Pro cycling: General Chat

[PauloBarnesi]

Saw the highlights. Cav was supposedly being sick along the way.

Phil on the Lance Situation

Liggett on Armstrong: The whole investigation was a waste of money

By: Daniel BensonPublished: February 6, 21:31, Updated: February 6, 22:02Edition:First Edition Cycling News, Tuesday, February 7, 2012

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Lance Armstrong

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He looked at me and he said ‘man I’ve seen death in the face and I don’t take drugs'

Phil Liggett welcomed the decision of the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles to close the investigation into Lance Armstrong and the US Postal team. A two-year long enquiry concluded last Friday with no criminal charges. Armstrong released a statement welcoming the news, and on Sunday evening his friend and supporter, Liggett, reiterated the sentiment.

“I always felt that would be the decision. People asked me what would happen, and I said absolutely nothing and that’s how I’ve always felt. I thought that there was a lot of money being spent and there was no evidence turning up, just a lot of accusations which were all circumstantial and quite frankly I felt the whole investigation was a waste of money so I wasn’t surprised with what we’ve heard,” Liggett told Cyclingnews.

Asked if the news was a positive step for cycling Liggett said, “It can only be a good thing as one would hope it would drop out of the headlines now. Nobody has proved anything against him. I’ve been relatively close to him and he’s always categorically told me to my face that he hasn’t taken drugs. I read all the stories, I read all the accusations and I read the links and potential possibilities, but at the end of the day there’s no evidence or proof so we’ve got to move on and we can't live in the past.”

Liggett also questioned why WADA and USADA would want to take up the reins over any possible investigation into alleged doping on the US Postal team between 1999 and 2004.

“If WADA are going to continue to press then one must ask the question why because all they’re going to do is waste a lot of money and the guy has finished cycling, if they find him guilty what’s the point?”

Liggett has always been a strong supporter of Armstrong, and has commentated on all seven of the American’s Tour de France wins. However, while Ligggett admits that he has had his doubts over the American’s career, a one-on-one moment in private convinced him to believe Armstrong was clean.

“He told me in a private situation, when I wasn’t working as a journalist. I was sat in the bedroom some years ago, and I asked him point blank, ‘look Lance, the way I talked you up on television, I would have to back off and resign if you one day went positive’. And he looked at me and he said ‘man I’ve seen death in the face and I don’t take drugs.’ And that’s all he said. I have no reason to disbelieve him.”

“But I’ve been with him on his private jet when he’s been reading stuff on Cyclingnews and he’s gone, ‘god damn it look at what they’re saying about me again’ and he just passes his computer over to his friends.”

To be honest I am not sure Liggett has much credit left; never healthy for journalists to be travelling in private jets. Where’s the impartiality? And this is from a man who reckoned

[The_Rev]

Lance Armstrong will be stripped of all of his Tour de France titles today.

[Jon]

Lance Armstrong will be stripped of all of his Tour de France titles today.

USADA have found him guilty, and he's dropped hid challenge against them!!

roll out the bunting.

w*nker.

some cheats do prosper, and I'd imagine he's now a very wealthy man.

[maqroll]

The USADA have no authority over the Tour de France, so I'm not sure they can "strip him of his medals"...you'd think that would be something the Tour would have to decide to do, or the International Bicycling Federation or whatever it's called.

I'm not a fan of Armstrong as a personality, but I feel like he's being railroaded. The guy passed over 500 dope tests over his career....it's a bit baffling to me, but then again, I only pay attention to the sport once a year.

[Jon]

The USADA have no authority over the Tour de France, so I'm not sure they can "strip him of his medals"...you'd think that would be something the Tour would have to decide to do, or the International Bicycling Federation or whatever it's called.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Surely the USADA can't strip him of his TDF jerseys?

Although surely with this ruling, the Tour organisers may well do that. Who knows.

I think we'll have to wait to hear from the UCI.

[villa89]

but I feel like he's being railroaded.

He's not.

The guy passed over 500 dope tests over his career....it's a bit baffling to me

Marion Jones passed over 100 drug tests.

Trust me, I follow cycling and Armstrong was systematically doping along with his whole team for every single one of his tour wins. There are stacks and stacks of evidence to back this up. He's probably the biggest dope cheat in the history of sport.

EDIT: Ligget's a clearing in the woods. You'd think he'd just shut up about it now that its clear LA is guilty but I guess he's on the LA payroll...

[PauloBarnesi]

Don’t expect anything from the UCI, those bastards just look after themselves, not the sport.

[El-Reacho]

Interesting that USADA say all of the evidence will come out once the arbitration cases are completed. This is the evidence that will absolutely sink the UCI and there must be substance to it or Armstrong wouldn't have refused to contest.

This could leave Armstrong exposed to litigation for millions of dollars. He's won countless courtcases on the basis of being clean in the face of assertions that he doped. Presumably all those cases can now be re-opened - this could leave him in financial ruin.

I reckon the TdF might have to do the same thing as they did with Riis and asterick his name on the record books. Ullrich, Kloden, Beloki etc are not exactly worthy recipients either are they?

Will be interesting to see what the Olympics do with his medal....

[AVFCforever1991]

Cheating drug addict.

[PompeyVillan]

What evidence is there against Armstrong?

[LondonLax]

This image shows the Tour De France top 10 during the Armstrong Era. The riders who have been greyed out are ones who have been convicted of a doping charge. It gives a scale of what was going on back then (well the ones who were caught anyway)

Can we now grey out Lance as well?

[PauloBarnesi]

Here is a list of the allegations over the years

The main body of evidence I understand from USADA is a series of former colleagues; Hamilton, Landis, but also others like Vaughters, Hincapie who have made sworn testaments of the drug regime at US postal.

Also is a series of blood results from his comeback, that are seen as blood manipulation.

[Dr_Pangloss]

Sorry but don't most of these guys use PEDs anyway? I don't really get the hate for Lance.

[Voinjama]

Athletes, weightlifters and cyclists are predominently on the juice.

I hope Lance Armstrong is clean, but I doubt it.

[LondonLax]

There is some pretty damning evidence here that he was doping on the Tour in 99 which was before they properly tested for EPO (the testing was improved for the Sydney Olympics in 2000).

When his samples are analysed again with modern systems it shows up a pattern of injecting EPO every 3 days or so during the tour. His team mates have also come out and said they were helping with a programme of doping during that race.

[AVFCforever1991]

Seems pretty conclusive to me.

[El-Reacho]

Sorry but don't most of these guys use PEDs anyway? I don't really get the hate for Lance.

This is quite true. However, Armstrong was regarded by many (including USADA obviously) as being a figure head and authority figure of drug taking in the entire peloton, and enforcing an omerta that meant if you were a professional cyclist you either took drugs and were therefore part of his gang, or you were clean and were therefore not part of his gang.

If you were not part of his gang (see Christophe Bassons and Filippo Simeoni, Cunego etc.) and you spoke in any way out of turn to the media etc. with regard to 'a two speed peloton' or PED's you would be run out of town by Lance, not be able to win or even compete in races and struggle to find an employer for the next season because no one wanted to cross Lance, such was his influence in cycling. You were regarded to have broken the code of silence (spat in the soup) - Lance is widely regarded as being the enforcer of this rule.

When Simeoni (who testified that Lance's doctor gave him PED's) got in a break in the Tour Lance himself chased him down an told him to go back to the bunch. Because Lance was there the break would have been chased down, so Simeoni had to drop back into the bunch where he was gobbed on by pretty much everyone in the bunch. Lance gave him the zipped lips sign - as in 'keep your mouth shut'. It's all on youtube.

For the Armstrong years of the TdF journalists who knew rightly what was going on in professional cycling would not report it because Lance and Johann would blackball them from the Tour. Bruyneel had a notebook of name that weren't allowed into USPS press conferences because they were trouble makers.

If you were one of his team mates you simply wouldn't be chosen to ride the Tour without being doped.

The reason they've gone for Lance is because they see him as being the ring leader and there was absolutely no chance of clean cycling while he was around.

What I can't get my head around is that 90% of the peloton is widely regarded to have been doped when Armstrong was around, and yet now we're supposed to believe that it's largely clean, despite many of the same riders and more importantly all of the same team managers, coaches and doctors - and governing body still being in place.

[Voinjama]

Very interesting stuff El Reacho. I dont really follow cycling or the tour de france so most of that is news to me. If what you have said is true, then that is shocking.

[LondonLax]

What I can't get my head around is that 90% of the peloton is widely regarded to have been doped when Armstrong was around, and yet now we're supposed to believe that it's largely clean, despite many of the same riders and more importantly all of the same team managers, coaches and doctors - and governing body still being in place.

Well the stats from today seem to be in the riders favour a bit.

If you look at this it's the record asent times for the Alpe d'Hues. The top 23 times come from the 'drug taking' era and the recent best times only come in at 24th place (Contador being one of them). The top times are all set by known drug cheats, guys today are not getting close anymore.

Also, apparently if you measure the power output of todays riders it is much lower then back then.

It seems at the very least they are not as obvious about doping today as back then.

[El-Reacho]

What I can't get my head around is that 90% of the peloton is widely regarded to have been doped when Armstrong was around, and yet now we're supposed to believe that it's largely clean, despite many of the same riders and more importantly all of the same team managers, coaches and doctors - and governing body still being in place.

Well the stats from today seem to be in the riders favour a bit.

If you look at this it's the record asent times for the Alpe d'Hues. The top 23 times come from the 'drug taking' era and the recent best times only come in at 24th place (Contador being one of them). The top times are all set by known drug cheats, guys today are not getting close anymore.

Also, apparently if you measure the power output of todays riders it is much lower then back then.

It seems at the very least they are not as obvious about doping today as back then.

There's no question that the racing's slower, but the majority of those times were set in an era when riders doped to the extent that they would be easily caught today. Riis's nickname was Mr 60% - referring to his haematocrit level.

IMHO the doping has evolved every bit as much as the controls and is still one step ahead, so microdosing and blood transfusions are the way it's done at moment. All the biological passport does is provide a threshold that allows riders to dope or transfuse as much as they like as long as it's within the UCI's threshold.

But then as the USADA's charges against Armstrong show, when there is evidence of blood manipulation nobody does anything about it.

I don't really know enough about the biology of current doping/testing, but I do know that doping was/is ingrained within professional cycling's DNA, and while the same managers/doctors/governing bodies that were part of this DNA are still present and running the sport I refuse to believe that everything is hunky dory all of a sudden. That's where my cynicism comes from.