USADA says it will ban Lance Armstrong, strip 7 Tour titles

[sittingbison]

...prior to his cancer, LA was quite bulky (for a cyclist anyway) as he was a competitive swimmer/triathlete. After having cancer, he lost a lot of weight and when he was back to full fitness, his physique was much leaner improving him as a cyclist.

Yes zed, that is something that was said many times as we watched him dance his high cadence through the mountains. Something I always believed.

Its a fallacy

He lost hardly any weight at all, if any. In fact can you believe it, his HEIGHT is also subject to considerable conjecture, varying between 5'5" and 5'10". He has refused to be officially measured. Michael Ashenden has spoken at length on this issue. Compare pics of Lance with say Froome or Rasmussen, you will see he does not resemble a skeletal cancer survivor.

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interv...chael-ashenden

Talks about the EPO fails, scroll down to "Cloak of Secrecy"

"The other thing that surprised me is this idea of cancer taking away 15 pounds, it's another one of these publicly held beliefs that became so ingrained, and it was surprising to find that he didn't lose any weight post cancer. And not only that, he's listed as 5' 9", 5' 10", but we know from speaking to his teammates he's more like 5' 5", 5' 6"...when the photographs were taken, they report him as being 77, 78 kilos. You contrast that with the data in Coyle's paper, and he shows that the lowest body weight was 75 kilos in '93, but in November after his first Tour victory, it was 79 kilos....Armstrong acknowledged under oath that his body weight never got to 72, he was a little vague, but he said he was happy when he raced in the 74's. Now if you admit you were probably 74 you were probably a lot heavier than that.

Rider weight is usually a closely guarded secret, it can give an advantage to competitors knowing what potential power outputs are.

[zed]

Yeah I wasn't suggesting he was not guilty of doping, more of an interesting point regarding his physique & cancer. He did mention it in his autobiography, but who knows if it's true or not.

---------- Post added at 14:11 ---------- Previous post was at 14:05 ----------

Actually I'm just going through a few threads on a bike forum I'm a member of. I thought they would be totally supportive of LA and insisting on it being a witch hunt, but surprisingly 90% of them are of the belief he is guilty.

[Happy]

yup .. that's the firm opinion of every bike person i've raised it with over the past few weeks

[The EnForcer]

To back up Happy, any latex wearing faggot bike person I have talked to thinks the same.....

Besides a very senior Doctor friend of mine knows how they did it. The doctor of armstrongs team was a specialist and the team basically did blood transfusions to aid the oxygen levels in the blood and to cover up any drugs taken. Apparently a highly specialist thing to do and not straight forward.....hence the highly sophisticated medical team they had.

In any other world he would be locked up for fraud and stealing, instead he gets away with all of his money and stealing other peoples glory with a slap on the hand!

Cheating bastard!

[Happy]

and now the questions are being asked....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...?newsfeed=true

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/...branch-surgery

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/poun...on-for-cycling

[LarryNJ]

and now the questions are being asked....

So many questions than need to be answered.

One thing that looks to be a fact is TEF seems to like men who wear latex and skirts. I remember back when he was more into the Al Gore tree huggers type of guys.

[hertryk]

This from a competing cycling friend of mine based in the US...

quote..."I dunno, I do believe he may have done , but the whole case from the USADA is crap... but, I think this is the wisest move... basically he is telling Tygrst (sp?) the idiot from the USADA pursuing the non-event to go **** himself...

USADA doesn't have the power to take away his Yellow Jersey, that's up to WADA and UCI, which from what I have read are backing LA... so, now LA takes his ball and goes home..." unquote..

[sittingbison]

This from a competing cycling friend of mine based in the US...

quote..."I dunno, I do believe he may have done , but the whole case from the USADA is crap... but, I think this is the wisest move... basically he is telling Tygrst (sp?) the idiot from the USADA pursuing the non-event to go **** himself...

USADA doesn't have the power to take away his Yellow Jersey, that's up to WADA and UCI, which from what I have read are backing LA... so, now LA takes his ball and goes home..." unquote..

unfortunately your cycling friend is completely deluded Hertryk. If s/he is so completely factually incorrect about the powers of USADA and that WADA is backing Lance, what does that say about their other opinions?

And the "I do believe he may have done" comment? Followed by a complete denial? So its ok then to cheat in sport, and its ok to lie cheat steal and defraud millions of cancer sufferers? Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Whatever happened to "I am glad the authorities are doing their upmost to rid the sport of corruption, every lying cheating doper scumbag exposed is one more blow for the clean honest competitors".

[zed]

This from a competing cycling friend of mine based in the US...

quote..."I dunno, I do believe he may have done , but the whole case from the USADA is crap... but, I think this is the wisest move... basically he is telling Tygrst (sp?) the idiot from the USADA pursuing the non-event to go **** himself...

USADA doesn't have the power to take away his Yellow Jersey, that's up to WADA and UCI, which from what I have read are backing LA... so, now LA takes his ball and goes home..." unquote..

Yeah I agree to an extent. I don't think they have a watertight case against LA. A lot of the witnesses providing evidence against LA are known dopers and are not of good character. But I don't really think it matters whether or not he loses his titles, what matters is what Joe Public think of him and I think the overwhelming feeling is he's guilty as sin.

[Happy]

if he wasn't guilty then this would be the biggest defamation case in history, the fact he is not suing pretty much sums it up!

[sittingbison]

if he wasn't guilty then this would be the biggest defamation case in history, the fact he is not suing pretty much sums it up!

his paid liar Herman sent a letter to USADA attorney Bill Bock the same hour Lance "walked away", threatening suing USADA if they sanctioned him or released the evidence.

"You are on notice that if USADA makes any public statement claiming, without jurisdiction, to sanction Mr. Armstrong, or to falsely characterize Mr. Armstrong's reasons for not requesting an arbitration as anything other than a recognition of (International Cycling Union) jurisdiction and authority, USADA and anyone involved in the making of the statement will be liable."

The last thing Lance will do is step into a court where the evidence becomes public, he has already lost millions trying to suppress the evidence, and would also face the risk perjury charges (sworn testimony already given in SCA case)

[zed]

I'm surprised there are intelligent people out there who still believe he's innocent.

[Sheikh]

Yeah I agree to an extent. I don't think they have a watertight case against LA. A lot of the witnesses providing evidence against LA are known dopers and are not of good character. But I don't really think it matters whether or not he loses his titles, what matters is what Joe Public think of him and I think the overwhelming feeling is he's guilty as sin.

You'd be surprised - an awful lot of people will never believe Armstrong is guilty unless he actually stands up and admits he's been doping and defrauding people for the last 15 years. Some would still believe him innocent even then.

The biggest problem is that all of this b*ll*cks means people are still talking about him - he should be resigned to the history books with an asterisk next to his name saying something like "highly dubious" because he's an irrellevance to cycling now.

[Happy]

"Secrets are poison" and Tyler Hamilton's biography, "The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs," is cycling's equivalent of sucking snake venom out of a bite and spitting it out for the world to see.
Hamilton's co-writer Daniel Coyle, also the author of "Lance Armstrong's War," distills meticulous research and hours of interviews with numerous individuals into a clear, gripping, unabashed expose' on cycling's lost decade of doping.
It is an indictment of Lance Armstrong, to be sure. Any anti-doping official can read through this volume and find rule violation after rule violation. But it is also an indictment of the system.
Hamilton makes a fool of the UCI and its anti-doping efforts, demonstrating how simple it was to avoid positive tests. "In fact, they weren't drug tests. They were more like discipline tests, IQ tests. If you were careful and paid attention, you could dope and be 99 percent certain that you would not get caught."
He lays bare the seedy underbelly of cycling, entering just as the UCI rolls out the 50% haematocrit limit in order to keep riders from pumping themselves full of so much EPO that their blood becomes sludge. He has his "thousand days" of being tortured by meaty sprinters hammering up alpine ascents at abnormal speeds before finally caving in at the hands of US Postal Service team doctor Pedro Celaya in 1997.
He describes an atmosphere where doping is not only rampant but openly discussed in the peloton, confirming anecdotes told by David Millar in his memoir "Racing Through the Dark."
While David Millar's memoir was a story of his personal journey from doper to advocate for a clean sport, Hamilton's bio focuses mainly on squeezing out every single bit of detail in order to counter his years of blatant lies. By the end, you sense that he has wrung out everything he could, and the complexity of the tale makes it hard to call his claims false.
He describes a bumbling anti-doping system, constantly behind the curve. When the EPO test was introduced in 2000, the cheaters were way ahead of the game, although the efforts forced the inner circles of doping become more closed. They employed well-paid advisors such as Michele Ferrari, who, Hamilton alleges, were happy to provide methods to cheat the tests. It is glimpse into a world of powerful men with enough wealth and influence to apparently cover up a positive test, such as Armstrong's alleged EPO positive at the 2001 Tour de Suisse, when those methods fail.
Hamilton's time in Armstrong's secret club doesn't last long, and after he crushes Armstrong's record time on the Mont Ventoux during the 2000 Critérium du Dauphiné, he is slowly ostracized, and eventually leaves the team for Bjarne Riis's project, Team CSC.
There, he is introduced to Eufemiano Fuentes, now famous for being busted by the Spanish Operación Puerto, the man who would eventually become careless and prove to be Hamilton's downfall.
Hamilton confesses everything about his years of blood doping, admitting to taking transfusions prior to his major victories in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour de France and Vuelta a España. The latter would ultimately expose Hamilton as not only a cheater, but a liar.
The book is a must-read for those who wish to understand the current events surrounding Lance Armstrong, and it will keep you in your seat for hours. However, if you are a cycling fan, read at your peril: it may be hard to enjoy watching the sport after getting through this book, because every stand-out performance, every heroic breakaway, every amazing ride will trigger a little doubt in your mind. After all of the blatant, bare-faced lies told by an affable rider like Hamilton, it will be difficult to trust any rider's claims of racing clean.
Hamilton does not give the fans a happy ending. Armstrong's war may still continue in the courts, and more details of the era are sure to surface. Hamilton may walk away into the sunset to his happy home in Montana, but he leaves behind the snake-bit patient shivering, delirious and feverish on the ground.

[sittingbison]

"Secrets are poison" and Tyler Hamilton's biography, "The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs," is cycling's equivalent of sucking snake venom out of a bite and spitting it out for the world to see...

And released on Hein Verbruggens birthday lol: