Do you think lance is doping? yes or no - Page 18

Are you suggesting that when people recommend that the need for actual proof be overlooked that they don't really mean it? Because if they do mean that then they certainly feel that this would be appropriate and should they ever get what they're asking for, then there would be substantial fallout for Lance, for anyone awaiting trial for any offense and for anyone ever acussed of any wrongful act. Certainly if the need for proof were eliminated, his career would be ruined. Perhaps you've failed to grasp the consequences of touting the benefits of an unfair system. While you're quick to point out your belief that ruining Lance isn't the point of this "exercise", the absense of an explanation as to what you feel the point is seems painfully obvious.

No one stated it was the American justice system. You're trying to read things into my comments that aren't there for the convenience of creating a point for contention. The American justice system was utilized as a model and the error rate of that system placed on exhibition to show that even when proof is required, the potential for error is unacceptably high. Removing the requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt would only inflate the rate of error. The numbers came from Scientific American.

You state that the only solid evidence which exists to substantiate Lance's claim that he's clean is that he has never failed a drug test. Isn't that the whole crux of the debate? That's what the testing is for. Certainly some riders have been found to be doping even after passing the drug tests. Other riders have been suspended for failing the drug tests and were later found to have been free of banned substance use. (Santiago Botero, for one). There is a rate of error as with any kind of testing. Your contention seems to be that since there is a potential for error, anyone you choose to believe is guilty, must therefore be guilty.

You might note that I am one of the forum readers. Therefore, by your own request, I'm as justified as any other to post opinions, data and information.

Winning has everything to do with it. If Lance weren't winning, no one would even bother to ask the question. As you state, there is a strong likelihood that many of the pro riders are doping yet Armstrong is the target sustaining the highest number of accusations because he's winning.

You talk of all of these reports and yet no one, not even those who claim to have seen the waste from the doping have produced the slightest shred of physical evidence. If you watch someone throw away medical waste you feel is connected to doping, then why not wait around and collect a bit of it so that you have more to offer than hearsay?

The relationship with Dr. Ferrari is yet another attempt to fabricate evidence out of imagination and emotion. A certain number of people simply want to believe that Lance is doping. Perhaps he is but if so, he's certainly not alone and as such, is still beating the other riders on a level playing field. I'm not excusing doping but many people wish to believe he's doping because he keeps winning against other riders they wish to believe are clean. But in the constant struggle to create something akin to evidence against Lance, they also incriminate those riders they feel could beat Lance if Lance weren't "cheating".

http://espn.go.com/cycling/france99/stage16.html
Your reference to the corticosteroids is a completely moot point. Regardless of any inconsistency regarding the prescription itself, the level found was .2 and the limit set by the UCI for all riders is 5. He had less than 1/10th the level required for it to even be an issue. Is it inconceivable to you that when dealing with a stage race and a team doctor that sometimes the administering of medication might precede the writing of the prescription? This is again an example of trying to fabricate evidence out of nothing. He was well below the allowable level so the only thing you're demonstrating with this non-issue is your own desire to make an issue out of a perfectly normal, perfectly benign and perfectly legal situation. Riders do apply medications containing small levels of corticosteroids to saddle sores. Those corticosteroids work through absorption. That's why the UCI didn't set the limit at .1 or .01.

If you want to be considered as someone with logical concerns who has looked into the situation from a mature, objective standpoint, I might suggest that you refrain from such childishness.

Bravo beastt, i agree since we don't have a written confession, we have no case, we can just speculate and slander, possibly a good mans name. hey! but in alot of cases it wouldn't stop there until the ducking stool, the float test or possibly a good burning at the stake...

unfortunately it ain't a witch hunt, but some are convinced some aren't, some like to believe that there is an elite in cycling some like to believe that one can only reach such a high standard not through ones own abilities but through the assistance of drugs.

personnally i'd like to believe that through hard work and dedication ones personal goals can be met and even broken, dedication is about belief, self belief and the winners are the ones that believe, truly believe that they can achieve more its when you start to doubt the abilities of others that you will never achieve anything other than what you believe to be possible. So how can one ever achieve anything more if they doubt ones abilities, so i guess lance will be staying numberone, since there is such a great deal of doubt and no one seems to believe that his achievemnet are possible.

So until he his discredited he is number one, is goals are obtainable by others in my opinion.

as for corticosteroids i wouldn't have thought where performance enhancing? since my son has ecsma and when he has his elecon on, he doesn't seem to be any faster, active or fitter, etc. just helps his skin heal quicker and stop the itching that speeds up the healing process.

The point, as far as this thread is concerned, isn't the total number of EPO tests administered but the total administered to Lance Armstrong as well as whether or not the tests were scheduled ahead of time and whether Lance was aware of the tests well in advance or not.

You state "the whole '6AM unannounced test' thing is an urban legend", as far as you're concerned. Meaning, of course, that you have no more proof of when or how the tests are administered than Hellonwheels has. What you're offering is simply your opinion of how, when and where the tests are administered. In other words, unsubstantiated, personal conjecture.

What you believe or don't believe is exactly the problem. You wish to base your judgement of Lance on nothing more than your personal feelings. When proof exists, then you have a basis for your comments. Until then it's just slander.

Give this a try, fallen^sparrow; go to the advance search page for the forum and do a search for the number of posts made by "beasst". Doesn't exist, does he.

Nice try.

I'm quite familiar with the pro-vegetarian issue you mention as well as your nickname. Show me the site and the posts you're talking about and you'll have my sincere apology.

No need for your concern, Flyer, I'm perfectly calm. Statements and issues were made which were erroneous, personal conjecture and irrelative. I simply responded.

Chances are most don't know the half of it. In addition to antibiotics, steroids and growth hormones, cattle are routinely fed sawdust, tree bark, industrial waste, poultry feathers and even plastic pellets to compensate for the lack of roughage. These pellets are later retrieved from the manure and fed to cattle again and again. In addition, while U.S. cattle are no longer fed offal, (slaughterhouse waste), due to the fear of BSE, (mad cow disease), chickens are still fed nerve tissues from slaughterhouse waste and the poultry waste is passed on to cattle so there is still a chain for prions to follow which may bring them to supermarket beef.
Yes, if we eat animal products, we're doped. But these are certainly not performance enhancing drugs. Much to the contrary.

In a real jury, (U.S. system), the jurors are instructed as to what they are to include or exclude in their deliberation. Despite this they do have the right to vote their conscience which is often excluded from their instruction. Most of what is offered here as indications that doping is a possibility would be inadmissable due to irrelevance and the fact that most of it is third-party hearsay. Whether people like this fact or not, third-party hearsay has all the credibility of gossip and rumors and should be treated as such. Certainly you're entitled to your opinion and certainly the possibility exists that Lance as well as most of the peloton may be doping. But until actual, valid, credible evidence with weight enough to exclude reasonable doubt exists, I feel it's prudent to offer the benefit of doubt to the issue.

My vote; Not guilty due to lack of evidence.

What I know is that the average number of annual EPO tests for each pro rider that the UCI has testing responsibility for is closer to zero than to one.

If you want to create some fantasy dream-land scenario where Lance Armstrong gets 25% of all the EPO tests administered by the UCI, you can be my guest.

The best critical guess is that Lance gets the same number of tests as any other pro who has won a stage in a stage race, or a criterium, or a one-day-classic, or a a race on the track. This still puts the median number of EPO tests for Lance on an annual basis at....exactly one. One test per year.

If you have hard data to refute this analysis, dig it up Beastt. I know you deftly evade other requests for hard data or backup, so I suspect you will in this case.

If you want to call me childish, go ahead and do that as well. It's all about deflecting attention from the issue at hand with you, which is the probability of your hero and idol, Lance Armstrong, using performance enhancing drugs.

Deflect, deny, obfuscate, and lie. It's your way.

http://www.mesomorphosis.com/article...s-ergogens.htm

As far as Lance Armstrong goes, the first-hand account is that he was written a prescription by a doctor AFTER he was found to have corticosteroids in his system during a test. The explicit purpose, according to the person giving the account, was to prevent a technical doping positive.

As Beastt will tell you, the amount found was under the legal limit. What he (she?) won't tell you, however, is that corticosteroids are a controlled substance in cycling, and any use requires a therapeutic use exemption, with extensive paperwork, if the athlete is to use them at all.. An exception is made for emergency administration, but even the experts at VeloNews can't think of a situation, other than a severe allergic reaction (such as a bee sting) that would require that. In 2001 about a third of Tour de France cyclists had doctors prepare TUEs for corticosteroids.

Again you make unsubstantiated accusations toward me then follow up by commiting those acts yourself. Who said Armstrong receives 25% of the drug tests? I didn't. Hellonwheels didn't. The only comment even remotely linked to such a statement is the one you made, quoted above. My statement was that the total number of EPO tests given to cyclists isn't relevant to the topic of this thread. The relevant figure is the number given to Lance. That's still a valid statement and I continue to stand by it.

As for the number of tests he does or doesn't receive, if you have some actual data, please post it. If you don't, then what you refer to as an analysis is nothing more than your opinion and based on nothing factual.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/others...99_gunn24.html

On the subject of drugs, she says, "There is no question in my mind that Lance is clean. I've been a sportswriter for 20 years. I'm a skeptic, not a fool.

"I know the signs of abuse. We swam in a Texas river together. His body doesn't have any of the signs of steroid use -- the acne or that bloated oil-base look."

Jenkins says if you do the math on his performances before and after his battle with testicular cancer -- accounting for the bigger loss of weight than power output -- Armstrong's times are logical extensions that don't require banned substances to account for the improvements.

"He's the most tested man on the planet," she says. "He's tested for drugs more than 40 times a year. ... They even gave him a surprise test at the hospital when his wife was in labor with twins."

("Jenkins", refers to Sally Jenkins who wrote Lances books.")

You make the claim that I deftly evade requests for hard data. As is relevant to this discussion, it is the lack of proof with which I am concerned. Since the burden of proof is on the accuser and proof of that which doesn't exist is impossible, you are on the side of the issue which must produce hard data. As for your personal attack, I invite you to offer one example where I have evaded a request for hard data when such request was reasonable or possible. For the record, I have several posts on this forum which are nothing more than lists of hard data including sources which had to be split into multiple posts as they exceded the 15,000 character limit per post. Fallen^sparrow eluded to a few of these posts in his comments on this thread. Keeping in mind that proving one has not doped is no more possible than proving the existance or lack thereof of a god, please show me one example... just one, to substantiate your accusation.

When you're done with that, then offer something tangible, substantiating your claim that I'm a liar. Otherwise you'll stand exposed as one yourself.

Beastt, you continue to evade. You claim that I am changing the subject, but then you give a quote that has NOTHING TO DO WITH EPO TESTING.

300+ tests for EPO in 2003 is a published fact. How many of those did Lance receive? What is wrong with my analysis on the likely number?

Can you provide any other official source for the number of "other" tests other than Sally Jenkins, who will join you in the special 8th level of hell reserved for indignant butt-kissers? Talk about a compromised source. If she says anything remotely bad about Lance, or even implies it, there goes the chance for another big payout on the next book deal.

Not to mention that we all know that there are ways to dope for which there are no tests right now.

Not to mention the EPO test is only valid if you've used EPO within a matter of days, even though the benefits last for weeks.

In a way, I love these forum debates because I can imagine the righteous indignation you must feel every time your hero is mentioned in the same post as the word "doping." You're fighting an uphill battle. Continue to invest the time though, it's entertaining watching you shovel water out of your sand-castle moat as the tide inexorably moves in....

Last time I read the title it was "Do you think lance is doping? yes or no"

That calls for an expression of an opinion. Not with a supplementary disclosure of evidence to support your response.

BTW, Beastt, "beyond all reasonable doubt", as you keep re-iterating to support your case on evidence, is only applicable in a criminal court of law not when there is a breach of rules laid down by a sport's governing body. The UCI's rules are patently clear that any infraction of the rules as delivered to the rider must have a standard of proof less than beyond all reasonable doubt but more than the balance of probabilities. This, of course, refers to the collection of samples, delivery, storage and testing. To rebuke the infraction at the hearing, the rider has a lower standard of proof of the balance of probabilities.

Circumstantial evidence does not enter into the equation. However, for the purpose of this discussion it can support a forum argument when expressing an opinion.


The allegation of Emma O'Reilly is that LA took the steroid during the Route du Sud and during testing for the 1999 Tour de France the corticosteroid had not cleared his system. Hence the low reading.

The back dated prescription for a topical ointment for saddle rash containing the steroid was allegedly a cover up. There was no exemption lodged by LA prior to the Tour de France disclosing the use of this claimed topical ointment. The UCI was obliged to sanction LA as he had no exemption to use the product. Inexplicably, they did not pursue sanctions. LA should not have been excused on the alleged backdated prescription. The topical cream should have been listed on LA's mandatory medical form.

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VF

"Remember, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat"

Has anyone else picked up on this point about Liggett and Sherwin exclusively commentating on OLN? I don't know much about OLN, but I noticed during the 2004 Tour de France that the Tour de France section seemed to be somehow sponsored by Trek/Armstrong (at least, it had them plastered all over it) and Liggett and Sherwin were the exclusive commentators (oh, and comments by Carmichael). Then I noticed that they seemed particularly favourable towards Armstrong and appeared to leap to his defence when Greg LeMond made his remarks about Armstrong doping.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick, or is there some deal between OLN/Armstrong/Liggett and Sherwin. I am a big fan of these two commentators and have immense respect for them, but if they are doing deals with individual competitors, I would regard this as very devious and unprofessional.

Any comments?

Cheers

No. However, on another note, to underscore the knowledge of commentators of drug taking in the Tour de France peloton a quote can be attributed to Phil Sherwin in commentary during the closing stages of the 2000, from memory, Tour de France.

If this is the correct year (could be 1999), it was the year that the French authorities after the Festina Affair had come down hard on French registered riders concerning drug taking in the lead up to the Tour de France.

Sherwin said (or gaffed), with words to the effect: "Have you noticed that as a result of the French drug crackdown for the first time no French rider has won a stage of the Tour de France and a French rider is the holder of the Lanterne Rouge (last place)".

Obviously the drug raids had destabilised the French (drug) preparation and they were at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the peloton as implied by Sherwin.

__________________
VF

"Remember, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat"

I think Lance is, without a doubt, GUILTY of taking an oxegenated nitrogen compound, likely through inhalation, along with various "supplements" of a top secret amino acid/fat/carbohydrate formulation. These substances are used by his body to cause massive catalytic reactions in his heart, lungs and muscles - often for hours, and even weeks at a time.

The effect is that he has a far higher cardio-pulmunary and musculo-skeletal endurance and power ratio than other atheletes.

To simplify: It is completely unfair that Lance is able to breath, eat and train at such high, and well planned, levels as to destroy his competition.

If being genetically gifted, and then training harder, and smarter than anyone else is against UCI rules - LANCE IS GUILTY!

LIVESTRONG and keep ridin'

I have followed this thread for, I can't remember how long, and one comment that was made was that this forum is not subject to American justice.

That is correct but in most societies an accused is allowed to face his accusers before being convicted.
This is also true, however the truth is not revealed in questions but in answers.
In that I believe we will have to wait for any changes in what we now know to make any statements except what is "mere opinion".

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Dope,when training and talent just aren't enough.

I'm evading nothing, antoineg. My quote offered a minimum number of tests administered directly to Armstrong. ("more than 40 times a year") Certainly the specifics of those tests weren't mentioned but at least there is a number and that's more than you have offered. Since the topic of the thread is about whether or not Lance Armstrong is doping and your data is applicable only to the full body of riders, neither of us has any idea how many or if any of the 300 EPO tests you speak of, were administered to Lance Armstrong. I'll say it for you one more time; the only tests relevant to the topic are those given to Armstrong. If you don't know that number, as obviously neither of us do, then you have nothing.

I noticed you completely ignored, (evaded) the challenge I put to you to give even one clear example of my failure to provide hard data when a reasonable request is made nor did you respond in any way to the challenge I set forth to offer some proof to back up your accusation that I'm a liar. It would seem that both of these accusations you cast toward me are similar in nature to the reason you are so completely assured that Lance is doping despite the fact that you can produce absolutely no hard data yourself to substantiate these assertions. He's done something you don't like so you're instantly willing to believe anything you hear against him. Likewise, I've offered reason to doubt doping accusations which you disagree with so you carelessly fling the accusation at me claiming that I'm a liar, that I share some kind of rectal intimacy with Lance and that I'm suffering some kind of hero worship. I think what he's done is remarkable. As for who he is, his personality, likes and dislikes, I can only say I don't know the man so I can neither like him nor dislike him.

As for the many comments that Sally Jenkins is bought and paid for by Lance Armstrong, I certainly can see where any negative comments she might make about his doping would have a very substantial backlash which she would likely wish to avoid. However, the accusations that she is lying are no more justified than those cast toward Armstrong or myself. Of those who made such comments, how many have met her? How many know her personally? How many know anything about her other than she has been the writer behind Armstrong's books?

It would seem that if someone claims Armstrong is doping then it serves as sufficient proof of his guilt and if anyone states that he is not or they have no reason to believe that he is, then in the minds of those who disagree, they're instantly a liar.

You're so completely twisted on this topic that you're unable to even conceive of anyone not being similarly twisted to the opposite direction should they suggest that until proper evidence exists, the only reasonable claim to make is that you believe he is doping. And some have very carefully retained that level of discretion. Some have not.

As for comments made by VeloFlash concerning the corticosteroids found in a drug test in 1999: The statement is made that Armstrong used the corticosteroid "during the Route du Sud" and that the level found in his blood was only below the allowable limit because it hadn't cleared from his bloodstream yet; what of the test done on the day just prior to the positive result which showed a corticosteroid level of zero?

The reason given; cortizone cream for saddle sores, fits within that scenario. The idea that the level had been higher to a degree likely to be outside that allowed by the UCI doesn't fit because the level would have been even higher the day before rather than being zero. As for the prescription written after use of the ointment, it's certainly reason for suspicion, but I would guess that close scrutiny would show a lot of instances where riders are given whatever medication their team doctor suggests and the paperwork may often tend to follow at a later date. That's only my suspicion but that's pretty much what this thread is built on - suspicions lending to the idea that Lance does dope and suspicions lending to the idea that he doesn't.

The problem is that if you happen to be someone who feels that accusations without sufficient proof are inappropriate - even wrong, then you're labeled as evasive and a liar. Others who don't simply state that they believe Lance is doping but go so far as to state that it's an absolute fact, seem not to be judged nearly so harshly, if at all.

It comes down to this, antoineg; you don't know how many tests Lance does or doesn't receive nor do you know when or how those are administered or whether he has any advanced notice. Similarly, I don't have any real numbers showing how many tests he receives or even if he is ever tested. I have only what reports the media offers and the comments made by Sally Jenkins. We all know the media often tosses out anything that will get a bite but I find it doubtful that anyone here knows Sally Jenkins. Please step up to the plate and correct me on that if anyone on this thread does know her. So the point remains; you don't know and I don't know. I tend to believe that he isn't doping and you tend to believe that he is. When you don't know and can't prove your suspicions and can't produce hard data relating directly to the one you accuse, then accusations are inappropriate. You can think or believe what you wish to think or believe and, as VeloFlash pointed out, that is the topic of the thread - what you believe, but to go beyond that with Lance is inappropriate as it is to label me a liar when you can't offer a single time when I have shown dishonesty.

Just for your peace of mind, I don't feel indignation when people suggest that Lance is doping. I'm willing to concede that a possibility exists. But I find it sad that so many are willing to pronounce sentence based on their gut feeling and a few unsubstantiated rumors and gossip.