Lance Armstrong: Court of public opinion (Page 4)

60 Minutes brought up an interesting point.  Disgraced track star ( lots o' gold medals) Marion Jones, passed 160+ drug tests.  (she doped)  She has done her jail time...it will be interesting to see if Lance follows in her footsteps. 

Even the dude from the testing lab confirmed the tests can be beaten.

All I've got to say is Lance has got some 'splainin' to do.  He made "donations" to the testing association? Who does that?  $25 grand...then a few years later, $100,000?  

I love what Lance has done fighting cancer...and I don't want to believe he was dirty...but man!  The dots are starting to get connected here.  It will be interesting to see what the feds turn up.    

Isn't there a statute of limitations on most of this stuff?

Oh they'll try to get him on perjury and obstruction of justice but all he has to do is keep his mouth shut and not lie under oath.  I can see where the feds could pressure Hamilton into speaking, because his last positive test was in 2009 (less than 3 years ago).  Lance on the other hand will be silent, I think.

The biggest risk for Lance is what tjh mentioned: having his image destroyed and hurting his charity.  Mark McGwire wound up with the same tarnished image after (smartly) refusing to incriminate himself in front of Congress.

That story was crap. Most of what was in it was not new. Lance still might have doped, but it does not make the story any better.

As for Tyler and Landis... it's a B.S. move to all of a sudden get a conscience once you have nothing to loose.... it's worse when you do it cause you have something to gain. Couple of scum bags. If Tyler is so damned concerned about the sport and his conscience, why did he take immunity?

And again... LA could have doped, might have... but even still... team mates come and go every year... he was dogged about PEDS from day one... he started his campaign that he didn't dope from day one... yet we are to believe he directly  supplied team mates with peds????... that he actually asks Ladis... some scrub at the time to "watch his blood for him for a month".... I'm sorry, they might very well knew he doped, but their stories do not make sense. I just don't buy them. I have a hard time believing as driven as LA was, as shrewd as he is, with the team that he surrounded himself with, that he and his"team" would have left him so exposed like that... to have him directly involved and tied to anything like that.... yet the team management and team doctors directed Hamilton to dope...  yet were smart enough not to supply it themselves... yet Tyler gets on the phone to the one guy all the money is tied to and LA ships Hamilton some dope.... makes no sense what so ever.

Okay, how 'bout if what has been rumored (Hincapie claims he saw LA taking PEDs) would that be enough to sway even the most ardent of LA defenders?  Yes, I know Hincapie has said what he told investigators is between him and the investigators...but eventually I'd imagine this would come out?  

Would that convince folks LA was not "clean?"

The 500 or so tests is in itself a somewhat questionable number. See the writeup of it here: http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/05/tyler-hamilton-confessor-and-witness.html

LA:

Pre cancer, yes I believe he was one of the peloton, all/most dopers.  I also believe that a good portion of the hospital episode has some truth.  However, I don't believe he continued post cancer, the time in which he actually won his titles.  Being that near death, I can't see how he would have risked it.

JMHO

Adam

There is no smoking gun, give me a photo, some documentation, the guy that says, "I did it, I sold him the stuff", not the guy that says I saw him do it, and I would know because I'm a cheat too! 

I want Lance broken down in the witness stand sobbing, while a Perry Mason, Ben Matlock cyborg hybrid holds impossibly clear photo's of him injecting himself with an ACME sized needle with "ACME Illegal Doping Juice tm" written on the side.  Maybe, maybe, then I'll give some credence to these "accusations"

It is my personal opinion that Lance, and the ENTIRE peloton, then and now, dopes(ed).

That being said, when being intervied, Hamilton's eyes were rolling all over the place when answering questions.  It seriously looked like he was making things up on the fly.  It was pretty comical to watch.

So... can someone define doping for me?

I see it being used in a way that makes me believe it is in reference to performance enhancing drugs (like steroids or something), but I thought it was more related to storing blood and moving it around pre-race or something... <confused>.

Yes.  blood DOPING is just that.  you take your blood out and store it.  Then, add it back in later for peak training and racing so that you've got more red blood cells to carry all that O2.  they were also talking about EPO, which is a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production- so I guess, a similar effect.

Here is the only thing that came out of the story for me....

If cycling has the highest standards, and the strictest doping policy.... and they set the levels for what is considered proper and not proper.... and all the cyclists dope up to that level... then isn't that a level playing field???

Hamilton basically said that the Postal team doped up to the level of not being over. I always thought in terms of doping over levels but not getting caught, or faking tests, or what not..... but if the postal team doped.... just up to the set levels laid out by the governing body..... then how much of an edge is that??? And if all the teams do it that way.... then that means all the contestants are equal.

I thought that was interesting to me that they have not stopped doping, but perhaps set a level playing field.

And consider...

If he was the only clean rider on the tour, and he was whooping everyone else for 7 years straight...

Maybe they should just legalize it.

He wasn't.  Many of those who we now know doped during his time (e.g., Ullrich) never tested positive either.

Or.... what you can say as fact is that LA did not win 7 in a row with a clean TEAM. One reason he won 7 in a row was because he fielded superior teams every year. If he was not doping... but his team was....

True...but see the thread title...

tri808, I interpreted that as something else...being incredibly uncomfortable talking about something he has likely dreaded since the moment he was introduced to the crap on US Postal team.  Everything he lived for...everything he accomplished was not real.  Can you imagine being in this guys shoes?

If you honestly think he was "making stuff up on the fly," you must think he's one of the dumbest people in the country.  If he perjures himself, he's gone.  He'd be in the shoes of disgraced track and field star, gold-winning Marion Jones, who just got out of jail btw.  

One more thing, to think LA was afraid to use something like EPO AFTER cancer is unbelievable to me.  My reasoning?  I'm sure there are docs on this site who know the ins and outs of cancer treatment, but I'm pretty sure cancer patients are given treatments to boost red blood cell production.  Isn't Procrit one of those drugs?  I'm not certain.  

I'm not in the business of slamming this guy.  LA has done nothing to hurt me or anybody else to my knowledge.  I just wish LA would have gone the route of Pettite as opposed to Clemens.  

I took his story as incredibly fake too. He was acting as if he was so tore up over it... didn't come off as sincere to me. JMO. Like he had no choice with Postal.... yet he was busted again and again AFTER leaving Postal..... yet now that his book is coming out and he is trying to earn a living as a coach he is suddenly concerned for the sport.