Other Sports: Page 26 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

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invisibleman18

So it's still a couple of hundred pages of stoires from confirmed cheats like Hamilton then? Still not a single positive test?

MuswellHillGooner

Not meant as a pop at you. Just used your post as it was relevant to the message as note that George Hincapie, who was Armstrong's lieutenant throughout his 7 winning tours, has also never failed a test yet has admitted to doping together with Armstrong.
Thing is, reading all this stuff just makes me question achievements of all athletes. Even Carl Lewis is doing the same by questioning the Jamaican team as he claims their drug testing is lax but when you see how Armstrong and Hincapie were able to avoid the supposedly stringent tests for over 10 years ...

Timbob

Its 1000 pages of damningly meticulous forensic evidence. If this was a murder trial he'd be found guilty no question.

He doped, and he won because he was the best at doping.

MuswellHillGooner

No doubting that he is a good man, a fighter, a winner (?), an inspiration, etc as shown by the Livestrong Foundation but these attributes are the very things stopping him from giving up as he probably thinks without his "achievements" he is a failure. As Timbo has noted, the evidence is overwhelming (compared to say what Justin Lee Collins faced last week and got found guilty in court!) and if he came clean, history would judge him kinder as almost all his competitors were also doping.

y va marquer

Why is there no doubting that he's a good man?
Not saying he's a bad one, but I'd say there are reasonable grounds to suggest he's got some fairly unpleasant aspects to his character to the degree that his decisions and actions affected the lives of others in a negative way.

MuswellHillGooner

I was being kind. Don't like kicking a man on the ground

y va marquer

It's not kicking him to point out that he's probably not all good.
No point in glorifying him.

invisibleman18

timBO! wrote:
Its 1000 pages of damningly meticulous forensic evidence.

Good, that's all I've been wanting to confirm it. So my next question is, if there is so much forensic evidence such as failed tests, why was nothing done about them? How can he have got away with failed drugs test and pure forensic proof?

invisibleman18

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:
Not meant as a pop at you. Just used your post as it was relevant to the message as note that George Hincapie, who was Armstrong's lieutenant throughout his 7 winning tours, has also never failed a test yet has admitted to doping together with Armstrong.

That is certainly quite daming for somene else who has never failed a test to admit to it.

MuswellHillGooner

invisibleman18 wrote:
timBO! wrote:
Its 1000 pages of damningly meticulous forensic evidence.

Good, that's all I've been wanting to confirm it. So my next question is, if there is so much forensic evidence such as failed tests, why was nothing done about them? How can he have got away with failed drugs test and pure forensic proof?

Did you not read the part where he "donated" cash to the governing body?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19907683
"There is more - the intimidation by Armstrong and his handlers of witnesses and their vitriolic attacks on critics, what Usada calls "a massive and long-running scheme to cover their tracks, tarnish reputations, lie to hearing panels and the press and do whatever was necessary to conceal the truth". There are payments of $100,000 and $25,000 to the UCI, cycling's governing body, to supposedly - and disturbingly - assist in anti-doping efforts."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19413613

Timbob

It's a hard question to answer, Invis. Generally it looks as though he manouvered himself in to such a position of influence and power within cycling that he became virtually untouchable. He became bigger than the sport, and a lot of people rode on the back of his success. The power brokers within the UCI, other cyclists, even many of the journalists had a vested interest in keeping Armstrong right at the forefront. He made them money, he kept them in jobs, he threatened them when they went against him etc. Cycling, at the very highest level is a very insular and corrupt sport, you're either in the inner circle or you're on the outside looking in. He was also incredibly ruthless and smart about the way he did the things he did, investing large sums of money on the best doctor(s), using the best techniques and the best drugs.

If anyone is really interested in this story, and cycling in general, there are loads of really good books that have come out in the last few years. Obviously Hamilton's book came out a couple of months back, David Walsh's book 'From Lance to Landis', Bjarne Riis has a tell all book out too. I think it's fascinating, but it definitely leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and the more you find out the more your view of all top level sport will be tainted. I'm much more cynical about PED's in all sport now than I was.

invisibleman18

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:
invisibleman18 wrote:
Good, that's all I've been wanting to confirm it. So my next question is, if there is so much forensic evidence such as failed tests, why was nothing done about them? How can he have got away with failed drugs test and pure forensic proof?

Did you not read the part where he "donated" cash to the governing body?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19907683
"There is more - the intimidation by Armstrong and his handlers of witnesses and their vitriolic attacks on critics, what Usada calls "a massive and long-running scheme to cover their tracks, tarnish reputations, lie to hearing panels and the press and do whatever was necessary to conceal the truth". There are payments of $100,000 and $25,000 to the UCI, cycling's governing body, to supposedly - and disturbingly - assist in anti-doping efforts."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19413613

No I hadn't read that. If proven then surely the UCI has has to be completely disestablished doesn't it?

Timbob

I still dont really know what I think of Armstrong as a cyclist or a champion though. He doped, but so was pretty much everyone else. It would appear that he cheated better and smarter, and performance enhancing drugs effect different people in different ways, so two psyiologically similar people could take exactly the same substance and do exactly the same training, but one could see vastly superior results to the other. So the argument that it was still a level playing field doesn't work.

But, he was still a brilliant athlete, and he was insanely driven and dedicated. There's is something to admire there. I read in the David Walsh book that in the opinion of another world class cyclist (cant remember who off the top of my head) Armstrong could have been one of the greatest single day racers ever. That was his gift. But his body wasn't cut out for the multiple day events like the grand tours, he didn't have the natural pysiology for it. Until the drugs changed that.

Bold Tone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Simeoni

Even more tragic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_Bassons
As the headline states "Case closed: Lance Armstrong doped"
http://www.espn.co.uk/cycling/sport/story/174278.html

Meatwad

as for the never failing a drug test argument:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19912623

EPO can be detected in the body for a number of hours after it has been taken - the "glowtime". During this time, the cyclist needs to avoid a meeting with the dope tester.

So, during the months of training, they kept track of when they had taken the drug, and tipped each other off by phone whenever a tester appeared in Girona, the town in northern Spain where the cyclists were based. In The Secret Race, co-authored by journalist Daniel Coyle, Hamilton lists three tips:

"Tip one: Wear a watch. Tip Two: Keep your cellphone handy. Tip three: Know your glowtime, how long you'll test positive after you take the substance. What you'll notice is that none of these things is particularly difficult to do."

They were more like "discipline tests, IQ tests" than drug tests, he says.

"If you were careful and paid attention, you could dope and be 99% certain that you would not get caught."

...

Armstrong contests that he took 500 drug tests worldwide and never failed one. This is disputed. Hamilton says he failed tests, but managed to explain it away, or hush it up.

The Usada report takes the same line. It says Armstrong was subjected to "considerably fewer" tests than he and his lawyers claim, and contends that a medical prescription Armstrong produced to explain a failed blood test in 1999 was bogus.

Hamilton himself kept a clear record for several years. He first tested positive just as he reached the peak of his career - a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics - when by mistake he was given another man's blood.

Blood transfusions are potentially risky. Badly stored blood can poison an athlete when transfused. Hamilton never had this problem, but he did suffer from one botched transfusion, which left him urinating a fluid "dark, dark red, almost black".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/sep/14/tyler-hamilton-doping-lance-armstrong

Looking back to 1999, I was naive to assume that year that the threat of police raids would make the cyclists leave their drugs at home. While the fear seems to have made many of them ride clean (a vast percentage of the samples from 1999 tested later for erythropoietin were clean), that in turn rewarded those who took special measures and doped up. In the case of Armstrong and Hamilton this meant hiring a motorcyclist, nicknamed Motoman, to transport their EPO.

The following year, with a new test in the pipeline for that blood booster, Armstrong and US Postal switched to microdoses of EPO (to reduce "glowtime", as they call the period when a rider will test positive after an injection) but primarily to blood transfusions – a bigger boost to performance but involving trips to Spain by private jet to have blood removed before it was reinjected for the key moments in the race. Blood doping later became more sophisticated, once Hamilton had left Postal and taken up with the egregious Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, alleged supplier of blood doping services extraordinaire, albeit one who insists he is innocent. Blood is taken out and reinjected in epic quantities; it is frozen and manipulated. Occasionally it goes off, to disastrous effect.

The methods used for concealment are the stuff of the underworld: multiple pay-as-you-go mobile phones, constantly changed, codes for the numbers of rooms in obscure hotels where blood is taken out and put back in, elaborate measures to dispose of evidence, on one occasion hiring a flat in Monaco for one transfusion, hidden there for a month with Hamilton and his then wife, Haven, keeping an eye on it. But above all, constant paranoia, fear of the opposition, fear of discovery. It is sport but not as mere mortals can imagine it or report it, in the case of my colleagues and I. We suspected and conjectured, while being unable to put our disquiet into print; quite how we could have uncovered it I cannot imagine, given the elaborate measures to which the drugtakers were resorting to ensure secrecy.

Tony Montana

The New England Patriots will be playing the Stan Kroenke's other team, the St Louis Rams, at Wembley on Oct 28.

Does anyone care?

Burnwinter

^^ Haha. Nope.

Armstrong rabbit hole is way deep:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-15/australian-legend-witnessed-armstrong-bribe/4312558

Tony Montana

Orlacaz wrote:
^^ Haha. Nope.

I'm actually a big NFL fan. Will be rooting for the Rams as I don't particularly like the Patriots. Rams will be an underdog.

Klaus

I think the media reaction is pretty interesting at the moment. I don't mean the reporting on the story per se. I get that the it's shit hot and the more shame it brings on Armstrong's person the better. But let's be honest, the fact that he wasn't clean was obvious long before he was being canonised. Armstrong was probably an even more obvious case than Barry Bonds but the faith and redemption angle just seemed to fit the american superhero narrative better at the time. Outlets like ESPN were heavily contributing to the myth of the The Boss, all the while hounding the likes of Marco Pantani until he couldn't take it any more and ended his own life in an overdose. In this their behaviour has been shameful. I think the scandal calls for self-reflection on behalf of a lot of people.

Burnwinter

Yes, I agree. It's as clear cut a case of 'mass hallucination' as you're likely to see.

It reminded me of a discussion by Zizek in The Parallax View (I recently read some, not all of that) regarding the function of the Lacanian Other in failing Soviet states: everyone living and working in them could see the system wasn't working, and everyone knew that everyone they knew thought the same, but remained convinced that a silent Other (in effect, the quiescent paternal presence of Stalin) thought otherwise and was sustaining them.

He humorously describes it as being like those scenes in Disney when Goofy runs off a cliff but takes several seconds to notice he's done so - during this time, gravity does not affect him.

You can see this going on in Invisible's posts in this thread (no offence Invis 🙂 ).

Then Khrushchev gives his "Secret Address" in 1965, or Hamilton starts giving interviews, and the whole thing starts falling to pieces, or at least everyone breathes a sigh of relief, adjusts and starts to move on.

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