EPO? Yes of no?

Since 2001, over 90,000 cyclist's have joined Cycling Forums to discuss topics from general cycling to equipment, training, racing and travel or vacation destinations (especially in europe during the tour de france). We also feature an great deals in our online store, 100's of articles, classifieds and product reviews.

You believe that the 1999 urine EPO positive sample is a fraud or you believe Lance was doping.

You believe Lance when he says he never doped, or you believe his ex teammates, ex team staff, ex doctors who say he did.
This going to change the topic here......

Wasn't it that dodgy French News paper who printed yet another story on "We have proof that Lance doped"? Then when the lawyers pressed them they claimed to have a reliable source who did the test on the '99 sample, but refused to produce the person or the test documents. I find this dodgy as nobody would have been legally aurthorised to do any retrospective testing on any of Lances samples.

Who of Lance's team or team mates have claimed to have had first hand direct experience observing Lance doping?
Hell your best riding buddy could "claim" to have seen you dope. Where's the proof?

Lance was young and inexperienced at stage races. Before his cancer treatment he was the wrong built for stage racing or anything too hillie, but he did have a nice handfull of elite victories.
Not only did he return from his cancer treatment more trimmed (lost all his muscle tone and only put back on the cycling muscle not Triathlon muscle from his youth, but he also had grown to love the pain of cycling, it made him remember he was alive.
You take a elite athele and give them a body and mind make over like that and you watch them change thier level of performance.

HOWEVER I can not say Lance has never taken substances that are now illegal. But I'm yet to see anybody prove that he did take substances that at the time were against UCI or Olympic rules.

Wasn't it that dodgy French News paper who printed yet another story on "We have proof that Lance doped"? Then when the lawyers pressed them they claimed to have a reliable source who did the test on the '99 sample, but refused to produce the person or the test documents. I find this dodgy as nobody would have been legally aurthorised to do any retrospective testing on any of Lances samples.
WADA ordered retrospective testing of the 1999 TdF urine samples. They also tested the 1998 ones. Forty 1998 samples were positive for EPO. Twelve 1999 samples were positive. No one knew who the samples belonged to because they were coded with the original doping control numbers and only the UCI had the key. Unfortunately for Armstrong, a French newspaper tricked him into authorizing the release of his 1999 control forms that had the control numbers. Armstrong thought that he was putting to rest the rumor that he had a TUE for continuing use of drugs from his cancer treatment. The real reason the newspaper asked was because they had obtained the retrotesting results. After matching the Armstrong's control numbers with the results, six of the positive 1999 samples turned out to the Armstrong's. This is also the reason why no one knows who the other positive 1999 samples or the positive 1998 samples belong to; the UCI has kept the control numbers hidden (although in the 1999 case all the prologue samples tested were positive and we know who was tested even though we don't know which exact sample, other than Armstrong's, belongs to who).