"Armstrong has never tested positive."

...of course, Lance was never busted, unlike Contador...



Alberto Contador Stripped of Tour de France Title Over Doping

Today is a lousy day for Spaniard Alberto Contador, who has become the third winner of the Tour de France to have his title taken away for being found guilty of doping.



This latest ruling comes from the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It came a long one and half years after Contador won both the 2010 Tour and the 2011 Giro d’Italia, but it’s the 2010 Tour title that was most in question, because near the end of the race, while Contador was easily crushing the field, a tiny amount of clenbuterol was found in his system during urine tests .

Any amount of clenbuterol is banned because it’s sometimes used by body builders to increase lean muscle mass and by endurance athletes as a masking agent for other banned substances. Which means zero tolerance.

The ban means Contador will lose all results dating back to and including the 2010 Tour de France. Andy Schleck will become the 2010 Tour de France champion and Michele Scarponi is crowned winner of the 2011 Giro d’Italia.

http://www.adventure-journal.com/2012/02/alberto-contador-stripped-of-tour-de-france-title-over-doping/

I bet, Tour de France officials are salivating over this. They've been hounding him for years.

The people hounding him have been authors and journalists, not Le Tour officials.

You're right. I guess it's been a while since I kept up on cycling news.

just keeps getting better and better.

Yes, Lance hasn't ever tested positive - yet. Advances in science and people willing to come forward to say what they know will ultimately tell the tale.

There's no such thing as double jeopardy in these cases.

That at the time of actual testing right before the race, doping technology is almost always more advanced than the detection science.

I'm glad they test later like this.

TlalocW

Andy Schleck Out of Tour de France

LUXEMBOURG, June 13, 2012 (AFP) — Andy Schleck on Wednesday described his withdrawal from this year’s Tour de France because of injuries suffered in last week’s Criterium du Dauphine race as “the biggest disappointment” of his career





so somebody has to beat the mountains...Cadel Evans, step on up

"The layout of the stage and the future stakes may well upset the order at the top of general classification, four days before the end of the race. No matter what the gap is, the major stage in the Pyrénées will be dreaded by the wearer of the Yellow Jersey, who will have to defend his position while climbing towards the Tourmalet, the Aubisque, the Aspin and the Peyresourde!"


Distinctive aspects of the race

The 2012 Tour de France will have 25 mountain level two, level one or highest level mountain passes or summit fi nishes.
They will be divided up geographically in the following way:
•1 in the Vosges
•3 in the Jura
•4 in the Swiss Jura
•6 in the Alps
•11 in the Pyrenees





http://www.letour.fr/2012/TDF/COURSE/us/le_parcours.html

How can I promise my daughter that Lance Armstrong won't sneak into her room at night and cheat her out of a bicycle trophy???

Do you have a problem with that?

Or are you OK with a person winning seven major sporting titles by cheating?

like this?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014128950

Unless Lance Armstrong goes all HULK SMASH in the middle of a bike race, the worst he could do is unfairly cost some people a bunch of money.

Until he is properly shamed

Therefore dealing with the one denies dealing with any of the others?

Bars on the windows is one suggestion if you are indeed, too frightened to sleep...

And let's not forget the robots.

They eat old people's medicine for fuel.

...How many times does he have to prove his innocence...I think it is about time he started suing people for defamation...this is a continuation of the same old witch hunt...

He has never failed a test. Not once. And yet they continue to harass him.

I don't think he cheated, he said he didn't cheat, he hasn't failed any tests, so I'm going to believe him.

The only people that say he did cheat are the folks he beat. I wonder what their agendas might be?

Enough is enough.

That's possibly the best comment I've ever seen on a thread about cheating at sports.

May I see your papers, please?

Its just bad luck.

More sour grapes is my guess.

Testosterone is also naturally occurring and illicit testosterone boosting is widely understood by the public to improve athletic performance.

If he was using EPO that's not sour grapes. That's stone cold cheating. Blood doping works.

I haven't seen or heard of such in this case yet.

Not all evidence comes in the form of a positive drug test. In fact, there's a term for it when they have evidence but don't have a positive drug test. It's call "non-analytical positive". It's how they busted the BALCO users. Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, and all the rest never failed drug tests but they had other evidence that was sufficient including things like eyewitness testimony, doping schedules, records of payments, etc. Eventually, many of these athletes admitted their use after the USADA sanctioned them.

In a cycling case, Bjarne Riis never tested positive for EPO but years after he retired his teammates admitted drug use. Riis finally admitted that he was using EPO and other drugs throughout the mid-ninties after six former teammates and two team doctors admitted doping.

In Armstrong's case they have a dozen witnesses and physical evidence consistent with doping. Whether this is enough to sanction Armstrong depends on the specific content of the eyewitness testimony and physical evidence.

Some other people in this thread have pointed out that the US gov failed in its case against Armstrong and that should be enough to exonerate Armstrong. And it does exonerate him... from the RICO charges the government were pursuing against him. The USADA are charging him with violating the rules of the sport, not with any criminal activity.

It's amazing how many people think it's not fixed.

"More sour grapes is my guess..."

As are the aggressive defenses of him whenever these charges are brought up. He must indeed be one very sacred cow to many people...

I know the whole "due process" and "presumed innnocent" thing is passe, but some folks still like it.

Clearly damn good drugs though.

Sour grapes from sore-ass losers. Yes, Greg Lemond I am looking at you...

Maybe this will put an end to the countless unfounded allegations that have been brought against Armstrong...

..and he needs to start punching back...

knew about it and also cheated. So there's more here than just blood and urine samples. There's human beings and consciences involved.

There's a lot of crap like that in professional sports, especially ones that emphasize physique over skill.

I still say Cadel Evans is the man to beat this year...if anyone cares...

.. cheat. I think large numbers of baseball players cheat, even larger numbers of football players cheat, lots of cops juice up, I don't really know about basketball.

It is a difficult question. On one level, you can hardly blame an athlete for using PEDs when they are pretty sure lots of other people are and it puts them at a competitive disadvantage.

Testing for this stuff is largely a joke as far as I can tell and part of the regimen is to do things that will thwart the tests.

We either need testing that is good and rigorous enough to get PEDs out of sport or just legalize them. What we have now sucks.

As for Armstrong, I wouldn't be even the tiniest bit surprised if he was using. Also, relative knows people who knew him and man he is a major league asshole from what they say. So good luck to him.

Hilarious.

I think Lance is the kind of guy who kept it legal, which is not the same as keeping it real. He probably ate well (cheating), had a good doctor (cheating), and trained a lot (cheating), and took his meds (cheating).

Yes, he's a dick, but, like anybody in physical sports, he is in it to win. The mechanisms to get there are mostly about legal games.

... and I think the commission will prove it to everyone's satisfaction. Sorry you live in a bubble.

Followed by the report: Is the "lottery" a game played on the mathematically illiterate?