Lance Armstrong charges

The problem is that whenever you have the opportunity to gain money, if you win in sport...the temptation to cheat exists.

The worry is that the full blame will go on LA and the wider issue of cheating in cycling/sport, will be forgotten, by making LA the fall guy. IMO, the hierarchy of the UCI need to be investigated by an external body.

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned, but apparently the UCI set up a meeting between a drug tester and LA. The drug tester was then asked to give LA all the techniques/methods used for testing. This allowed LA and his cohorts to hone their methods to beat the testing procedure. The UCI allegedly set this meeting up. This is scandalous when you think about it. LA is a cheat. Sure. But for a governing body to actually help an athlete cheat. This might actually be unprecedented.

No wonder, the USADA and WADA do not have any faith in UCI investigations.

EDIT: Another thing which has surprised me is that its been a few hours since the story broke that many many Aussie athletes have tested positive for PEDs. Yet, on the bbc sports website, the story isnt even linked on the front-page. Its a complete non-story, apparently. With the exception of LA, perhaps people don't care if sports people take drugs. Personally, I think many athletes testing positive for PEDs is a far bigger story than 1 man admitting to using PEDs.
 
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Random Guy said:
My 2 pence: Making LA the fall-guy will do nothing but deflect what looks like a much more widespread issue across multiple sports around the World. The one that sets off the sirens for me, everytime, is the Olympics. It is a shame, but I view most Endurance Sports with a more cynical eye these days, preferring those that require teamwork, elevated skills (hand-eye etc.) and coordination instead.

On a related note, regarding the betting scandal that has just come to light about football - just how respectable are the Sports we watch? Very sad :(
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Tend to agree with this Arnstrong may have been the most successful, but he wasn't the first, the only or the last cyclist/athelete to dope or cheat!
 
sunama said:
EDIT: Another thing which has surprised me is that its been a few hours since the story broke that many many Aussie athletes have tested positive for PEDs. Yet, on the bbc sports website, the story isnt even linked on the front-page. Its a complete non-story, apparently. With the exception of LA, perhaps people don't care if sports people take drugs. Personally, I think many athletes testing positive for PEDs is a far bigger story than 1 man admitting to using PEDs.
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That's odd but can people stop pretending that Lance Armstrong is being really hard done by - he took performance enhancing drugs for years in one of the most systematic doping regimes that has yet been seen and lied about it. It appears he's only admitted to it now because the evidence is pretty near overwhelming and he quite fancies the idea of competing in triathlons now.

The story about Australian athletes is also lacking in names at the moment - it's a hell of a lot easier to focus when there's an identifiable person (or people) to look at. Saying that Aussie Rules and the National Rugby League have some players who took drugs is, well, a bit less of a story than someone who is world famous - I'd struggle to name a single Aussie Rules player without looking them up, maybe that's my shocking lack of sporting knowledge showing through though...
 
Semi Pro:
Which is a bigger scandal:
1. a cyclist taking drugs to win a few races and then getting caught? Or
2. an organisation (UCI) assisting a cyclist to take drugs, to help him win races?

LA is bad. No doubt. But (2) is much much worse. In fact, I would say this is unprecedented.

LA is being made a scapegoat here and an attempt is being made to cover the major problem of drugs in sport, by focusing the blame on one guy.

We have 2 big (cheating) stories right now, in the press (apart from LA):
1. Multiple Aussie top level athletes using PEDs
2. A Spanish sports doctor on trial for harbouring 200+ packets of blood of athletes in many sports (not just cycling). And surprise surprise, the non cycling sports bodies are not taking action over this major bust.

My guess is that if every nation, including England, did a similar study to what the Australians did, drugs cheats would be found.

I'm actually not too worried about LA. He is finished. He is done and dusted - a has been. My concern is that we are revering some athletes, who are currently (and will in future, be) competing and are using PEDs. I also wonder if some governing bodies are turning a blind eye to the cheating.

If people like Bolt, Sally Pearson, Wiggins, Cavendish (ie. people who are currently competing), get busted, this is far more significant and important than catching retired athletes.
 
sunama said:
...I also wonder if some governing bodies are turning a blind eye to the cheating.
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To come clean and risk tarnishing the sport and ultimately their own position, or sweep it under the rug and hope it goes away.

Baring in mind that most sports these days are about the pursuit of money in one form or another I can guess at which option the governing bodies will want to take.

As an example you just have to look at the Agassi case...

"Why was Andre Agassi not suspended if he tested positive and why was it never brought to the attention of the media and the players? Nobody ever heard about it." (Michael Stich - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/8329193.stm)

The ATP swept it under the rug simply because of Agassi's status, i.e. he was too important to the game.
 
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sunama said:
Semi Pro:
Which is a bigger scandal:
1. a cyclist taking drugs to win a few races and then getting caught? Or
2. an organisation (UCI) assisting a cyclist to take drugs, to help him win races?

LA is bad. No doubt. But (2) is much much worse. In fact, I would say this is unprecedented.

LA is being made a scapegoat here and an attempt is being made to cover the major problem of drugs in sport, by focusing the blame on one guy. Snipped for space.
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You do this every time. You keep trying to diminish Lance Armstrong's misdemeanours. It's not just a cyclist taking drugs to win a few races - it's a cyclist using drugs to help come first in the biggest and most famous race in cycling a record number of times, he was part of a systematic doping campaign, he bullied and threatened anyone who had the temerity to oppose him, he sued people for defamation and there are also allegations that he paid riders to allow him to win races.

If you don't think that litany of issues is worthy of note then I don't foresee us having anything much more to talk about on the subject.

No, Lance Armstrong is not the only person to ever take drugs to win at sport. He is however perhaps the most successful of those to do so. None of this has any impact on what I think of the UCI - for the record I think they're unsuitable to govern cycling and incompetent at best, if the allegations of collusion in assisting the cheating are proven they should probably be facing criminal charges.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if other governing bodies are permitting (either by action or inaction) athletes to break the rules on drug taking and that should be punished but again please let us not pretend that everyone is unjustly picking on poor little Lance.
 
After LA's confession, has anybody in this thread ever stated that LA is being unjustly attacked (or picked upon)?
 
sunama said:
After LA's confession, has anybody in this thread ever stated that LA is being unjustly attacked (or picked upon)?
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In so many words? Maybe, maybe not. By implication - sure.

Random Guy said:
My 2 pence: Making LA the fall-guy will do nothing but deflect what looks like a much more widespread issue across multiple sports around the World.
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sunama said:
With the exception of LA, perhaps people don't care if sports people take drugs.
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sunama said:
LA is being made a scapegoat here and an attempt is being made to cover the major problem of drugs in sport, by focusing the blame on one guy.
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/\ For the hell of of it I'll add some more.. but theres loads..

platypus said:
I think that's a little harsh to be honest, given the breadth and depth of doping within Cycling. Armstrong may have been one of the chief orchestrators of the cheating, but he was hardly the only one to blame. Doping or not doping, he came back from life threatening cancer, and that in itself should be remembered, if not for cycling but for other sufferers.

It does seem to me that he's being made a scapegoat, they should all be banned for life.
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Skillmister said:
I don't really care because he's just being the scapegoat for the whole thing. He's not the first, he won't be the last and the only solution I can see to the "problem" is for it to not be illegal. But that would bring in another set of problems
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Cristian said:
Every now and then someone needs a scapegoat for the public to throw stones at but have no fear drug usage has existed and will exist forever among elite athletes.
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Vonhelmet said:
I don't care if everyone was doping. Just because a problem is big doesn't mean it's not worth solving. And of course he's the scapegoat, because he was and is the most high profile in so many ways. We just need to hope that he can be more than the scapegoat and that this can be used as a way in to sorting things out.
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Not that it surprises me as sunama clearly has a nack of ignoring every piece of information that doesn't support his warped arguments.
 
I still stand by what I said. He's being made a convenient scapegoat. I didn't say he doesn't deserve to be banned, they all do.
 
The dodgy Doctor team sky sacked off last year. There's now a criminal investigation:

http://road.cc/content/news/76433-c...nst-ex-rabobank-and-sky-doctor-geert-leinders

When it launched in 2010, Sky made the decision to employ doctors not previously involved with the European road scene, in line with its zero tolerance policy towards doping.

That approach changed after the 2010 Vuelta when the team withdrew after the death due to septic shock of soigneur Txema Gonzalez. In the days prior to his death, an unrelated virus laid low several Sky riders.

The team decided it needed doctors on board who were familiar with the specific demands of road racing such as the searing heat experienced in the Vuelta.

During last year’s Tour de France – a race on which Leinders didn’t work for Sky – the team came under pressure to distance itself from him, and said that it had launched an internal investigation.

While Sky insisted in October out that its investigation had found nothing untoward, it said it would not be working with Leinders in future.
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In news unrelated to LA, but related to PEDs:

testosterone found in Pistorius' home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/world/africa/oscar-pistorius-murder-charge-bail.html?_r=0

South African police said on Wednesday that officers found testosterone and needles at the home of double amputee track star Oscar Pistorius when they went to his home last week to investigate the shooting death of his girlfriend.
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If he gets found not guilty and continues to compete, it will be interesting to see how the IAAF/IOC/WADA deal with this find.
 
Here we go:
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/cycling-hamilton-reveals-puerto-doctor-184354764.html

Speaking through an interpreter by video link from the Spanish embassy in Washington, Hamilton spoke for almost three hours about his time as a patient of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes between 2002-04 when the rider paid him as much as 110,000 euros (£90,000) for his services.
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This makes me think.
If I was a crooked doctor, I could put my services up for sale and earn a pretty penny.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...big-training-centre-for-distance-runners.html
Wada says there is no blood testing for EPO in Kenya's big training centre for distance runners
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If I were a crooked sports doctor, I'd head on down to Kenya and "tap" top Kenyan/young runners offering my services for free. If they win, they will give me a percentage of their winnings. With a little more thought, I'd imagine, I could earn a packet supplying athletes with PEDs and blood transfusions. This could set me up for life.

And the best part of it is that the IAAF (or whoever their testing body is - WADA, I think), don't seem to want to know about the court hearing which is currently on-going. Only cyclists are being targeted, even though track athletes are also implicated in the blood bag find. WADA has apparently asked for access to blood bags, but clearly there isn't much urgency here.

I've learnt one thing over the last few months - cheating in sport, pays and if you become really big, you become virtually untouchable. And then when you do get caught, you can write a book and make even more money!

You couldn't make this stuff up.
 
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