Quote Originally Posted by TitoFan View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Nameless View Post
It,s just one of the many athletes that got caught for doping and has been able to elude it for a decade because his doctors and his techniques were ahead of the time. It,s like the Balco scandals, if it wasn't from an inside source, many athletes would have eluded tests; better doctors, new techniques...
There is way too many witnesses on that one and the samplers have been tested and re-tested and the labs who did perform it (including Chateau Malabry in France) are among the top labs in the world. Is he guilty? To me, 100%.

HOwever: the tour de France is notariously famous for being filled with enhancers users, back in the 60' the Pelissier brothers (Henri and Charles) were showing to reporters the pills and other stuff that they were handed by the tour managers in order to complete. At the time, the idea of cheating by taking enhancers wasn't spread neither much acknowledged.
In the meantime, these produces got prohibited and some tests (severe?) got imposed to find the cheaters but the cheating culture was already well rooted.

Though Amstrong deserves to lose his titles, what's sad is that he's just one of all those who did cheat, I am about certain that around 50% of the runners have some skeltons in their closet at some point and because he did win a lot, he's the one singled out for it.


Then who should they award Armstrong's titles to? How can we be sure that the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. finishers in those races weren't doping? Should the race results just be nulled? If the USADA has taken it upon themselves to ostracize Armstrong and ruin his career and legacy..... they should be even-handed about it and ruin a lot of other rider careers as well. Don't you think?

Armstrong's last title was back in 2005. Here we are in 2012, stripping him of all 7 titles. Rightly or wrongly.... does this smell a little rotten to anybody?

Efforts to rid sports (all sports) of doping are anything but even-handed. Authorities seem to choose their pariahs and go after them like pitchfork-wielding villagers after a grizzly bear.

Now.... after the fact..... it's open season on the fallen Armstrong, and you can bet everybody and their brother will come forward with some "new" story about how Armstrong "did this" and "did that". Amazing.

As i said, it's not rotten because they only discovered afterward that he was probably using peds at the time, and the bureaucratic machine is waayyyyyy sloooow (almost as slow as the new testing techniques). So on that side, I'd say it's not rotten and comprehensive.
As for if the titles should be nullified or given to someone else (even though it does stink to receive a title 7 years retroactively), I think that they test al the samples they have spared from the racers behind Lance, according to the same standards and give it to the first cyclist who's in line behind him and who does past the tests and put a special rule that if the next 5-6 cyclists test positive, then the title is voided (which is the case for one of the seven but can't remember which year).

I'd advocate for something like that, personally. Thus said, the fact that Lance is a 500 millions charity caterer for cancer is all another debate and nobody can discredit him for that.