Menchov scored a 9 out of a possible 10 on the UCI Suspicion Index for the 2010 Tour de France? Damn you, Menchov. We’re coming for you next.

Larry,

Larry,

You say:

1. “So long as LNDD failed to use a validated test method, we cannot rely on the results they reached. There’s no exception to this rule, not even if the results look right to you or me or Dr. Ashenden.”

I reject this.

True we cannot rely on a test that violates some of the WADA/UCI’s technical rules to prove a doping violation under the WADA/UCI’s legal rules. Those legal rules define what a “doping” violation and how you prove it.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t admissible and doesn’t have probative value in the court of public opinion or a court of law to prove that Lance used EPO (for example a criminal prosecution or the SCA arbitration). And such test results might even be probative in a UCI doping hearing in support of eyewitness testimony of doping, like Landis and Hamilton’s.

For example, WADA rules require both an A sample and B sample, and prohibits the same lab tech from performing both tests. If the lab violates those rules, then the athlete beats the technical doping charge, even though his test results clearly show that for example he took testosterone. None of us would call that rider clean. The probability is that he did take testosterone.

Such evidence could be admitted in a court of law to prove that he in fact used testosterone. There is no requirement of an A sample and B sample to convict a criminal. One sample is enough.

If it is claimed that a test is performed improperly, or that certain technical requirements weren’t followed, then the court entertains expert testimony on both sides, and this usually goes to the weight of the evidence, not it’s admissibility.

(* added: Here, the Lab scientists, WADA, and Dr. Ashenden will testify as to the tests reliability and validity.)

In the Barry Bonds case, the prosecution sought to introduce Balco written notations of positive test results from some private lab used by Balco. No evidence was proffered about what procedures the lab followed or whether or how the lab was certified.

2. You say: “It doesn’t mean anything to look at the odds that non-validated tests might produce this result or that result. I’m not required to explain the results of non-validated tests.”

Yes you do here.

All proof, especially scientific testing results. are a question of probabilities. Rarely is anything 100 percent.

Even if all the WADA technical requirement were followed there is still the statistical chance of false test results. And the fact that some requirement was not followed doesn’t mean the test reliability all of a sudden drops from 90% to 0%.

In this case, the French lab conducted scientific research to see what would happen if one used different cut-off criteria for determining an EPO doping violation. This is the same lab that developed the EPO test. These scientists would not adapt test methods that they didn’t think would properly measure the EPO levels in the samples regardless of what WADA technical requirement were not followed. And if it came to testimony in a court of law as to the test’s validity and reliability, who am I going to believe these scientists, and Dr. Ashenden, or some hack lawyer hired by Verbrugen.

(*ps. I notice you quote WADA’s language supporting the validity of the Lab’s testing regime. WADA also would testify favorably on the validity of the Lab’s tests.)

It’s possible that the test’s reliability was less because the lab didn’t follow all the steps of the protocol. (Although, I haven’t yet come across evidence that this is so.)

But statistics do matter. It’s not just 1 positive result for Lance, but 6 positive with 2 more borderline or suspicious. The chances of Lance not doping, are 300 to 1 with those test results, even if the we assume that that test gave random results.

Just caught an article in the June OUTSIDE magazine called “I Couldn’t Be More Positive” by Andrew Tilin (pg 62). In a nutshell, he wanted to do an article on amateur dopers but couldn’t find anybody who would confide in him. So he decided to be the lab rat himself, and under a Dr.s supervision he used T for a year (while he was racing ). Pretty interesting article on his conclusions as to it’s usefulness in cycling. He talks about how easy it is to get T (and how cheap). Sheesh…between that and asthma inhalers, how’s an honest athlete gonna compete (at ANY level)?

Ahhh MikeG…you beat me to it…(I got some more time and had a chance to look online, was just coming back to post it)…thanks!

Pardon the interruption but I’d like to insert an INTERMISSION from our irregularly non-scheduled modern day Jarndyce & Jarndyce (little shout out to my man Charles Dickens), but I’d like to ask a question. Most of my fellow commenters here are men, so :

Edwards. Spitzer. Clinton. Sanford. Ensign. Favre. Woods. Ah-nuld. And last but not least, for the name alone, Weiner.
Here’s the question – Are men just STUPID?

Seriously. I realize that these, ahem, “men”, did not do anything that pretty much ALL rich/powerful/&or famous men have not done throughout history. BUT, can’t these dimwits see the game BOARD has CHANGED?! Sheesh.

SMTML, one reason why it seems so many powerful men are stupid is that there are so many of them (powerful men, that is). So long as there’s Sarah Palin, I can’t draw sharp distinctions between the intelligence of men and women in power.

I didn’t mean to imply that men held the sole proprietorship to STOOPIDIDITY. Alas, no. It’s just that women’s stupidity is different. Although, it often has to do with the opposite sex too.

So you’re saying that ONE day, when women & men are represented equally in positions of power, we’ll see a public outing of one female elected official after another who tweeted naked pictures of themselves to men they’ve NEVER MET? Hmmmm, I actually agree that much of these STOOPID actions by certain men has to do with POWER (& that they think that power makes them untouchable, because hey, thru-out history, it had!). But, would powerful women act the same? Let’s just hope MY long-term Senator (Barbara Mikulski) doesn’t succumb. 😉

As for Palin – mediocre intellect but cunning, driven by lust for fame & money, but most of all, a LIAR extraordinaire. She makes Trump look like George Washington.

And by game BOARD, I mean thanks to the internet, cellphones & digital/cell cameras, & the INSTANTANEOUS passing of info (both facts & rumours) around the world (& the tell-tale trail), a person of fame, money & power can NO LONGER hide their indiscretions. Those days are GONE.

SMTML wrote: “As for Palin – mediocre intellect but cunning, driven by lust for fame & money, but most of all, a LIAR extraordinaire.”
I can agree to that.
It’s clear there are physiological differences in women that influence behavior. Borrowing from Forrest Gump, Stupid is as stupid does. Because of physiological differences, stupidity may manifest itself in different abhorrent behaviors, but let’s not kid ourselves. Women have the capacity to act equally as stupidly as men. I’m not sure anyone’s mileage can vary on that point? Take for example, sexting is is not exclusive to men or even adults, which is necessitating a variety of states to look into redefining the term “Child Pornography” and how the subject of underage sexting is delta with. In a more modest example, an attractive Philadelphia Anchorwoman got herself into some hot water by emailing photos of her bikini clad self to an ESPN Anchor acquaintance. Said ESPN Anchor acquaintance’s wife famously intercepted the email/attachments. The attractive Anchorwoman works in LA now, although for lots of other reason too. (Google “Alycia Lane”) Plenty of other examples out there……..

Well, I guess intermission’s over; everyone – back in your seats! 🙂

I’ve been wanting to reply to Larry’s weekend comments all day but was, um, waylaid by Weinergate. Just to wrap up, I would almost bet my house that this guy has been doing stuff (sexting, lewd or firtatious emails) like this for at LEAST the last few years. Just wait, women will start coming out of the, er, internet dark. I’ll be shocked if we make it through the day. And as for all the other ‘exposed’ men, well, it’s just the beginning. Anyone of any wealth/power/fame that have any exposable secrets in their past will be fair game. And if they think they are “safe” because it was a long time ago or they “trust” the people that were also involved, well, I ALMOST feel sorry for their naivete.

Anyway, as usual, I enjoyed your comments, Larry. And we agree about almost everything. I do think I may have confused people by my question over Novitsky & the investigation’s END GAME. Not the end RESULT, mind you, but WHY is this investigation happening? What is the motivation? The objective? Novitsky & the others do not work for WADA or USADA & they certainly don’t give a damn about cycling, so THEIR objective is NOT to ‘clean up cycling’. So, what IS their goal?

It’s almost a joke. Cycling is TEENY in this country, if the objective is to crack down on sport doping, why on earth not go after the MAJORS? Because there’s too much money & influence there, that’s why.

The destruction of Lance Armstrong is just a means to an end. I just haven’t figured out what that end is yet. And I agree, Larry – Lance’s fall is all but inevitable because it’s already halfway there. Even if the investigation stopped today, Lance’s reputation & legacy are already damaged. It was a MISTAKE by Lance’s people not to have him appear on ’60 Minutes’. The huge majority in this country had barely even been conscious of the 12 year debate/argument around Lance (Superman or Lex Luther, discuss!). Even AFTER Landis smarmy confession last year. But when it showed up on THE mainstream TV news investigation show, it suddenly came shockingly into view for them. Lance is now the butt of jokes on MAINstream sites, blogs, magazines & TV shows. The only way he could repair the damage is to PROVE the other guys are STILL lying (like they had lied for 4 & 7 years) and “prove” that he didn’t dope BEYOND the fact that there are no ‘positive’ tests to begin with. (Don’t get me started on Saugy & his ever-changing story).

I read that piece from Atlantic Monthly – the one that shovels the sh*t over Lance’s lawyers. Well, that writer is a MORON for 1 reason : he ignorantly does NOT understand the supposed positive Swiss test IS the key! It’s been Lance’s ace in the hole all these years, that he never tested positive. If that is proven to be false, his main line of defense is shattered. Duh!

The hypocrisy, injustice & just flat-out unfairness by the hounding on doping in cycling & other Olympic-included sports as compared to the BIG, money sports has pushed me over the edge. The whole thing is a FARCE. Has there been a lot of doping in cycling? Yes, but how much has been going on in the big money sports that has never been exposed? Sure, EPO may be of little benefit there, but what about steroids, HG hormone, etc, etc? The very fact that the amount of testing & the resulting punishments are so VASTLY different is outrageous.

And look how other sports approach their actual competitions – in last year’s World Cup, would they stop even for a second to LOOK AT THE TAPE, even when the refs BLATANTLY missed a call? NO! Can’t stop the flow of the action, they said! But here’s cycling, ready to look at 12 YEAR OLD TEST SAMPLES to decide the winner of the TDF? For god’s sake, that’s PATHETIC.

And why stop with Lance? And why stop with cycling? Let’s just put EVERY Olympic medal of the last 40 friggin years under review. No win will ever be in stone. And forget those sports where the winner’s name is engraved ON the trophy. Hah. Jarndyce & Jarndyce indeed.

In my opinion, the anti-dope establishment should have TWO (THREE YEARS max) to show a certain sample is proof of doping. If they can’t prove it by then, THROW the samples out! And the win is then FINAL. No matter what guy comes crawlin & cryin out of the woodwork 5-10-20 years later, ready to “confess” how he’d “had no choice” but btw, “here’s who else I SAW (even if I have NO actual evidence to PROVE it)”.

SMTML and others,

“But here’s cycling, ready to look at 12 YEAR OLD TEST SAMPLES to decide the winner of the TDF? ”

Cycling? Cycling has done all it could to protect Lance Armstrong. They have already commissioned that whitewash report exonerating him for using EPO in the 1999 TdF.. Chain of custody my ass! (I finally skimmed it. It’s worse than I remembered!) Too bad Tyler had to dig up that long dead body.

They are denying any shenanigans with the 2001 TDS results and called Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis liars. What else can they do to protect poor poor Lance? Oh right they are suing Floyd for slander.

Oh I know. Convict the Spanish beef eater Contador. That will make you feel better. Well they are trying.

It’s the Federal Government who are after Lance and his drug use, not cycling.

Just like they went after my boy Barry. Why did they want to waste all those resources trying to clean up baseball? I don’t recall hearing such lamentations and gnashing of teeth over that. Or sending poor Marion Jones to jail. (I really thought that was cruel.)

But if you are lucky, you all can keep your big fantasy that Lance won all his cycling championships “fair and square” as Floyd would say. After all isn’t that what’s important to you all?

“There is no convincing proof Lance doped.
And even if he did, everyone else doped too.
In fact they doped even more than he did and cycling is looking the other way.
And even if he did, the people who are pursuing him are worse because they are wasting all this money.
And even if he did, all the other sports are worse so it’s so unfair to single Lance out.
And even if he did, we will never be able to get rid of doping so why go after him now.
And the only thing I hope is that he never admits it, then I can go on believing.”

Let us not forget that, if this case ever sees the inside of a courtroom, it will be decided by a jury of 12 men and women. Not by us here, or at any of the other cu lungs blogs or forums, not by 60 Minutes, not by sports writers, not by late night TV comedians cracking jokes.

Now, I have some experience having served on a couple of juries. Based I my experience, I think for the most part, juries try to be objective and do the right thing, but also that a jury can have it’s own mind about what is right, which perhaps might differ from the letter of the law.

We’ve has quite a debate here between Larry and M about various evidence. Each side believes it has made it’s case. If this were a jury trial, the jury would consider not only the evidence itself, but would tend to form opinions of the reliability and credibility of the witnesses. Who best phrased technical details in language a layman can understand, who presented the best presence on the witness stand, etc.

I would hate to predict, based on what we know at present, on how a jury might vote. Remember that many non-cyclists only know Armstrong as the dude who won that French race and does all that stuff to fight cancer. Look around at how many of those yellow rubber bracelets there are out there. That could be a factor, even though we all might feel that should not have anything to do with it.

I checked but the wayback machine doesn’t have anything on facts4lance. Probably wasn’t up long enough. Nor does Google have any cached versions. Typing the URL into a browser gets you a general page from Wordpress to the effect that the blog is now private, and if you’ve been invited by the owner, you apparently can type in a password to access the site.

What this all means is anybody’s guess. I’m sure there’ll be all sorts of speculations.

William,
Screenshots are not from today’s URL, which you’ve indicated is now private/password protected. Screenshots would have been recorded before the site was recently altered. I don’t personally have the data, but know at least one person who kept a full record and can bring it back up anytime.

M,
A bet has been offered twice.

Question for the legal eagles here: if the statute of limitations is 7 years, and the USPS contract ended in 2004, what stage of legal action is required to allow potential prosecution? Is the fact that Armstrong is under investigation now good enough or does it require some greater level, such as arrest or indictment, to allow such q case to continue past the current year?

William, the short answer to your question is, never ask questions about statutes of limitation. You’re right to focus on the fact that a statute of limitations period has to begin sometime, and at some point during that period something has to happen or else you can’t do that something any more. More than that no man knows.

The statute of limitations may begin when the crime is committed … or when the crime is discovered … or instead when the crime should reasonably have been discovered … and if a crime is continuing in nature you may have one rule compared to if you’re talking about a series of crimes. What makes this worse is that there are times when the statute of limitations is “tolled”, which is the legal equivalent of the time that gets added to the end of soccer games. As a general rule, a statute of limitations requires an indictment to be filed before the statutory period ends, but there are exceptions here, too.

Somewhere, someone is in the possession of all the facts, and is being paid a nice hourly rate to analyze these issues. I’m neither of these things! But you can rest assured based on my authority that some of the things Armstrong may be accused of doing may be time-blocked, except if they’re not.

Larry,

Pointed to the claim that Floyd only fingered US Postal folks for doping, and not any others like from his Phonak team. This was grounds for his disbelieving Floyd and for accusing the powers that be of only being out to get Lance (HaHAhaha), and looking the other way as to others.

However, it turns out he accused the Phonak folks too:

“Landis said in the now-infamous email: “One thing of great significance is that I sat down with Andy Riis [sic] and explained to him what was done in the past and what was the risk I would be taking and ask for his permission which he granted in the form of funds to complete the operation described. John Lelangue was also informed by me and Andy Riis [sic] consulted with Jim Ochowitz before agreeing.”

“If Lelangue is ultimately found to have lied about his involvement, it will be a big embarrassment to the Tour de France organisers. He formerly worked for ASO, and was brought into the Phonak team to help clean it up after a number of doping scandals. As a result of its trust in him, ASO allowed Phonak to ride the 2006 Tour de France.

Lelangue, Riis and Ochowitz have central roles in the BMC Racing Team.

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4554/Lelangue-is-heard-by-French-cycling-federation-in-relation-to-Landis-allegations.aspx#ixzz1Oo2tWPpD
”

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ffc-committee-listens-to-lelangue

Larry,

LOL! Maybe Lelangue distanced himself from his rider Landis because he knew he was doping!!!! Or at least suspected it. At least that was Landis’s story.

Of course Rant criticized team manager Lelangue for being a traitor to Landis and not supporting him against the doping charges. Rant was still viewing the cycling world through the Landis is innocent prism.

Well far be it from me to defend the corrupt UCI and other cycling powers who have protected Lance. However, USADA is supposedly investigating Lance, but so far this hasn’t resulted in anything either. So I won’t take the UCI’s inaction so far as discrediting Landis’s story. I’m putting my money on the Feds though. The cycling powers are just too weak.

Unlike you I don’t demand total truth from Landis to find his story believable. I don’t expect him to finger his wife or other minor players that he might want to leave out of this. Just as I don’t expect Tyler to publicly finger his wife.

Landis has shown balls by fingering the most powerful in his sport. The fact that the name of some drug supplier hasn’t been reported doesn’t bother me. When he made his first revelations, he said he had many more details which he would supply if he believed they would be followed up. So he may very well have told the Feds about those connections, and they were pursued in Europe when the Feds sought police cooperation over there. We don’t know yet.

You ask:

“When Landis was on Phonak, who provided Landis with his drugs? Who assisted Landis with his blood doping? Who was the brains of the operation? ”

Floyd said he was the brains. He says he told Phonak management that he needed to dope and they approved. According to the Kimmage interview, he knew enough to dope on his own after his experience with Lance, and with the help of Allan Lim and I believe some doctor I read about on a doping thread. He said Allen Lim helped him and Levi blood dope.

M, and you believe Landis when he gave the Meatloaf explanation for his 2006 PED positive, that he would dope any way to win, but he wouldn’t take T, no he wouldn’t take T? Not in 2006 anyway? That Landis did just about everything a doper could do in 2006 except for the single thing he tested positive for? And you think Rant was looking through a prism 4 years ago?

Landis knew enough about blood doping to do it all on his own? Really? Landis purchased all the necessary equipment, withdrew his own blood, ran it through his home centrifuge (if he had one; maybe he borrowed one from his neighbor’s garage), stored it, had it transported with proper refrigeration from stage to stage with no one noticing, or had it stored properly at safe houses along the Tour route, then injected it himself, all the while testing to keep his hct within limits? Oh yeah, Lim was Landis’ “assistant”. Why not? Landis IS a high school graduate. They must have a helluva chemistry department back at Conestoga Valley High School.

And he learned all this from Armstrong? Do you REALLY think that Armstrong bought his own equipment and ran his own centrifuge?

Oh, let’s not forget that Landis also arranged to purchase and transport EPO, HGH, testosterone, female hormones and insulin wherever he might need it? He did this all by himself, with Lim as his assistant? And the people at Phonak were so impressed by Landis and his one-man travelling doping pharmacy that they simply wrote him a blank check to finance the operation … because there was no way anyone could foresee that this could go wrong?

No. It didn’t happen that way. It would have taken Landis 24-7-365 to organize all this, even if he did know how to do it. If he did it all with just Lim’s help, then Lim helped A LOT.

Remember that Lim has denied even knowing that Landis doped. Remember that Lim’s reputation was clean enough that he worked for Vaughters at Garmin (not that Vaughters was happy about Lim’s connection to Landis) after Landis was busted. Could it be that when Lim went to work for Vaughters (on Landis’ enemy list), that Landis decided Lim had moved over to the dark side?

The details matter. If Landis’ confession is really going to help, he needs to give us the details of how cyclists manage to dope without team-organized and financed doping programs (which I imagine are less common or have been driven well underground).

Larry,

You speculate that Landis needed certain king of help which hasn’t been publicized. We don’t know what Landis has told the Feds about the details of his doping so we don’t know who he has revealed. You can’t condemn him on that basis.

Plus he has revealed the doctor that helped him.

“How did you handle your doping in 2005? The article in the Wall Street Journal says: “Mr. Landis said he had hired a Spanish doctor in Valencia to make transfusions and had paid 10,000 dollars a person to make two separate deliveries of blood bags 500 ml during the Tour de France 2005. ”
In 2004, the U.S. Postal got rid of Luis Garcia Del Moral, who was the team doctor, and I knew he was often in charge of logistics transfusions and that sort of stuff. So I contacted him and asked him if he would do it for me. I paid for it.

Del Moral?
Yes.”

“I made three times in 2006 because it was easier to maintain the same blood parameters, which were controlled. But finally, I transfused the same total volume … Yes, Del Moral, even if he denies having ever witnessed doping, like everyone else, he has indeed practiced.”

Larry,

Landis explains how and when he transfused in the Kimmage interview, and he mentions that he has given some names to the Feds but can’t name them yet:

“What about the logistics of storing the blood and transporting it?

It’s not that hard. It has to be kept just above freezing and the easiest way to do it if you don’t have a specific medical refrigerator, which I didn’t, was to put a big bowl of ice water in the refrigerator, because as long as there is ice in water, its always going to be just above freezing, so you just leave it in there. You really don’t need any medical equipment at all, the only thing that’s hard to get is the blood bags and I could get those from the Spanish guys (team-mates) or Del Moral or whoever. And once you have that all you need is ice water.

Where did you extract the blood for that Tour?

In Spain, in my apartment.

Did you take it with you to the Tour or give it to someone else?

I gave it to someone else. I can’t tell you the name because I gave it to the authorities so they can…I mean there are certain people’s names I don’t want to give out yet until they do what they have to do.

When did you have the transfusions?

I had one on the night before the first mountain stage and then…here’s what I did; I couldn’t start the Tour with a haematocrit that’s too far out of line, so I waited until after they did the immediate blood checks, to the night before the prologue and then added a 300 ml bag of blood. So I started at (with a haematocrit of) 44 – and it can vary a little but it really wouldn’t call it into question, even if they tested me soon after that – then I did one the night before the first mountain stage, where I got the lead, and then I did one again before the first stage in the Alps. It’s easier if you do it before the hard stages because the harder you ride, the numbers are naturally reduced just from stress hormones and things like that…If I looked at the course profile I could tell you – email me those questions and I can tell you specifically because I have it written down somewhere.”

And a a few more sleazy bits about Del Moral:

“Vaughters must have known the lengthy tell-all interview with journalist Paul Kimmage and Floyd Landis was gonna drop any day and that the name of former US Postal physician Dr Luis Garcia del Moral would stick out like a festering sore.

That’s the same doctor that Garmin director sportif Matt White sent rider Trent Lowe to for tests in 2009. Del Moral has been under several dark clouds — former Postal employee Emma O’Reilly accused him of writing a fake prescription for Lane Armstrong to cover his positive test for cortisone in the 1999 Tour de France.

Del Moral is also the star of a video in which journalists filmed him disposing of US Postal medical waste at the 2000 Tour. Goodies included syringes, intravenous apparatus and a calf’s blood extract called Actovegin. While no charges were ever filed, he’s simply not the kind of guy Garmin-Cervelo wants any contact with and as a result popular DS Matt White was fired.

However, the most damning news was in the Landis interview with Kimmage, in which Floyd claims it was the Spanish doctor who set up his blood transfusions and doping program while at Phonak.”

http://www.atwistedspoke.com/vaughters-beats-landis-to-the-punch-the-del-moral-dilemma/

According to news reports del Moral claims he knew nothing about doping, either with the US Postal team or with Landis. LOL! Right.

Rant,

1. “If you accept the idea that Lelangue knew the score, then Lelangue’s claim that Floyd pulled the wool over his eyes smacks of hypocrisy, doesn’t it?”

More than that it smacks of lying to cover his ass as you point out.

When you’re involved in the omerta, I’m not going to quibble over which is the more graceful option, vanilla comments or cover your ass comments or support your rider. Your choices are limited if you want to survive.

If you believe Landis then Lelangue was fully in the loop and had approved of the doping, whether or not he was involved in the actual details and implementation.

If you believe Lelangue only should have known or should have suspected then I’m still not going to fault him for not making more graceful comments.

2. And as to Lelangue or Andy Rihs the owner of Phonak cleaning up the team, these comments by Rihs in 2006 during the TdF sound like he really didn’t care about doping, just whether you got caught. These comments really support Floyd’s story that Rihs approved of the doping and that he communicated that approval to LeLangue. It looks like Floyd went right to the top before he signed on with Phonak to get approval.
—————————

AR..”We have become a real brand. Doping does not diminish that effect at all. In a way I am glad that there is so much talk about doping in cycling, because it deters big corporations. If they would invest in cycling I wouldn’t be able to afford it anymore. And, let’s face it – in professional sports, where there is a lot of money involved, you need medical support.

(M comment re “medical support” – possible Rihs might have been misquoted here and he said “media support”. Just like I believe Christine Ayotte was misquoted re urine samples deteriorating “even if frozen” , she might have said “even if refrigerated” or something else or had a brain fart)

VN: And that doesn’t bother you?….

AR:…………..For me sports is show, entertainment, business, period.

VN: And as a sponsor you don’t care about your reputation?

AR: We all know the Festina story. The company had its best revenue ever in 1998, that’s a hard fact. At Phonak we had a lot of problems and as a company we paid the price for that.

VN: How can cycling improve its credibility?

AR: I think the ProTour should be privatized, it has to be taken away from the UCI.”

http://velonews.competitor.com/2006/07/news/a-conversation-with-phonaks-andy-rihs-cycling-sponsorship-pays-off-even-in-troubled-times_10522

Of course, Rihs denies he ever approved the doping. LOL! And he is still in cyling with BMC.

Larry,

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

But as to this statement:

“Granted, Landis may be naming other names in secret, before the Grand Jury. ”

I quoted where he admits that he is withholding names in public that he has supplied to the authorities.

“Did you take it with you to the Tour or give it to someone else?

I gave it to someone else. I can’t tell you the name because I gave it to the authorities so they can…I mean there are certain people’s names I don’t want to give out yet until they do what they have to do.”

If you look at all the folks he has named, you will see very powerful folks and also very minor folks like Michael Barry or the bus driver of the “doping” bus who he was only fleetingly associated with. There was no point in naming Michale Barry, but he did so anyway. If I had been his place I might very well have left out those type of people.

If PED use in cycling is as widespread as many believe (and it just maybe), I don’t see how various team officials can claim to be unaware. The suits in the corporate offices probably can, but the DS’s and such, who are in constant and direct contact with the riders have to have some ideanof what’s going on. If it was a case of the lone wolf popping a few uppers here and there, maybe. But extensive and complicated programs, involving various mixtures of drugs, controlled dosing, monitoring to attempt to keep things below the level of detection, and transfusions. They kno, even if they are not directing these programs.

What we might have is some form of “plausible denial”, where the DS or whoever, looks the other way, and probably tells people “Do what you need to, but don’t tell me.”

Seems to me, that unless we devise some way to hold team officials more accountable for riders, we will have a very hard time trying to control doping.

good for him. that skinny kid has skills, no joke.

The thing about AC and the Tour is interesting. Originally, the CAS hearing was to have been in June, with a decision to come before the start of the Tour; AC thus either banned or totally cleared. Now, the hearing is delayed until August and however that turns out, AC can ride the TdF.

One wonders if CAS et al have been watching the OSU situation, where the players were allowed to play in the bowl game, the suspensions delayed until the 2011 season.

I would assume that if CAS decided to sanction AC, that whatever results he got in July would be allowed to stand, subject to passing his tests. But then, who knows?

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=6658817
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstrong-accused-of-intimidating-potential-witness-tyler-hamilton-in-aspen-restaurant

Again, not a fan of Armstrong, at all, so save the fanboy comments,
Re: Hamilton and the Cashe Cashe incident:
Not well advised for Armstrong to speak with Hamilton, at all. (Grand Jury)
Not well advised for Hamilton to dine where Armstrong often does.
If the reports are true about Armstrong “threats”, it still doesn’t amount to much, though they would be stupid comments and not help him regarding fighting charges or litigation. YMMV

If Armstrong had asked Hamilton how much he was paid for 60 Minutes and stated that “the Texan’s legal team will ‘(expletive) destroy you,’ “tear you apart on the witness stand,’ and “make your life a living (expletive) hell’.”, there is still not much there, short of LA offering to bribe Hamilton to keep quite or change his story, which is not reported to be the case.

I would expect it is understood that Armstrong would seek to discredit Hamilton with a fairly severe examination by his legal team and that he would seek to make Haamilton uncomfortable in his everyday life, given the opportunity. That’s expected because they are adversaries, right?

I see this as an unintelligent encounter, for both parties, but somewhat worse for Armstrong. No specific threats or threats of illegal actions, but does support LA as being a bully, FWIW.

The soap opera continues. Carry on girls…..

William, Jeff and all the other Lance fanboys,

I have to laugh.

The most you can come up with as excuses are “unintelligent” or mutual “pissing match” and speculation that Tyler sought to provoke this mafia type behavior by daring to venture near the Alpha Dog’s firehydrant to score some PR points.

Nahhh. Lance is just ….”BRASH”.

This is what I said about Lance’s bullying asshole (“brash”) personality:

” He knew they were all on the same side and bound by their unspoken vows of omerta. And if they violated that oath? HE WOULD RIP THEM TO SHREDS. No coward Lance.”

And these are the threats Lance reportedly made to Tyler:

“his legal team would fucking destroy you,” “tear you apart on the witness stand,” and “make your life a living fucking hell.”

Sounds a bit like “ripping to shreds” to me. But maybe that’s just me. LOL! For the fanboys it’s just mutual pissing.

Face it Lance just has a “BRASH” personality and can’t help being a bully. No coward Lance. LOL!

Outside magazine staff who were there say Tyler thought Lance was out of town and that Tyler looked “shaken” after the confrontation, and said he was “rattled”

http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2011/06/lance-armstrong-and-tyler-hamilton-walk-into-a-bar.html

Not surprising since apparently Lance was riding in some event 1200 miles away that morning.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=559513&postcount=2797

“So to get this right…. Lance does some p1ssweake charity ride Saurday morning for 100 miles. Then takes the Livestrong jet 1200 miles to reach the restaurant to he could confront Tyler Saturday night???”

Hey Rant, don’t mean to interfere with your swimming, but, er, could you towel off long enough to put up a new post? Pretty puhlease? Not only do I want to read what YOU think about Contador going to the Tour (ARRGGGHHH), but, it’s kind of a pain to scroll down past 180-some comments.
(Plus, my computer goes into slow-mode now every time I click here. Anybody else have that problem?)

Trying to set a new post-Landis-era comments record? 🙂

We want Rant! We want Rant! Gimme a “R”! Gimme a “A”! Gimme a “N”! Gimme a “T”! Gimme $600! (Sorry, could’nt resist). What’s that spell : R-A-N-T! Rant, Rant, HE’s our man!

Is it Tyler who’s “shaken” or his not-so-vanished TWIN?

Seriously, after LYING for SEVEN YEARS, why would you be so quick to accept what that guy says about ANYthing?!

Do I think it was smart of Lance to say anything? Are you kidding? Of course, if I’d been him, it would have taken all my willpower not to TRIP the poor “depressed” Tyler on his way to the john.

Larry,

By all accounts Lance is an enduring jerk and asshole. From what I read Hamilton is none of that, but a decent guy. I’m talking personality here.

For you guys to call him a jerk is just a sign of how desperate and in denial you all are.

And for you to point to Landis’s witness intimidation now when you and all of his other defenders were absolving him of responsibility and looking the other way at the time, not to mention belittling and attacking Lemond, smacks of total hypocrisy now. I believe I was the only one calling him out for that vindictiveness at the time.

I said “at worst” this makes Hamilton a jerk. Not nice to stiff a wait person. My sister waitressed quite a bit throughout high school and college. In my circle stiffing a wait person makes you a jerk. But I said “at worst” this makes him a jerk. Possibly this is uncharacteristic of him.

M, you continually pretend that you know these people well enough to describe them in broad and unflattering terms. Unless you’re not telling us everything, you do not know these people that well. I get the point that you’re not an admirer of Armstrong, but your constant name-calling regarding Armstrong reflects badly on you and your judgment. I think you should stick to what you know.

Regarding Hamilton: here is the very little I know of his character. He perjured himself during his USADA hearing, he associated himself with Rock Racing, and once he left the influence of U.S. Postal and Armstrong behind, he continued to dope.

Hamilton also said untrue and damaging things about the ADAs that (correctly in his case) identified him as a blood doper. “It’s obvious that the lab there had no idea what they were doing, and it makes you question the entire drug-testing process … But it’s too late for me. I’m just their guinea pig. They already ruined my life because of their mistakes.” To my knowledge, he’s never retracted any of this and apologized. To my knowledge, he’s never even admitted that he blood doped through the 2004 Vuelta and Olympics.

He is a sympathetic character who unfortunately has leveraged his ability to generate sympathy in some unfortunate ways, as when he’d claim that he’d never endanger his wife and family by blood doping. He used his wife and his parents to defend him publicly, something that even Landis never stooped to. Of course, his ex-wife Haven may not be innocent either — she may have been actively involved in Hamilton’s doping and may have broken the law herself. http://bit.ly/kOhszg. Of course, these allegations are not part of any current investigation. It’s only necessary to get Armstrong to clean up the sport.

I find it hard to remember all of Hamilton’s doping woes. Yes he got caught blood doping in 2004 and taking DHEA in 2009, but he was also one of the riders implicated in Operacion Puerto. What if Hamilton had come forward in 2006 and confessed all? Operacion Puerto might have gone differently. To my knowledge, Hamilton has still not admitted that he was a customer of Eufemiano Fuentes.

At some point someone might want to dive into Tyler Hamilton’s foundation. The foundation is an odd combination of a charity fighting multiple sclerosis and an advocate of “youth cyclists by providing them with access to the junior events, safety rodeos and instruction on teamwork, good sportsmanship and honesty.” At some point this foundation also got into the business of defending Hamilton against his doping charges — these defenses continue to survive on the foundation’s web site despite the 60 Minutes piece. I don’t know if this foundation claims 501(c)(3) status, but if it does it should not proclaim that Hamilton was innocent of all doping charges, which it still continues to do. http://bit.ly/jupDgt Back in the day, Hamilton would use fundraising events for his foundation to proclaim his innocence. http://bit.ly/ifNcfJ It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that he used his charitable foundation to raise money for his legal defense.

Also, we don’t talk about it much, but the predecessor to Landis’ FFF was Hamilton’s own believetyler.org web site and his legal defense fund, which also accepted contributions from the public. Howard Jacobs has claimed that only a small portion of the Hamilton legal defense fund was ever used to pay Hamilton’s defense, and funny enough, after all this time I still believe Howard Jacobs. Nonetheless, Hamilton was guilty on a small scale of the kind of fraudulent fundraising that Landis perfected on a large scale. This is not nice behavior.

As for who is vindictive, this quote from nice guy Hamilton: “I’m a nice person and I try to forgive people, but not this time, not with this. I’ve lost a lot of trust in people because they have backed off from me when I needed them the most. When my name is cleared, I’m going to remember those people. They’d better not come crawling back to me when this is all over.” As it turned out, there is little danger that anyone will crawl back to Hamilton.

In fairness to Hamilton, he’s battling clinical depression, and he seems to be a likable guy. I just wouldn’t hold him up as a paragon of anything. As between Hamilton and Armstrong, honestly, I prefer Armstrong personally. Armstrong may be a prick, but he wears it on his sleeve. He doesn’t use his niceness to manipulate people or gain sympathy. And he never used his dead dog as part of his doping defense.

In my life, I’ve known people who have known and liked Lance Armstrong. People are rarely all good or all bad.

Regarding the Geoghegan incident: I was not posting here or elsewhere about the Landis case at the time of the arbitration. I think you’re badly mischaracterizing Rant’s posts. No one liked what Geoghegan did, it was cruel and awful and I don’t know anyone who thought otherwise. The comments on LeMond were focused on what in the world he had to say of relevance to the case.

But yes, my view of that incident is different now that I know that Landis was guilty and knew he was guilty. Yes, the ends never justify the means, and Landis’ conduct was thoroughly disgusting and deplorable in that incident. But at the time, at least I had sympathy for the cause I thought Landis was fighting for. I could forgive Landis if he got carried away in fighting the good fight and if he apologized (which he did) and tried (if belatedly) to make things right by firing Geoghegan. Maybe I should have seen Landis’ true character at that moment, but I didn’t. But once I learned that he was living a lie, defrauding thousands, fighting just to save his miserable butt, then it became clear that the LeMond phone call was a despicable act in the service of a despicable cause. Even the apology and the Geoghegan firing loses redemptive value — I don’t believe Landis was sorry, I just believe that Landis did what he had to do to salvage his miserable case.

Undoubtedly true, it is problematic morally to distinguish between bad acts committed for good and bad causes. They’re both wrong, but I find the bad acts committed in service of a bad cause to be worse. For example, I deeply regret the fire bombing of Dresden in World War II, but I believe that similar actions taken by the Germans were much worse.

In any event, you frequently ask me how I really feel, and this is how I really feel. On this point, if you want to blast me to kingdom come, I might help you lay out the dynamite.

According to what I have read, the security tapes only cover the kitchen area and thus are not likely to shed any light on the matter. Nonetheless, the FBI is going to get the tapes to see what they might reveal.

The restaurant owner seems to be backing LA on this, saying it was just a couple of guys talking in a bar.

And now that I know a bit more about this incident, I will admit that my speculation about Ty possibly trying to set up Armstrong are probably off base. I had seen somewhere that LA is known to frequent this restaurant and went on from there.

Jeff,

1. LOL! As to dodging debate. When I asked you what points you disagreed with, all I got was some mumbling about “read all my prior comments”.

2. As to calling you a fanboy. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then I’m calling it a duck. You claim that you have no respect for Lance’s personality, and imply that you think that he’s a jerk and ass. Well here you have a perfect example of jerk like, bullying behavior. You don’t have to concede anything about his doping or not doping to admit he acted like a bully and jerk here, but you can’t do it.

And why the hate for Lemond? Maybe because he has consistently spoken out against doping in the peloton, something that the king of omerta has conspicuously failed to do.

I’ve been away for a while, but not much has happened recently anyway.

M’s comment about walking like a duck tends to indicate he/she doesn’t know much about the animal world either. Still can’t keep the issues separate from the personalities? And yes, you did dodge debate with me. You tucked your tail and ran, mumbling something about not debating a non-attorney on a legal matter. I can cite the relevant comment for you if you’d like. LOL.

Tyler Hamilton suffers from a form of mental illness, so I’m going to respect that and take care not to pile on unnecessarily. I’ll just say that he didn’t need to be rattled by the confrontation at Cash Cash. That’s more an indicator of a fragile or gentle personality than anything else. I don’t find Lance’s action to be brash. He acted as a bully when encountering a fragile or gentle person. I find that to be a cowardly act. My impression of LA is that he is a relative pu$$Y off the bike. How’s that for a fanboy, M??? Apparently you have no idea what a duck looks like and I don’t think they actually talk, do you?

Unlike the hysterical, who believe Armstrong intimidated a witness (in the legal sense), I view the Armstrong side of the incident as being unintelligent, ill advised, and the act of a coward. It was the easiest and one of the stupidest actions he could have taken at the time, bordering on panic. If he flailed in the same sort of way when Joseba Beloki high sided and broke his hip on the melting tarmac of high alpine roads, then LA would never have cyclocrossed his way to a TdF victory, doped or not. It would appear that the ability to act with coolness and clarity on the bike while in the heat of battle doesn’t readily translate to everyday life.

I don’t find LeMond’s protestations about doping in the peloton to be any more courageous than Armstrong’s incident with Hamilton. LeMond said little about doping in the peloton when he was a competitive rider. He’s said a lot since, but nothing particularly specific. I do question his motivation for speaking out in broad generalities. Maybe he really is being altruistic, but the effort does smell of legacy protection and self promotion. From a public relations standpoint, I think it was a bad move. His palmares will stand the test of time on their own. If he is as squeaky clean as claims, then what he is doing right now is a better strategy. Right now, he is keeping relatively quiet, standing back, and watching the shite hit the fan. In that sort of environment, palmares earned by a squeaky clean athlete will surely be value enhanced. In an ironic twist, Trek might even eventually wish they could have him back?

Eightzero, Heras story comment posted on the more current thread (Cycling Soap Operas…..) on 6/24, with a link.