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Drugs in cycling


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#1 Bingo

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Posted 10 October 2012 - 05:06 PM

Now that 11 cyclists who were former friends and teammates have further implied that Lance Armstrong took drugs, what are your thoughts?

Do you just assume that all cyclists are using drugs, so why not just allow it, or should the riders do jail time?

And if you strip Armstrong's Tour de France wins away, how do you award the trophy to the guy who came second, and how do you go back and test him to see if he was legal at the time?

26 testify against Lance Armstrong in doping case - Yahoo! News

#2 Szeven

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Posted 10 October 2012 - 06:16 PM

Now that 11 cyclists who were former friends and teammates have further implied that Lance Armstrong took drugs, what are your thoughts?

Do you just assume that all cyclists are using drugs, so why not just allow it, or should the riders do jail time?

And if you strip Armstrong's Tour de France wins away, how do you award the trophy to the guy who came second, and how do you go back and test him to see if he was legal at the time?

26 testify against Lance Armstrong in doping case - Yahoo! News


"The Secret Race" by Tyler Hamilton, Lance's long time teammate, outlines drugs in cycling in the modern era. It was so logically and emphatically written, I just dont see how he didnt take drugs. If he beat people who definitely admit taking them, how did he do that? There is a funny stat floating around that if Lance is stripped of the 1996 Tour de France (or somewhere around there), the next place who would be clear and awarded the win is something like 21st place.

I definitely think they should just drop it though, and move on. Test them now, and put it behind the sport. Lance did a lot of good to balance what he might have done.

#3 Bingo

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 06:44 AM

If he beat people who definitely admit taking them, how did he do that? Lance did a lot of good to balance what he might have done.


I was a big Armstrong fan, and I think the Tour de France on TV is one of the best spectator sports. Yes, if many of the cyclists were on drugs, how did Lance manage to stay at the top of that group?

The whole thing is disappointing.

#4 Greg

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 07:23 AM

I don't doubt that the whole Tour was doping in Lance's day, and it is a depressing thing to admit. But here is what bugs me about how this has played out.

When you turn a few low-level drug dealers to get to a kingpin, that's in the public interest (assuming you think drugs should be illegal - that's another debate).

When you turn a dozen bike riders to go after the most famous and successful rider, this is not chasing a kingpin in the public interest. This is a good old fashioned witch hunt. Lance's behaviour was the same as the other riders. Not worse. He wasn't the dealer. Just the guy who won the races in what was in fact by all indications a level (albeit performance-enhanced) playing field.

What is the justification for singling him out?

#5 jonny

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 07:53 AM

What is the justification for singling him out?


Because he's the face of the sport. I know nothing about competitive cycling, but I sure as hell know who Lance Armstrong is. He's the big fish that some are hoping will be the straw that broke the doping camel's back.

I have not and will not read the 1,000+ page document put together by the USADA, but what I am gathering from what I have read is that Armstrong insisted many of his teammates join him in using the banned drugs, otherwise they risked being dropped from the team. The USPS team also received tens of millions in US taxpayer dollars.

The USADA called it "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,” and a “conspiracy professionally designed to groom and pressure athletes to use dangerous drugs, to evade detection, to ensure its secrecy and ultimately gain an unfair competitive advantage through superior doping practices. A program organized by individuals who thought they were above the rules and who still play a major and active role in sport today.”

It also shows the cycling community, as well as other sports, that nobody is too big to fall. The USADA has shown that they will go after and take down the biggest (maybe even the best) doper, who has the best lawyers and has vehemently denied every doping allegation against him for a decade.

#6 aastra

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 08:08 AM

And all this time I thought these guys were riding up and down the Alps on nothing but water and determination.

Seriously though, I also like to say that the playing field in cheating-riddled sports is even because "everyone is cheating". But when you get right down to it, I think it's not quite so simple. The serious/talented participants who don't want to cheat or who draw a line somewhere in the spectrum of cheating that they won't cross are ultimately excluded. Methinks it would be more correct to say "all of the cheaters are cheating" or "everyone at the top is cheating" or something like that. To say that cycling is tainted would obviously be a ridiculous understatement. But then I have to ask, does it matter? Would anyone be interested in clean cycling? The most extreme example: would anyone be interested in clean bodybuilding? Competitive women's bodybuilding simply would not exist if not for cheating.

#7 Mr Cook Street

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 08:44 AM

It's high time that everyone just accepts that doping happened in that era and move on. Get a fresh start. When Lance Armstrong won, everyone else in the top 10 would have been as well. So who do you give the medal to? 11th place? Until you find out he doped too. Acknowledge, move on, enforce the rules.

#8 LJ

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 07:19 PM


What is the justification for singling him out?


Apparently it he who "encouraged" all his teammates to indulge.
Life's a journey......so roll down the window and enjoy the breeze.

#9 Holden West

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 07:48 PM

^Exactly. The report details how he bullied other riders into doping, including one teammate who had immersed himself in cycling to escape drug abuse in his family. I'm deeply disappointed in Armstrong, more for the lying, evasion and bullying than for the doping itself.
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#10 phx

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Posted 11 October 2012 - 07:55 PM

It's high time that everyone just accepts that doping happened in that era and move on. Get a fresh start. When Lance Armstrong won, everyone else in the top 10 would have been as well. So who do you give the medal to? 11th place? Until you find out he doped too. Acknowledge, move on, enforce the rules.


Armstrong represents the doping era. Stripping him of his medals is a good way for the cycling community to close that chapter and move on.

#11 Bingo

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Posted 17 October 2012 - 12:23 PM

Armstrong represents the doping era. Stripping him of his medals is a good way for the cycling community to close that chapter and move on.


The people associated with cycling have too much riding on the survival of the sport for it to change. If the U.S. anti-Doping Agency is serious about catching riders doping, they would have done it years ago. Now you have a sport with little credibility left, because people will just assume everyone is doing it because the doping can't be detected. It appears that the only way you can get caught is when your friends "blow the whistle".

#12 Bingo

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Posted 22 October 2012 - 06:53 AM

Lance Armstrong stripped of Tour de France titles and
banned from sport for life.

'No place in cycling': Lance Armstrong stripped of Tour de France titles - CNN.com

and...
Contador shoves drug ban behind him with Spanish Vuelta victory.

After wrapping up this year's Vuelta, Contador held up seven fingers -- one for each of his grand tour victories; unless you are so narrow-minded and officious as to insist, like the sport's governing body, that his wins in the 2010 Tour de France and 2011 Giro d'Italia be excluded from that count. The Spaniard was stripped of those titles after testing positive for traces of clenbuterol in 2010

Read more: Alberto Contador transcends drug ban with Spanish Vuelta victory - Austin Murphy - SI.com

#13 dasmo

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Posted 22 October 2012 - 07:33 AM

Is it just me or is it all circumstantial evidence? It's all "witness reports" yet he has passed some 500 tests? I'm undecided still...

#14 Holden West

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Posted 22 October 2012 - 01:50 PM

He passed all the tests he took (except one that was covered up, allegedly). But the witnesses all agreed on the tactics Armstrong used to beat those tests, including diluting his blood with saline. Another positive test was nullified by Armstrong's handlers quickly creating a fake back-dated prescription for saddle-sore cream.

His team had a system of evading the drug testers by sharing sightings of the arrival of the tester with text messages. If a tester knocked on the door and there was no escape they would simply not answer. If even that failed, Armstrong and his teammates would use their last resort and drop out of the race so that there would never be a test. It was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Armstrong himself orchestrated this.
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#15 dasmo

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Posted 22 October 2012 - 03:24 PM

Is eyewitness testimony enough for it to be "beyond a reasonable doubt" I'm not sure. It is certainly enough to cause suspicion. For me to condemn the man I want some actual text, recorded phone calls, video recordings, DNA, whatever. I want a body and a murder weapon with prints!!!

It will be interesting to see if there are appeals.

#16 LJ

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Posted 22 October 2012 - 08:53 PM

I thought they had come up with more sophisticated testing protocals and retested some of the samples that they retain for all winners, and found evidence of doping.
Life's a journey......so roll down the window and enjoy the breeze.

#17 bluefox

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Posted 22 October 2012 - 10:43 PM

The whole sport, at least at the professional level, is in shambles... :/
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#18 Bingo

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Posted 23 October 2012 - 03:00 PM

Is it time to allow doping in sports?

(CNN) -- The Lance Armstrong case forces us to consider a philosophical problem that has tormented sport since 1988 when Ben Johnson was disqualified from the Olympics after testing positive for drugs.

Not 'How we can improve detection and make punishment serve as both deterrent and restitution,' but 'Should we allow athletes to use drugs?'

more;
Opinion: It's time to allow doping in sport - CNN.com

#19 UrbanRail

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Posted 23 October 2012 - 04:41 PM

hmmm, interesting that CNN is promoting doping in sports.

So does that mean that students in highschool and college dont need to train hard, they just need to drug themselves up in any sport?

#20 Holden West

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Posted 23 October 2012 - 05:51 PM

That guy's nuts.

Here's a rational counterpoint from Pulitizer-winning columnist Gene Weingarten:

Let's say there was a drug that could vastly improve your performance athletically but that assured you would be dead by 45. Do you think some 18 years old athletes would choose that -- riches, fame, women, etc. -- rather than a life of anonymous drugdery at menial jobs, if that is what they are otherwise qualified for? I really do think many would make that choice. And they'd crowd out more talented athletes who do not make that choice. Sport would be relegated to a contest between juiced suicidal hedonists. The ones who make it without the juice will be embittered super-athletes never achieving the stardom they deserve because they were unwilling to bargain with the devil.

This is a system you want?

Because that's basically what steroids are all about, on a somewhat less dramatic scale.


"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

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