Do you think lance is doping? yes or no - Page 49

We would all be a lot happier if it could be demonstrated beyond any doubt whatsoever that the best riders never touched the stuff. The question is whether it is possible to believe that Lance or anyone else can win without doping.

__________________
"Boudreaux pissed me off, what should I do?"
"Nothing, just shut up and take his advice."

I think Flyer would go one further and say a non-doper wont stand a chance to even finish an event.

The rules read (fairly) clearly in many languages; to break them is to cheat. Regarding any particular athlete, I acknowledge the responses from the various posters and choose not to offer my opinion ...

The point I wanted to make in my post is that the cycling season is brutal - further, any one event is brutal! Every season/every event is purposely designed to wreak havoc on the body's ability to respond and recover. We see top cyclists dropping out and not finishing - never mind simply not winning ... can we totally blame the cyclists when the events are purposely designed to be more and more difficult and implode the best endurance athletes?

Jep that's the whole case...........there are so many stories to doping! The people who make the route, WE as spectators want them to go fast and ride there asses of..........and then we have sponsors, team members, directeur sportifs who want the riders to win.........Wouldn't you dope??

Cheats are in all sports........and there can't be anything done about that......they will continue to beat the WADA and other organisations! Better live with it.....

I think there's one more important point particular to Armstrong that's worth raising: in the minds of millions, he's a hero! Doper or not, he gives daily inspiration to athletes and cancer-sufferers/survivors world-wide, cycling fans or not!

If I had 100% of the evidence which would put Armstrong in disgrace I would never reveal it - ever! I simply could never accept the burden of undermining his influence on the millions of people who derive inspiration from him - no matter where you stand on this issue, his positive impact on the hopes of many is undeniable.

This is a good point indeed.
The Lance effect has saved many a young Yank from becoming a couch potato.
Very few of these will get far enough in the game to encounter dope, so the net effect is a beneficial one.
Does the same conspiracy of silence that protects the legends really allow coaches to poison schoolboys?

__________________
"Boudreaux pissed me off, what should I do?"
"Nothing, just shut up and take his advice."

It's so easy to take a misleading sound bite like that and exhort it as fact.

In order for that statement to be relevant, all top cyclists are assumed to be exactly the same, therefore any cyclist who dopes will beat any cyclist that doesn't dope. At least that's how this statement reads.

Is that really true? Or is this just a wretched exercise in nihilism? I take a somewhat different approach, based on evidence that is a bit more empirical. Look at the cyclists that have been caught doping over the last few years. Practically all of them are marginal nobodies trying to get an edge, or former stars who were injured (Pantani, Millar, for example) and are trying to hasten their return to greatness.

Arguably, Hamilton falls into the second category, as he seems to have been continually crashing and injuring himself. And as the test to nail Hamilton is a bit, um, bleeding edge, we won't really know the validity of it until CAS rules.

Otherwise, one does not see mainstream pros being caught. Either people like Pantani and Millar became more careless due to their injury, or they started doping at all.

From this, I tend to believe that the majority of the top cyclists are not doping - at least they are not using banned substances via subterfuge. Fact is, most cycling based doping is aimed at increasing hematocrit, and that's been capped at 50%, and you'll get a warning if you get in the vicinity. So there is only so much improvement you can get, and attempts to get it will get red flagged, even if the actual drug itself is not traceable.

One hears otherwise, but it's always coming from disgruntled ex-staff members, or conspiracy theory nutcases, and is always conveniently without a shred of tangible evidence.

Personally, I am going to enjoy the show, and leave the conspiracy theories to people with nothing better to do with their time. What hard evidence is available suggests that doping is happening, but not on a massive scale.

I'd like to see some evidence of what drugs were used with these kids.
I know that steroids are never used with kids before their growth plates have fused. The result is stunted growth.

Flyer, you are again tampering with the truth. You leave other threads with your tail between your legs when your untruths have been exposed but regurgitate those exposed untruths on other threads.

French admitted to taking (and trafficking in) Testicomp and injections of vitamins for which he received a 2 year suspension and lifetime Olympic ban. The basis of his recent successful appeal was that Testicomp contained no performance enhancing ingredients, despite the label description as containing corticosteroids, as tested by an independent off shore laboratory.

At no time whatsoever did French admit to Equigen which, you allude to, was part of the AIS systemic doping which you miserably failed to provide a remote snippet of evidence.

In 2003 French was old to enough to vote, hold a driving licence, hold a flying licence, get married without parental consent and had no age related legal disabilities. He was old enough to have legal control over his destiny, unlike LA and co when they were on the alleged US junior doping program.

Well you should not be scandalised because:

(a) French won his appeal.
(b) You claimed there was systemic doping program at the AIS but failed to provide one skerrick of evidence. You stand very much alone here.
(c) If French had been doping he was no longer of tender age as you claim.

BTW, Flyer, have you read the human contraindications on Equigen? Would you really believe an organisation like the AIS would be providing, funding or recommending a hgh that is designed only for equinine chemistry and has human side effects when hgh designed for humans is available?

__________________
VF

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

I lost both of my parents to cancer. That has made me appreciative of anyone who combats that disease, and I can't think of a single celebrity, a single sports champion, a single person outside of the medical profession, (and most inside of it) who has done more to combat cancer than Lance.

What I won't do is get online with a lot of conspiracy theories and clumsy mental sleights of hand to try to exorciate some hidden inner guilt I carry around. My parents died because the world is evil... no, my parents died because they got cancer, and there was no cure. I want a cure, so more people don't have to go through what they went through.

Lance is actively working towards a cure for cancer. He's the last person on earth I would try to malign, especially based on third hand whispers from dubious sources.

No Equigen or Testicomp was found, Flyer. Only empty phials/ampoules and a Testicomp leaflet.(Refer to paragraph 95 of Anderson report)

Again refer to paragraph 95 of the Anderson report which details the contents of the sharps bucket. No horse hormones, Flyer.

Paragraph 95 again. Your distrusting and fertile imagination is getting the better of you.

An absolute fact in the world of Flyer is fantasy in the real world.

__________________
VF

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

I don't think LA is doping. He has more of a reason to fight everyday. Besides, who knows the limit of the human body.

I don't Know, like the rest of you I suspect ! If he gets caught then we will know. If not, then this speculation is really just a lot of people talking sh**.

Flyer posted: A now age 38 year old Frenchman showed great promise back in 1988 after winning a few big amateur races and a National team U-23 TTT championship. All w/o using drugs btw!

He was invited to a Pro cycling team camp and allowed to ride with this group for 6 days. Tempo, 170 kilometers per day. By day 4 his was exhausted as the tempo never eased up and he began getting dropped. The team did not wait for him.

Later on, back at the inn, the coach visited the him in private and asked what was the matter. He said he was knackered and spent.

The coach quickly countered with: You now have two
choices; 1) you can go see the team physician and he can help you recover for tomorrow's ride---or 2) you can get the **** out of cycling, now!

He elected to follow the coaches advice---injections began that very evening and kept going from 1988 to 1992. The team was System U, later Castorama.

After four years the rider couldn't stand the doping and he asked to quit. They insisted he sign a non-disclosure document in exchange for them finding him a job at a famous wheel builder.

He kept his mouth shut, got ou and found a new job in the industry.

Sadly he now has pancreatic cancer. (btw: that is what Jacques Anquetil died from at age 53)


O.k., I'll bite. Who was this System U rider? And how did you come to learn this bit of information? (Yes, yes, I'm sure we could go try and pull the System U / Castorama team bios and find someone who'd be 38 today, who left the team in 1992, but it'd be a whole lot easier if you'd just provide the name)

I don't care if you believe it or not. That's the whole problem with the advertising side. 10,000 athletes can die and you want a link for your legal dossier.

Bring it on and we can compare witnesses!!!



Where the heck did that come from? I asked a simple, polite question in a non-confrontation manner. And because I'm interested in more information you're going to respond that way? I'm sorry you've gotten yourself into such adversarial exchanges with people on these forums, and bunkered down to the point where you're in Bush-mode, trying to automatically declare this some sort of posting war, and trying to pigeon-hole everyone as either with you or against you -- "with you" being defined as not daring to be interested enough to ask questions or search for additional information.

No offense, but "it's true because I said so" is as offensive from you as it is from the kind of people you despise for declaring that there's not widespreading doping in professional cycling because they simply feel like believing that and then type the words.

If there's a reason you'd like to keep the rider's name a "secret", then just explain why, and I'm sure reasonable people will accept it. As for how you came to know this, is there any reason you don't want to at least share that much?

When people bunker down and give those "harumph - well if you don't want to believe it you can go screw yourself" type responses, with grand indignance that anyone would dare ask a fair and reasonable question, it suggests there's something going on. That's not just my observation of the world -- it's your own! Because that's precisely the brand of behavior observed in guys like David Millar. The indignant attitude is a red flag.

Now how about treating me with a little respect, as someone who's interested enough in your crusade to have spent hours reading through your many posts, and interested enough to engage and ask you questions in an effort to learn more.