Lance Armstrong stripped of Tour de France titles

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Whoa....

Can they do this? The article says they can, but...wow...this seems drastic as shit...he passed a lot of tests. Yeah, he may have doped, but their is no solid evidence of it...how the fuck can they do this?
 
I have to say there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence plus several team riders who stated he did. But then again, he did pass a tremendous amount of tests...
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
I have to say there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence plus several team riders who stated he did. But then again, he did pass a tremendous amount of tests...
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Who cares! Going after him years later is bullshit. They had 7 years in a row to catch him cheating when he was winning 7 titles in a row.
 
Who cares.... he won, he knows he won, most of the world knows he won.... fuck France.
 
Cycling, a sport where virtually all serious competitors and champions EXCEPT ARMSTRONG have been caught doping at one time or another, was nothing before him, and has faded back into obscurity without him. Lesser men with vacuous hearts seethe in their hateful envy that he achieved ultimate greatness while they accomplished nothing of consequence in their small lives.

Like Roger Maris and Roger Clemens, he's been "Fricked".
 
VanillaGorilla said:
Who gives a shit about Lance Armstrong?
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The cancer patients who have seen literally hundreds of millions of dollars raised for cancer research via the LiveStrong Foundation?

The USADA is a bunch of goat fuckers, IMO. Lance Armstrong has done more in one day of his life than the clowns chasing him for over a decade have done for humanity in their entire lives. How much taxpayer money was spent, and how many "immunities" were given, to find a few people who were going to offer circumstantial evidence against a guy who's jock they could not hope to carry.
 
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i guess i dont get it, why are the taking his titles?
 
3RA1N1AC said:
i guess i dont get it, why are the taking his titles?
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Who knows? He tested clean in all of those races, yet some US anti-doping clowns apparently can now strip him of his titles years later based on a few people's testimony (for immunity, of course).

Way to kill your own sport, cycling!
 
weird...i mean, if there is no proof...wait what?
 
3RA1N1AC said:
weird...i mean, if there is no proof...wait what?
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In that anti-doping world, you're proven guilty and have to fight for your innocence.

Whatever. I watched Armstrong win those titles, and I watched him bonk on some climbs, while rally on others. He NEVER had a day like Floyd Landis had when he actually got caught doping during the race, where he blew away the field by 10 minutes on a huge climb.
 
All I can think of during all this was, "good for you cycling, now go back to being insignificant."
 
Greg LeMond...now THAT dude was a stud and I'd bet good money he didn't dope or cheat.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
http://aol.sportingnews.com/sport/s...i-doping-agency-could-lose-tour-de-france-tit
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I am confused by this.

I know that the head of USADA (the constantly grandstanding Tygart) said that he stripped Armstrong of French titles. I know that most of the headlines scream "Lance stripped of Tour Titles",

yet, I can't find any confirmation that this has (yet) happened. In fact, I am pretty sure it hasn't happened.

Why reporters listen to guys like Tygart without confirmation I will never understand. How about asking for, you know, proof next time?

Oh, I know why, Tygart is all about circumstantial accusations. Might as well claim the he is the one in charge of stripping someone of titles from a completely different country.
 
Who's in line to inherit Lance Armstrong's Tour de France titles from 1999-2005?

PARIS -- The cyclists Lance Armstrong beat to win his seven Tour de France victories may soon get a chance at his titles. But their ranks include men who have faced a tangle of doping bans and accusations, possibly presenting a headache for Tour leadership.

Here's a look at who else was on the podium in the seven Tours that Armstrong won from 1999-2005:

1999
No. 2 : Alex Zulle, Switzerland. His 1998 team, Festina, was ousted from the Tour that year in connection with the widespread use of the performance-enhancing drug EPO. Zulle later admitted to using the blood-booster over the four previous years. The Festina affair nearly derailed the 1998 Tour, and is widely seen as the first big doping scandal to jolt cycling.
No. 3: Fernando Escartin, Spain.

2000
No 2: Jan Ullrich, Germany. The 1997 Tour winner, a five-time Tour runner-up and longtime Armstrong rival. He was the top-name cyclist among at least 50 implicated in the "Operation Puerto" police investigation in Spain in May 2006. Ullrich was stripped of his third-place finish from the 2005 Tour and retired from racing two years later. Earlier this year, he confirmed that he had had contact with Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish doctor at the center of that scandal, calling it a "big mistake" -- but did not admit to doping.
No. 3: Joseba Beloki, Spain. Implicated in Operation Puerto, he retired in 2007. He was reportedly was cleared by a Spanish court of any involvement in the case.

2001
No 2: Ullrich.
No. 3: Beloki.

2002
No. 2: Beloki.
No. 3: Raimondas Rumsas, Lithuania. On the last day of the 2002 Tour, police stopped his wife, Edita, at the Italian border and searched her car, turning up suspected doping products. A French court later handed them four-month prison sentences on doping-related charges. The cyclist denied taking banned substances at that event, and all his tests came back negative. He said the products in his wife's car were for his mother-in-law. The next year, he was given a one-year ban after testing positive for EPO in the 2003 Giro d'Italia.

2003
No. 2: Ullrich.
No. 3: Alexandre Vinokourov, Kazakhstan. He later served a two-year doping suspension after twice testing positive for banned blood transfusions during the 2007 race. He won the Olympic road race in London last month and has announced plans to retire.

2004
No. 2: Andreas Kloeden, Germany.
No. 3: Ivan Basso, Italy. Excluded from the 2006 Tour because of his involvement in Operation Puerto. He claimed that he gave his blood to Fuentes -- the Spanish doctor at the center of that scandal -- but never used it. Later that year, Basso received a two-year doping ban; he later returned, and won his second Giro d'Italia in 2010.

2005
No. 2: Basso.
No. 3: Ullrich.

-- The Associated Press


http://www.oregonlive.com/tour-de-f...herit_lance_armstro.html#incart_river_default

:biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:
 
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireSt...e-career-vacated-17074167?page=2#.UDjvEWie5Mg

Every one of Armstrong's competitive races from Aug. 1, 1998, has been vacated by USADA, established in 2000 as the official anti-doping agency for Olympic sports in the United States. Since Armstrong raced in UCI-sanctioned events, he was subject to international drug rules enforced in the U.S. by USADA. Its staff joined a federal criminal investigation of Armstrong that ended earlier this year with no charges being filed.

USADA said its evidence came from more than a dozen witnesses "who agreed to testify and provide evidence about their firsthand experience and/or knowledge of the doping activity of those involved in the USPS conspiracy," a reference to Armstrong's former U.S. Postal Service cycling team.

The unidentified witnesses said they knew or had been told by Armstrong himself that he had "used EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone" from before 1998 through 2005, and that he had previously used EPO, testosterone and Human Growth Hormone through 1996, USADA said. Armstrong also allegedly handed out doping products and encouraged banned methods — and even used "blood manipulation including EPO or blood transfusions" during his 2009 comeback race on the Tour.

In all, USADA said up to 10 former Armstrong teammates were set to testify against him. Had Armstrong chosen to pursue arbitration, USADA said, all the evidence would have been available for him to challenge.
 
Denny Crane said:
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireSt...e-career-vacated-17074167?page=2#.UDjvEWie5Mg

Every one of Armstrong's competitive races from Aug. 1, 1998, has been vacated by USADA, established in 2000 as the official anti-doping agency for Olympic sports in the United States. Since Armstrong raced in UCI-sanctioned events, he was subject to international drug rules enforced in the U.S. by USADA. Its staff joined a federal criminal investigation of Armstrong that ended earlier this year with no charges being filed.

USADA said its evidence came from more than a dozen witnesses "who agreed to testify and provide evidence about their firsthand experience and/or knowledge of the doping activity of those involved in the USPS conspiracy," a reference to Armstrong's former U.S. Postal Service cycling team.

The unidentified witnesses said they knew or had been told by Armstrong himself that he had "used EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone" from before 1998 through 2005, and that he had previously used EPO, testosterone and Human Growth Hormone through 1996, USADA said. Armstrong also allegedly handed out doping products and encouraged banned methods — and even used "blood manipulation including EPO or blood transfusions" during his 2009 comeback race on the Tour.

In all, USADA said up to 10 former Armstrong teammates were set to testify against him. Had Armstrong chosen to pursue arbitration, USADA said, all the evidence would have been available for him to challenge.
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This press release is full of lies.

The USADA Arbitration court is a star chamber.

Even the Federal Judge who recently dismissed Lance's case, said as much.

As for Witnesses there are several problems:

1) The USADA does not provide full disclosure or access to the witnesses prior to the arbritation.

2) The USADA allows written and signed statements from witnesses to be submitted during abitration, thus obliterating the rights of the accused to face their accusers and to cross examine.

This one single issue alone, makes the USADA arbitration process worthless for anyone that is interested in some semblence of truth or justice.

3) Because of the star chamber set up by the USADA they have won the vast majority (something like 68 out of 70) cases brought before abritration. And because the accused can't possibly win a rigged system, EVERY SINGLE "WITNESS" to testify against Lance that is under the thumb of the USADA is suspect in that their testimony is worth as much as jailhouse snitches. Studies have shown that jailhouse snitches testimony is essential worthless if you are interested in the truth. They will say ANYTHING to cut a better deal for themselves.

Then there are the drug tests. It is little known that the USADA has set up a system where they have controlled the design of the tests, the labs and the staff of the labs. Everybody involved is on the "payroll" and are beholden to the system.

So, what are the checks and balances to this system? None. All reviews and controls are by internal folks and no outsiders are allowed.

Thus, there is effectively no way that a defense team can question the test results produced by the USADA.

And if you know anything about lab tests, you know that the are almost never - black and white. Pass/Fail. They are on a continuum. You also know that in lab tests most of them can have the results messed up by common (non performance enhancing) products/food. So, if tests are set to be very sensitive, you will get more false positives. But, if the design and processing of the tests is done in secret, how can expert outsiders point out problems with the test or reasons for false positives. The USADA doesn't care. They just ban the athletes anyway.

I just don't see the point for this campaign against Armstrong, other than to feed the ego of Tygart and to justify the existence of an organization that seems so poorly run and with such Nazi tendencies that the lack of a big kill may have seen it lose favor with Congress. However, the hamhandedness of this campaign may cause blowback in Congress that hurts the USADA anyway.
 
When USADA brought its charges against Mr. Armstrong in June, it cited these long-term results as one of the pieces of evidence upon which it based its conclusions.

While USADA and some independent hematologists who have seen the data say they suggest that Mr. Armstrong was doping, other experts cited by Mr. Armstrong argue that all the fluctuations in the contents of Mr. Armstrong's blood are well within the normal range for an athlete.

Although some athletes have been sanctioned and banned based on these long-term blood tests, they are open to subjective interpretation and scientists often disagree on whether to bring doping cases against athletes based on such results....


USADA's case against Mr. Armstrong was based largely on a mechanism called a "non-analytical positive."​

USADA said the bulk of the evidence against Mr. Armstrong came from testimony from 10 cyclists.
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Here is an LA Times opinion piece complaining about the "process" of the USADA for anyone who is interested:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120825,0,4618562,full.column

With the whole world atwitter over Tour de Francechamp Lance Armstrong's decision to drop his legal fight against anti-doping allegations, it's the right moment to be appalled at the travesty in sports this case represents.

It's not that the case will be seen as a major victory for sports anti-doping authorities. It's that the anti-doping system claiming its highest-profile quarry ever is the most thoroughly one-sided and dishonest legal regime anywhere in the world this side of Beijing.​


It's a system deliberately designed to place almost insurmountable hurdles in the way of athletes defending themselves or appealing adverse findings. Evidence has emerged over the years that laboratories certified by the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, have been incompetent at analyzing athletes' samples or fabricated results when they didn't get the numbers they were hoping to see.
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Much more if you click the link.
​
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
Since nearly every rider dopes up, maybe this isn't a big deal.
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so you're okay with football and baseball's widespread juicing to this day? With assisting blind eyes turned by those in charge, players continue to press the edges of whats allowed, and use whatevers 1 step ahead of the tests. In baseball today, if a player's testosterone level tests to be 399% of normal levels, thats acceptable for the league. How is that policy not an encouragement to inject testosterone which is largely out of the system days later?

What amuses me most in this quagmire, is that while sports fans apathy towards PEDs grows, they still like to single out some individuals as villains for doing whats widespread throughout the sport. Got to have someone to hate... almost always a black guy. Lance is corporate golden goose who (I suspect) will be appearing on yet more commercials extolling consumers to be more like him

STOMP
 
This is a total sham IMO. Where is the proof? A bunch of other admitted dopers who say they saw or did dope with him? Hearsay, really?

Everyone I talked to about this felt that it was a witch hunt against Armstrong, I don't think the public perception is that Armstrong is guilty or that he cheated, but that he is the target of an organization (USADA) and specifically the head of that organization (Tygart) who comes off looking extremely petty....

Oh that, and the media which blasts out that he is guilty and is stripped of his 7 titles, when niether has occured yet that I am aware of? Isn't that UCI's call?

and then you have to listen to idiots on the radio (includidng hosts) who spout off how, if they were innocent they would never give up and fight to the end? Really? Easy to say when you haven't spent millions of dollars defending yourself, spent several years doing so, at a cost to you and your family's well being, and oh yeah, with the latest round being nothing more than a kangaroo court that you cannot win because it is rigged against you...

The whole thing is a joke, 7 years after the fact, you are going to go after him, really? and it isn't personal? bullshit....

It is one thing if you had undeniable proof, but I haven't seen anywhere where they do, just a bunch of hearsay and jumping to conclusions.
 
Blaze01 said:
This is a total sham IMO. Where is the proof? A bunch of other admitted dopers who say they saw or did dope with him? Hearsay, really?

Everyone I talked to about this felt that it was a witch hunt against Armstrong, I don't think the public perception is that Armstrong is guilty or that he cheated, but that he is the target of an organization (USADA) and specifically the head of that organization (Tygart) who comes off looking extremely petty....

Oh that, and the media which blasts out that he is guilty and is stripped of his 7 titles, when niether has occured yet that I am aware of? Isn't that UCI's call?

and then you have to listen to idiots on the radio (includidng hosts) who spout off how, if they were innocent they would never give up and fight to the end? Really? Easy to say when you haven't spent millions of dollars defending yourself, spent several years doing so, at a cost to you and your family's well being, and oh yeah, with the latest round being nothing more than a kangaroo court that you cannot win because it is rigged against you...

The whole thing is a joke, 7 years after the fact, you are going to go after him, really? and it isn't personal? bullshit....

It is one thing if you had undeniable proof, but I haven't seen anywhere where they do, just a bunch of hearsay and jumping to conclusions.
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I'd guess a good percentage of people in prison are 100% innocent but were coerced into taking plea deals when faced with the likelihood of doing much longer sentences for the original trumped up charges. That's how our "justice" system is run these days. Guilty unless you have the money or connections to prove you are innocent.
 
Blaze01 said:
This is a total sham IMO. Where is the proof? A bunch of other admitted dopers who say they saw or did dope with him? Hearsay, really?
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they claim to have a lot more proof then just hearsay and would have had to produce that proof in court had Lance not given up the fight. Regardless of how much he's spent, Lance has more then enough $$$ to fight to clear his name... I sure take his recent actions as admitting guilt.

http://deadspin.com/5938299/usada-will-have-to-reveal-its-evidence-against-lance-armstrong

STOMP
 
STOMP said:
they claim to have a lot more proof then just hearsay and would have had to produce that proof in court had Lance not given up the fight. Regardless of how much he's spent, Lance has more then enough $$$ to fight to clear his name... I sure take his recent actions as admitting guilt.

http://deadspin.com/5938299/usada-will-have-to-reveal-its-evidence-against-lance-armstrong

STOMP
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You might be right if it was a (respected) court.

But, it is not. It is a widely derided Arbritration forum.
 
Sports talk radio in Seattle interviewed some expert (I don't remember who it was) and they said they had 10+ former teammates of Armstrong that were going to testify that they'd doped with Armstrong. If true, that is strong evidence, but that testimony likely won't happen given that Armstrong has given up. Obviously, that might be a pretty good reason that Armstrong folded.

Saying the evidence wasn't strong doesn't quite make sense because the evidence was never provided. Armstrong folded before it got that far.

Personally, I think there's enough smoke that there was a fire. I'd be pretty surprised if he didn't dope and it pains me to say that because I got up early to watch a lot of legs of those 7 tour wins.
 
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