USADA to strip Lance Armstrong of Tour titles, ban him for life

[Chef Jim]

If they keep this going I may wind up being crowned champion.

 

That was you in my post from earlier this morning?

[RkFast]

I'm sure that's probably considered true in a few places, but honestly, it sounds a lot like what I hear about American soccer. I keep hearing how it's bigger and more popular than ever, and yet the only time I've ever, in my life, been anywhere close to a discussion about professional soccer was when my neighbor mentioned she once saw the Spice Girls in concert.

 

Its regional, for sure. Still not huge in the American sports conscience. But growing. More races, bigger crowds at them. For example, the Harlem Crit race used to get a small crowd, now its a major event. But youre not going to see that on the back pages of papers anytime soon.

[IDBillzFan]

Its regional, for sure. Still not huge in the American sports conscience. But growing. More races, bigger crowds at them. For example, the Harlem Crit race used to get a small crowd, now its a major event. But youre not going to see that on the back pages of papers anytime soon.

 

What is this "papers" thing of which you speak?

[Best Player Available]

So any above the crowd athlete is on junk? What do you think the Babe was on?

 

No i didn't say or mean to imply that at all. I used 2 examples Barry Bonds, and Lance Armstrong. I did say that PED's are a epidemic now,but don't believe everyone above average is necassarily abusing them. But lets face it they are huge. Just ask the A's and the Giants on why their post season may have just went down the drain because of ped's.

 

As for the Babe I'm guessing if it wasn't beer (PED?) it was whatever speed they used in his era (kidding).

[mead107]

To come back from cancer and race like he did I could give two cents if and I say if he used anything.

[Kevin]

 

 

Its hard earned money??

 

I thought that was the funniest part of that while post! Glad somebody got it.

[ajzepp]

I hope you aren't suggesting that ajzeep is to be considered anything but a model witness.

 

Just because ajzeep has spent his posting career in Jim's long shadow and some of Jim's stripped records would become ajzeep's is completely irrelevant.

 

Damn right! And in addition to AJZeep, the same holds for AJZepp!

[Corp000085]

To come back from cancer and race like he did I could give two cents if and I say if he used anything.

 

That's where I stand. Strip his title, call him a doper, etc. all the other doped up racers were still beat by a guy who should have been dead.

[Jim in Anchorage]

That's where I stand. Strip his title, call him a doper, etc. all the other doped up racers were still beat by a guy who should have been dead.

Exactly how I feel. Wonder how many LA posters are in cancer wards in the world as inspiration. Na lets go off heresay and bust the bubble.

[K-9]

Exactly how I feel. Wonder how many LA posters are in cancer wards in the world as inspiration. Na lets go off heresay and bust the bubble.

 

Countless.

 

There is NOTHING the USADA or ANY organization can do to diminish for one second LA's comeback against cancer. Nothing at all. Everything of note that he accomplished in racing came AFTER that fact.

[buckeyemike]

Countless.

 

There is NOTHING the USADA or ANY organization can do to diminish for one second LA's comeback against cancer. Nothing at all. Everything of note that he accomplished in racing came AFTER that fact.

 

Agree fully. This USADA dude seems to have a hard-on for LA.

 

Hope it was worth it, pal.

[BuffaloBud]

The person who really knows if he did or didn't is the one that has to look himself in the mirror in the morning and look in his kids eyes.

 

The arbritation hearing of J Bruneyl (sp), US Postal / Discovery Channel / Radio Shack team director, is going to shake out a lot of ghosts from the closet.

[DrDawkinstein]

Great post on reddit, explaining the USADA "case" and why Lance isnt bothering to fight them anymore...

 

 

 

 

It's an extrajudicial process.

 

It's essentially a private organization making its own rules, so the Federal court ruled that they didn't have jurisdiction. Kind of like if a private school gives you a punishment for running in the halls even though you didn't; none of that is up to the courts.

Everyone KNOWS he won the titles, so "stripping" him of them is basically saying "nuh-uh!"

 

Also the UCI (International Cycling Union) disagrees with USADA, and it's only because of some very poorly-thought-out reciprocal agreements that this can even happen.

 

Basically WADA has agreements with the major sports bodies, but then ALSO gave all its "franchises" (each country's __ADA) its same powers, meaning that ANY franchisee in ANY country can start proceedings against anyone anywhere, regardless of their ability to defend themselves in that venue.

 

USADA started this off with banning several doctors and staff who are EUROPEAN CITIZENS for life because they didn't respond within 5 days or whatever the requirement is to this U.S.-based inquisition.

 

And yes, "franchise" is correct because this operation was run not by some officer of the law, but the CEO of USADA. Travis Tygart has had it in for Lance for a long time; when Floyd Landis was busted, Tygart offered him a sweet deal if he would dish dirt on Lance.

 

The Department of Justice actually ran a Grand Jury investigation for 2 years before dropping the case in February -- apparently, someone eventually realized that winning the first 6 tours in a row for the US Postal Service wasn't "defrauding" them of their sponsorship dollars. Some of the people called to testify are still active riders in the pro peloton, which are presumably in the "10+ witnesses" Tygart would call on, which means he didn't care about ACTIVE riders who were part of the same alleged doping ring; he just cared about trying to destroy public opinion about Lance, who was retired from cycling and last won in 2005.

 

Lance didn't have the option of a trial, only binding arbitration with a 3-person panel. Binding arbitration is bad enough for your cell phone contract, but imagine it applying to your job -- and not just to your current job, but a LIFETIME ban on working at all in your entire field.

 

And even if you win, it's not until after USADA has dragged your name through the mud, issues press releases about their allegations, makes false claims, and then publishes a report with all the allegations and dirt to further hurt your public image, and nothing prevents them from doing it all again later. (One of USADA's pieces of "evidence" was the biological passport values from the 2009-2010 comeback which fluctuated, which an expert in a Cycling News report already said could fluctuate from either doping OR natural causes; but USADA trumpeted that it automatically meant cheating. It's pre-trial by Press Release, without expert testimony.)

 

USADA can essentially end the career of anyone it chooses to at any time, based on its own say-so, from riders to doctors all the way down to support staff. This is incredible leverage it can use to compel a "witness" to testify the way it wants them to.

 

This isn't even comparable to prosecutors using deals to get small fish to testify against a bigger fish, because not only are there no juries or judicial oversight, but this private organization DOESN'T need to prove anything -- they can stop you from competing immediately by simply opening an investigation.

 

Lance was about to run Ironman France when Tygart announced the investigation, which immediately suspended Lance from being able to compete at all, anywhere, indefinitely. If he wanted, he could wait until the day before a grand tour to suspend his alleged witnesses, leaving their teams scrambling, and keep them suspended for the entire racing season. This is enormous leverage and doesn't require a single doping test.

 

So it isn't enough to pass the tests and never be sanctioned for a doping violation; they can unilaterally decide to ban you for life anyway, so what's the point of the tests?

 

There are people who just competed in this year's Tour de France, and who are competing right now in the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain), who HAVE been sanctioned for doping violations, yet are still allowed to ride.

 

Besides the two expected witnesses who perjured themselves so badly that they would be completely unusable in an actual courtroom (Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton), another of the pieces of so-called "evidence" that Tygart wanted to use was 6 urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France, a case which had already been investigated by the UCI's own appointee, and it EXONERATED Lance. The investigator was the director of the Netherlands national anti-doping organization, and wrote in his exhaustive, 132-page report:

the failure of the underlying research to comply with any applicable standard and the deficiencies in the report render it completely irresponsible for anyone involved in doping control testing to

even suggest that the analyses results that were reported constitute evidence of anything.

(p. 17) PDF link: http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news/2006/jun06/vrijmanreport.pdf

 

It was an epic beatdown. WADA screamed bloody murder, even though under their own regulations, they had stored the samples under the agreement they would never be used for sanctions of any kind!

 

Since the samples were EXPLICITLY not to be used for sanctions, they didn't follow the chain-of-custody regulations, were NOT anonymous, and sat in a freezer for 6 years that was accessible like any other research materials to any number of people.

 

Chain of custody is ESSENTIAL to handling samples, and it is already established in every context that a broken chain of custody equals completely worthless non-evidence.

 

This would be like if the cops impounded your car, then sold it at auction, and then 6 years later whoever is driving it gets pulled over, cops search the car, find drugs, and then want to charge YOU. It was obviously out of their "secure" impound facility the entire time, and the drugs could have come from anywhere -- including being forgotten by the cops after using the vehicle in an undercover sting operation (which I seem to recall actually happening in a story covered by Reddit).

 

Moreover, the French national anti-doping lab in question regularly leaks its findings to the French paper L'Equipe, which has a notorious anti-Lance POV (they really didn't like him winning their tour every single year).

 

This would be something like if you went for a drug test for your job, and before anyone else got the official results, your worst enemy on Facebook posted the "results" given to him from his buddy at the lab that coincidentally showed you used certain substances that were also sitting in the lab research supplies. Let's see, people with a motive and a grudge who have access to your samples with no chain of custody and know exactly which samples are yours and suddenly find a "positive" years after the fact?

 

As a cyclist, Lance's Tour de France years were under the auspices of the UCI, which claimed sole jurisdiction over this case, which USADA ignored because they could use their WADA connection as a loophole. The UCI also has an 8-year statute of limitations, and doesn't vacate titles after that even if doping is ADMITTED later, as happened some years back with 1996 winner Bjarne Riis who runs Team Saxo Bank. Jonathan Vaughters just admitted to doping and he runs Team Garmin.

 

But USADA is now trying to ban the director of Lance's team, who ISN'T an admitted doper, solely because of his connection to Lance. Tygart wants to claim it was a conspiracy and the whole team was doped up, yet curiously is not trying to stop any of the OTHER ex-teammate riders he claims were cheating just like Lance, and who are still competing, presumably in exchange for their testimony.

 

This seemingly violates USADA's charter, as it is charged with stopping doping, yet is letting CURRENT riders continue on just to nail someone who RETIRED from cycling and last won 7 years ago.

 

The whole process is the definition of a kangaroo court. The anti-doping agencies ONLY get clout and increase their budgets by busting people; if busts don't happen, people will begin wondering what the point of the doping agencies IS, exactly. There's no bigger fish than Lance, so CEO Tygart is probably counting on a big fat funding increase next year based on being able to abuse power like this.

 

Imagine how much fear he will be able to strike into athletes' hearts AFTER this, twirling his moustache and swinging his riding crop about, as he struts about imperiously: "I am zee one who took down Lance, you think I cannot take down you?" (Cue evil laugh)

 

There are no effective safeguards for athletes. Tiger Woods left college early because he couldn't stomach the arrogance and control exercised by the NCAA. Basically anyone in a position of power wants to use it, and it's always for something bad -- without them, you'd just do whatever you were going to do ANYWAY, so the powers are exclusively negative. They can't exercise their power by giving you the ability to play ball; they can only exercise their power by taking that ability away.

 

Contrary to the assertion that Lance "accepted" USADA's decision, he instead refused to go into binding arbitration with Travis Tygart, refusing to acknowledge the CEO of USADA's personal vendetta as legitimate. Both Lance and the UCI agree that the UCI is the only legitimate party with jurisdiction, as the UCI has announced publicly.

[K-9]

Great post on reddit, explaining the USADA "case" and why Lance isnt bothering to fight them anymore...

 

http://www.reddit.co...ip_tour/c5xzfwx

 

Very interesting read. Really puts USADA in a new light. No wonder LA doesn't want to legitimize them.

[Zona]

I am not certain that LA was truly "innocent" while he dominated the TDF, but I also dont think this USADA banning is legitimate. It smacks of Le'quip and a personal vendetta. LA hasn't raced in 2 years, or been a factor really since his last win. Yet people are still trying to go after him?

 

I think LA made a reasoned decision to not fight the accusations anymore. I don't think he has unlimited resources....and he is just tired of defending himself against the SAME crap, year after year...I would be.

Edited August 26, 2012 by Zona

[DC Tom]

Great post on reddit, explaining the USADA "case" and why Lance isnt bothering to fight them anymore...

 

http://www.reddit.co...ip_tour/c5xzfwx

 

Some of the people called to testify are still active riders in the pro peloton, which are presumably in the "10+ witnesses" Tygart would call on, which means he didn't care about ACTIVE riders who were part of the same alleged doping ring; he just cared about trying to destroy public opinion about Lance, who was retired from cycling and last won in 2005.]

 

I'm amazed that hasn't occurred to more people.

[Rob's House]

I have followed LA for quite awhile and want to believe he did not juice. I recently visited with a friend who is in the top three amateur cyclist/triathletes in his age range in the world. He knows amateurs that are juicing and believes it is impossible that LA did not. It is known that doping has been going on in cycling since the tour began in 1903 and before testing was ever performed http://en.wikipedia...._Tour_de_France

This is still all hearsay and I am not 100% convinced that LA did but if it is true than I am ok with it after hearing some of the other competition doping tales that my friend relayed. This guy is a straight shooter and I believe him. Regardless, LA is still an amazing athlete. Doping is fairly common on the Tour and the riders are looking for that extra edge. If many other riders along with him were doping and he still won 7 tours, that is amazing. If he won that many without doping, well...they should do some testing to determine if he could be an alien.

That's pretty much where I am. I don't care for the guy ever since he and Cheryl Crow went on their "ban toilet paper and compost your ****" tour, but to be fair, if everyone else was doing it it hardly seems fair to discount his accomplishments.

[RkFast]

Following up on this...all your questions answered here, INCLUDING the "but he didnt fail any tests!!!" one.

 

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012/08/the-armstrong-fallout-thoughts-and.html?m=1

[K-9]

Following up on this...all your questions answered here, INCLUDING the "but he didnt fail any tests!!!" one.

 

http://www.sportssci...ts-and.html?m=1

 

I find that far less compelling than the reddit link above. What does the cycling community think of the conflict between the UCI and USADA, for example? I think the USADA has some questions to answer regarding the arbitrary way they seem to go about their business.

 

Anyway, it's water under the bridge at this point. But I don't think USADA did much to enhance their credibility moving forward.

[RkFast]

In general, the cycling community thinks the UCI is an abolute joke. An inept beaurocracy of the highest order. But a HUGE part of this case is how the UCI runs cover for Lance. Lance is close to former UCI honchos and has made financial contributions direct to the organization. There is massive conflict of interest there and few think the UCI would rule impartially in any case that could result in sactions of any sort against Lance.

 

If anything, its the USADA with a higher credibility rating.

 

You have to see the 60 Minutes piece. Its critical. Look up 60 Minutes Tyler Hamilton interfew on YT.

Edited August 28, 2012 by RkFast