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Armstrong to be Stripped of all 7 Titles

 
 
Robert Gentel
 
  4  
Reply Wed 10 Oct, 2012 01:41 pm
@roger,
He was the best doper, and the best among the dopers (virtually all).
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  2  
Reply Wed 10 Oct, 2012 01:54 pm
Hey, ya break the rules and get caught -
0 Replies
 
hawkeye10
 
  -1  
Reply Wed 10 Oct, 2012 01:57 pm
Quote:
First of all, Lance Armstrong is a good man. There’s nothing that I can learn about him short of murder that would alter my opinion on that. Second, I don’t know if he’s telling the truth when he insists he didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs in the Tour de France — never have known. I do know that he beat cancer fair and square, that he’s not the mastermind criminal the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency makes him out to be, and that the process of stripping him of his titles reeks.

A federal judge wrote last week, “USADA’s conduct raises serious questions about whether its real interest in charging Armstrong is to combat doping, or if it is acting according to less noble motives.” You don’t say. Then when is a judge, or better yet Congress, going to do

Quite independently of Lance, with whom I wrote two books, for a long, long time I’ve had serious doubts about the motives, efficiency and wisdom of these “doping” investigations. In the Balco affair, all the wrong people were prosecuted. It’s the only so-called drug investigation in which the manufacturers and the distributors were given plea deals in order to throw the book at the users. What that told us was that it was big-game hunting, not justice. It was careerist investigators trying to put athletes’ antlers on their walls. Meanwhile, the Fourth Amendment became a muddy, stomped-on, kicked-aside doormat.

So forget Lance. I have so many problems with USADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) — which is supposed to be where athletes can appeal, only they never, ever win — that it’s hard to know where to begin. American athletes have lost 58 of 60 cases before the CAS. Would you want to go before that court?

Anyone who thinks an athlete has a fair shot in front of CAS should review the Alberto Contador case. Contador was found to have a minuscule, insignificant amount of clenbuterol in his urine during the 2010 Tour de France. After hearing 4,000 pages of testimony and debate, CAS acknowledged that the substance was too small to have been performance-enhancing and that its ingestion was almost certainly unintentional.

Therefore he was guilty. He received a two-year ban.

CAS’s rationale? “There is no reason to exonerate the athlete so the ban is two years,” one member of the panel said.

Would you want to go before that court?

The decision was so appalling that even the Tour runner-up, Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, couldn’t swallow it and refused to accept the title of winner. “There is no reason to be happy now,” Schleck said. “First of all, I felt bad for Alberto. I always believed in his innocence. . . . I battled with Contador in that race and I lost.”
.
.
.
How does an agency that is supposed to regulate drug testing strip a guy of seven titles without a single positive drug test? Whether Armstrong is innocent or guilty, that question should give all of us pause. How is it that an American agency can decide to invalidate somebody’s results achieved in Europe, in a sport it doesn’t control? Better question, how is it that an American taxpayer-funded organization can participate in an adjudication system in which you get a two-year ban because “there is no reason to exonerate” you? At what point is such an organization shut down and defunded?

In his decision last week, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks declined to intervene in USADA’s case against Armstrong because to do so would “turn federal judges into referees for a game in which they have no place, and about which they know little.” But in the next breath Sparks expressed an opinion on certain matters he does know about. “The deficiency of USADA’s charging document is of serious constitutional concern,” he wrote. “Indeed, but for two facts, the court might be inclined to find USADA’s charging letter was a violation of due process and to enjoin USADA from proceeding thereunder.” Among other things, he was disturbed by USADA’s “apparent single-minded determination” to go after Armstrong and force him before CAS.


All of which I find far more worrisome than the question of whether he may have transfused his own blood in trying to climb a mountain on a bike. It wasn’t a judge’s job to intervene with USADA. But it most certainly would seem to be the job of Congress. The WADA-USADA system is simply incompatible with the U.S. legal system.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/othersports/lance-armstrong-doping-campaign-exposes-usadas-hypocrisy/2012/08/24/858a13ca-ee22-11e1-afd6-f55f84bc0c41_story_1.html

Sally Jenkins began her second stint at The Washington Post in 2000 after spending the previous decade working as a book author and as a magazine writer. She was named the nation’s top sports columnist in 2003 and 2010 by the Associated Press Sports Editors.
Jenkins is the author of nine books, three of which were New York Times bestsellers, most notably “It’s Not About the Bike” with Lance Armstrong. Her work has been featured in GQ and Sports Illustrated, and she has acted as a correspondent on CNBC as well as on NPR’s All Things Considered.
A native of Texas, Jenkins graduated from Stanford and lives in New York City.

hingehead
 
  4  
Reply Wed 10 Oct, 2012 03:35 pm
@hawkeye10,
Quote:
Quite independently of Lance, with whom I wrote two books, for a long, long time I’ve had serious doubts about the motives, efficiency and wisdom of these “doping” investigations. In the Balco affair, all the wrong people were prosecuted. It’s the only so-called drug investigation in which the manufacturers and the distributors were given plea deals in order to throw the book at the users. What that told us was that it was big-game hunting, not justice. It was careerist investigators trying to put athletes’ antlers on their walls. Meanwhile, the Fourth Amendment became a muddy, stomped-on, kicked-aside doormat.


The wrong people? The drugs aren't illegal - it's using them in an event controlled by the sport's governing body is.

If sports, and the agencies they charge with pursuing the rules on their behalf to remove conflicting interest, don't charge the most visible member of their sport what message does it send to every other participant?

This correspondent should start thinking about her own conflict of interest. Armstrong certainly isn't satan - but the rules are the rules and he knowingly broke them. At best he has soiled the good he has done, at worst he's destroyed his sport's credibility.
hawkeye10
 
  0  
Reply Wed 10 Oct, 2012 10:34 pm
@hingehead,
Quote:
At best he has soiled the good he has done, at worst he's destroyed his sport's credibility.

this is not at all clear

Quote:
The report should, by all rights and means, finally put to rest the saga of Lance Armstrong. Common sense says he cheated (though he continually denies it). Yet, common sense has never really mattered when it comes to Armstrong.

The reason: The former cyclist and cancer-survivor remains an enigma. As ESPN’s Rick Reilly continually points out, Armstrong has done much good for the world with Livestrong, his charitable organization that has funded research (raising more than $470 million) and given hope to countless cancer patients around the globe. His sponsors, Nike and Oakley, have, to this point, stuck by him.

The simple truth may be hard for Armstrong detractors to swallow: The good that Armstrong has done through Livestrong may just outweigh any of the bad things he’s done in his career.

And here lies the problem with Armstrong, and the heart of the reason why his story will never really fade away: He is the ultimate paradox, the sinner and the saint.

It brings to mind the famous quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

Armstrong will forever remain a test of our intelligence.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/monteburke/2012/10/10/despite-the-fresh-evidence-of-doping-lance-armstrong-will-ride-on-with-the-esteem-of-many/

as for destroying the credibility of the sport, you are clearly delusional, there long ago ceased to be any credibility left to destroy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling
BillRM
 
  -2  
Reply Wed 10 Oct, 2012 11:00 pm
@hingehead,
The little fact that the man pass the hundreds of drugs tests given to him over the years should carry one hell of a lot of wieght.

Then the people who claimed he was droping have their own reasons for doing so that does not likely have a one to one connection to the truth.

There been a get Armstrong campaign going on for well over a decade that I know about that seems not to be tightly tied into any possible drug use on his part.
hingehead
 
  4  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 03:16 am
@hawkeye10,
Quote:
as for destroying the credibility of the sport, you are clearly delusional, there long ago ceased to be any credibility left to destroy


If that were true it wouldn't be watched, it wouldn't be sponsored, it wouldn't be in the olympics. Damaged, but not gone - on the improve after this I'll warrant.

Excuse my huffiness but I'll think you're talking out your ass until you can tell me how many national and international sporting orgs you've worked with, how many olympic committee representatives you've dealt with - and how many government sporting agencies you've worked for.

<Ties up high horse and walks into bar>
Ragman
 
  3  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 07:49 am
@hingehead,
hingehead wrote:

<Ties up high horse and walks into bar>


"Mongo but pawn in game of life."
engineer
 
  6  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 09:00 am
@BillRM,
BillRM wrote:

The little fact that the man pass the hundreds of drugs tests given to him over the years should carry one hell of a lot of wieght.

He has now failed those tests as the samples have been retested with new techniques.
Joe Nation
 
  2  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 09:22 am
I know others may have already said something to this effect, but,

God damn it, I hate it when my heroes turn out to be jerks.

Joe(there. I feel better)Nation
roger
 
  1  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 09:38 am
@Joe Nation,
Me too, and some people take such joy in doing it.
0 Replies
 
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 09:57 am
@Joe Nation,
Right on. I used to be into biking fan and rode long-distance a lot myself. I was a Lance fan, too - having bought and read his book cover-to-cover. Hell, he linked up with Cheryl Crow fercrissakes..my favoritie singer. At one point, I couldn't have been more on his side about his denial of using PEDs.

Who knows why, but Cheryl Crow left Lance (perhaps some of this was an issue)?

Now at this point in time, the proof of his guilt, due to advancements in PED detection (and retesting of his B samples), he has been proven to be a multiple-cheater. The substances that he took were ones that were on Cycling federation's banned list. That sport is frought with multiple cheaters, too but that begs the point.

I support and admire his charity-work but he damaged his legacy and reputation -- even worse than Pete Rose - another chronic liar and denyer.

For certain, I take no joy in decrying his mistakes and punishment. Sad to see but he just can't seem to reform his public personna.
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 10:20 am
@Ragman,
I know I've said this before: when Sheryl Crow (Breast cancer and Brain Tumor survivor) left Lance, I thought, Uh Oh.

And I didn't have anything else to go on, I don't read People or Us or the gossip pages of the NY Daily News, I just got a bad feeling.

Joe(she is such a straight shooter)Nation

0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 10:27 am
@Ragman,
Its his refusal to accept responsibility - his lack of humility - that bothers me. For instance, I know track star Marion Jones only admitted her violations once she was already exposed, but I did feel like she was truly sorry for letting her fans down.
BillRM
 
  0  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 11:08 am
@Ragman,
Quote:
Now at this point in time, the proof of his guilt, due to advancements in PED detection (and retesting of his B samples), he has been proven to be a multiple-cheater.


Nonsense all I had read is some of the samples are consisted with possible PED use and that is not even taking into account the chain of custody of those samples over the years in questions.

All in all I trust Armstrong word far more then the drug testing people that been out to get him for many years now.
0 Replies
 
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 11:18 am
@snood,
Agreed.

Lance appears long on arrogance and stubborn denial.
0 Replies
 
BillRM
 
  0  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 11:23 am
@engineer,
Quote:
e has now failed those tests as the samples have been retested with new techniques.


Wrong as the only statement I had read is the very weak one that some samples was consisted with possible used of drugs and second what kind of chain of custody had been employed over the years in regard to those samples?
ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 11:30 am
@BillRM,
Quote:
As part of its investigation, Usada said that it recently obtained additional data from French officials who had retested Armstrong’s samples from the 1999 Tour de France. For procedural reasons, those samples cannot be used to sanction Armstrong. But the Usada report indicated that advances in EPO testing since then conclusively show that he used the hormone. The report said the retesting produced “resoundingly positive values” from six samples.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/sports/cycling/how-lance-armstrong-beat-cyclings-drug-tests.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Everyone has to have some heroes. Mr. Armstrong isn't going to be one of the choices for a lot of people now.
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 11:35 am
When Jackson left criminal court building in custody of a sheriff after telling his story to the grand jury, he found several hundred youngsters, aged from 6 to 16, awaiting for a glimpse of their idol. One urchin stepped up to the outfielder, and, grabbing his coat sleeve, said:
"It ain't true, is it, Joe?"
"Yes, kid, I'm afraid it is," Jackson replied. The boys opened a path for the ball player and stood in silence until he passed out of sight.
"Well, I'd never have thought it," sighed the lad.


Lance has always said, loudly, it ain't so.

I wish he would fess up.

Joe(Of course, that would be it for NIKE, they'd be gone.)Nation
0 Replies
 
Robert Gentel
 
  4  
Reply Thu 11 Oct, 2012 11:56 am
@engineer,
This seems to be what most people dont' get when they repeat the mantra about how many tests he has passed. The tests are imperfect, they chase cheating and cheating stays ahead of it. That's why they keep the blood samples, so that new techniques of cheating can have new tests developed for it.

Everyone who ever doped passed plenty of tests before getting caught, the tests are not infallible. They miss more than they catch.
0 Replies
 
 

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