I hate this sort of stuff…
Why can’t someone just frickin’ figure out if Lance Armstrong has been using performance-enhancing drugs?
I mean, how many times can we have this conversation?
The Washington Post reports on the latest development:
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency brought formal doping charges against former cyclist Lance Armstrong in an action that could cost him his seven Tour de France titles, according to a letter sent to Armstrong and several others Tuesday.
As a result of the charges, Armstrong has been immediately banned from competition in triathlons, a sport he took up after his retirement from cycling in 2011.
In February, an investigation into Armstrong’s use of performance-enhancing drugs was concluded without bringing charges.
Despite the fact that Armstrong claims 25 years of competing (with no spikes or major changes in performance), as well as over 500 drug tests that have come out clean, there are still questions.
The USADA wrote a letter on June 12 that alleges a massive conspiracy to cover up Armstrong’s doping.
…three doctors including Italian physician Michele Ferrari, one trainer and team manager Johan Bruyneel— engaged in a massive doping conspiracy from 1998 to 2011, and that “the witnesses to the conduct described in this letter include more than ten (10) cyclists . . .”
The USADA also cites a Swiss doctor, Martial Saugy, found evidence of doping in a 2001 blood test. But the story isn’t so simple. The Post elaborates:
Saugy told The Post last year that Armstrong’s sample was merely “suspicious,” a designation that meant it could not be called positive. Further analysis with modern methods might bring clarity, Saugy said, but the sample no longer exists.
“We did not do the additional analysis. It will never be sufficient to say, in fact, it was positive,” Saugy said in an interview with The Post. “I will never go in front of a court with that type of thing.”
The question is this: At some point does the pursuit of Armstrong become harassment?
Or does athletic dominance like this simply not happen naturally?
Could a conspiracy of this size and duration (including 500 drug tests) possibly exist?
Why does Lance Armstrong matter so much to us?
For me, it seems we want to believe in the dream: That a man could survive cancer—that spread to his lungs and brain, of all places—and go on to become a hero. We want to believe that there are superheroes among us.
Of course, we also know that Armstrong isn’t perfect in his private life. He’s divorced from the mother of his children. He was engaged to Sheryl Crow and they broke up… He now has two other children from his current relationship.
But all of that seems somewhat par for the course for a celebrity, and certainly doesn’t qualify his as “bad” man…
What do you think?
AP Photo/ Reed Saxon
About Joanna Schroeder
Of course Armstrong doped. Virtually every single teammate he ever had has either tested positive or subsequently admitted to doping. Many of them have also implicated Armstrong, as have others. At this point it’s an open-and-shut question. Given the detailed knowledge dopers had of how to time doping cycles to beat scheduled tests it’s not surprising Armstrong tested clean, particularly when you factor designer drugs that simply weren’t tested for and wouldn’t show up (even on unscheduled tests). He’s a fraud. End of story.
I don’t know much about him, but there should probably be a statute of limitations on these things. I don’t see how it helps to revisit these things decades after the fact.
There IS a statute of limitations, actually. And it runs out soon. Which is why you’re seeing this happen now. If they don’t do it in the next 6 months or a year (I think), they can’t ever again. It was a big motivation behind the Fed case (which was dropped), too.
I mean, Marion Jones never tested positive either. Doesn’t matter, still busted.
When it comes to his cycling career, I’d like to see a lot more attention paid to the fact that he won as part of a *team* of cyclists, all of whom did their part to help him win. There’s a false impression out there that each Tour de France competitor is just a lone contestant competing against everyone else, when in fact cyclists like Armstrong win because a lot of people help him along the way. That’s not cheating, that’s just how the Tour de France works. He still has to pedal all those miles and be the fastest one, but his teammates helped make it easier for him, which is the role that they gladly accept.
Saying he won the Tour de France is like saying a quarterback won a Super Bowl. Sort of, but not precisely.
Lance Armstrong rose to prominence in cycling at a time when first EPO and later blood doping was readily available and no test were available to prove the use. As a result, the temptation was huge, and for a while the use of EPO was as widespread as to be near-universal. Also, Armstrong was able to consistently beat riders from teams that have later admitted systematic use of doping. For these reasons many have a hard time believing Armstrong was not among the users. Everyone did it, and there was very little risk. Why would he not do it?
Armstrong also rode at a time when the attitude and culture in cycling was changing. Back before Armstrongs time – before the mid-90′s – everyone knew that most of the riders where taking stuff, and unless it was really excessive, no-one cared too much. It was just part of the game. But that changed – maybe because doping methods became more effective, maybe because the money in the sport got bigger, maybe because of a bigger cultural shift. So Armstrong learned the ropes in a culture where doping was pretty much accepted (but everyone officially denied it), but his legacy plays out in a time when it’s not. Armstrong is doing what great champions of the past have been doing – deny with anger. The difference is that in the time of Mercx and Moser, it was considered bad form to ask those questions. Not any more.
So, no – it’s not harassment. It’s part of a big change in the culture of the sport, a process that is playing out (at times quite dramatically) in these years. And it’s only natural that people will keep poking at the biggest star of them all, when all the others from his era have pretty much already been proven to have been users.
I don’t know if he did it. I wasn’t there during the training camps or in the team bus. What I can say that if it is proven that he did, I will not be a bit surprised.