USADA charges Armstrong with doping violations

Rather than contaminate yet another sport, this needs to stop now. He needs to clear himself before taking on the triathlon world.

@acc 22257 wrote:

Rather than contaminate yet another sport, this needs to stop now. He needs to clear himself before taking on the triathlon world.

Contaminate is a strong, and arguably pejorative word, Ann, don’t you think? I’ll admit, as a cancer survivor, my thoughts and feeling about Lance are complicated, and I don’t always like him, though I sometimes admire him, but my ire is raised by the idea that the USADA (populated as it is with people with feelings that bruise when the force of nature that is The Lance fires at them) is going to spend millions (yes, millions) of our tax dollars on a hunt to take away titles that were earned years ago, when the DOJ has declined to pursue criminal prosecutions using much of the same investigative material – well, it just rubs me raw. (And I apologize to the writing professor for my run-on sentences. . . .) Now, as a cyclist, who admires athletes who compete fairly and cleanly, I want the sport(s) I love so much to emerge from a culture of doping, so I support the idea of vigorous testing and transparent reporting (can anyone say Garmin-Barracuda? ) without the sub rosa leaks and lab screwups that call the validity of the results into question. What does it mean, after all, that Mr. Armstrong, who admits he’s not the world’s nicest guy (champions rarely are) has tested negative more than 500 times? Did he beat the tests? Maybe. Maybe not. We operate under the rule of law on the presumption of innocence, and his clean labs seem to indicate that all the hate and persistent prosecution is at least partly based on the fact that he’s a bit of an *ssh*le and is pretty full of himself. So what? If he’s clean, let him race until he posts a positive result. The “suspicious” results of 2009-2010 are likely based on the biological passport concept, which is still notional. Since USADA is going to go with this regardless of what I say/write, let’s at least hope they don’t spend tax money like a drunken sailor, and that they keep the sanctity of the process intact.

@acc 22257 wrote:

Rather than contaminate yet another sport, this needs to stop now. He needs to clear himself before taking on the triathlon world.

How could he possibly clear himself?

Don’t get me wrong, if there’s new evidence, and it’s clear he was doping, the world needs to know. But if this is based on the evidence that the world already knows, then come on. Proving a negative, especially one that happened in the past, is nearly impossible. It’s just getting old. And I have a hard time assuming that there’s new info.

Others make great points. I’ll also point out that the man went through some amazing and drastic medical procedures to beat his cancer. Great for him. He survived them, and showed amazing strength in doing so. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those altered his body in a way that made him a better cyclist. Which is kinda what doping is. But I wouldn’t complain about it (I don’t think he was doing any of that in order to become a better cyclist, but just to survive).

@ShawnoftheDread 22285 wrote:

He won’t be able to clear himself. His accusers have never been able to prove their accusations, but the accusations just keep coming despite all the clean test results. He’s essentially being asked to prove his innocence without using the strongest evidence in his favor — years of clean tests.

Exactly – the way USADA works, the burden is on him to prove he didn’t dope. Similar to Contador’s case earlier this year with WADA. It’s not a criminal proceeding and doesn’t follow the same standards of proof.

@creadinger 29298 wrote:

I’ll start. This article sucks.

especially the whole part of bringing the pedophile incident at Penn state in to the article. Really? You’re lumping Armstrong in with that?

Nike says they’ll stand behind him. I’ll still stand behind him too. Not because he, in my opinion, likely did dope. I’ll stand behind him because of what he turned his wins in to. He didn’t just quietly go away and retire, he built a cancer fighting empire.

Did he cheapen the sport? Not alone, he didn’t. He was only part of a sport that’s clearly dirty and needs to be cleaned up. He did bring an amazing amount of publicity to the sport, good or bad… oh wait, there is no such thing as bad publicity, right? I loved watching him ride, watching him win. If you don’t think every other winning rider wasn’t doping too, you’re probably wrong.

I’m mixed on the whole thing. On the one hand, I can understand the whole “if we think you doped, we will eventually hunt you down and burn your legacy to the ground no matter how long it takes so don’t even consider it” deterrent effect. But on the other hand, its been the better part of a decade since Lance won the tour and I just don’t see the point of going after him now. Most knowledgeable people take it for granted that doping was endemic during that time period. I doubt the folks he raced were clean either, so whats the point of taking the title from him and giving it to whoever the highest ranked rider that hasn’t been caught is? My personal feeling is that USADA really wanted a newsworthy scalp on their wall, and put a lot of effort into getting one.

As for stripping him of his titles, yeesh, who are they going to give them to? The years he won, you have to go a ways down the leaderboard to find someone not implicated in some sort of doping scandal at some point in time. And even then, was the rider not implicated only because they were far enough down the board that they weren’t under the same spotlight?