Beltran positive EPO - Page 2

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And I'm neither a hater or lover of LA Confidential.

I think the antipathy towards Disco/USPS/Lance is that they lead by example and showed everyone else in the peloton that crime pays (ie Master Doping with a Master Doping Doctor). Everyone else had to try to copy their game or perish by the roadside. Not that they were the first... they just made sure it persisted as the standard for achievement.

Also not many other dopers made tens of millions of dollars out of their cheating and walked scot free.

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I'm indifferent too. But, I must say, if anything all of these constant doping busts do nothing but dillute all of the "scandal" and negativity surrounding LA's wins . . . so, on a certain level it's a loss of sorts for all the true LA haters, who wish nothing but bad things for him specifically. In other words, essentially . . . the more riders there are caught doping, the more it takes away from the argument about everyone needing to hate Lance because he's a doper who cheated to win 7 times.

I understand people hate him for a lot more than alleged doping . . . I'm just speaking strictly about the "Lance is a Doper" argument specifically.

Edit: and I see that Cranky has already countered my point. You apparently own a great crystal ball Crankster.

I'm the last person to argue that other sports are clean. Is it a cleaner peloton after years of disaster? Was it a cleaner peloton in 1999?

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Harry

You specifically mentioned cycling in your post; hence that response. I didn't watch the Tour before 2007, and so I can't answer for 1999, but from what I have gathered from the threads in this forum, it is only very recently that there is some semblance of cleanliness in the peloton.

I'm glad this thread is now talking about Lance and doping. This subject is always hidden under the carpet and never discussed in here...

I disagree with your point above. People who dislike Lance are the same people who dislike doping (not doping scandals... which are a function of the cleansing process). Catching dopers progresses us towards a cleaner peloton. The more dopers that are caught (especially those that Lance competed against)... the more it makes it likely that Lance also doped. When there weren't many being caught early this decade... the Lance defenders implied that the testing was rigorous... few were doping... and that Lance testing positive meant he was clean. Since the last few years... and especially Puerto... it is obvious that Lance's top ten competitors were probably all doping... and that we know the likes of Ullrich and Basso were not only doping... but passing their dope tests as well.

Personally, I don't hold a grudge against the Pros. They really had no choice if they wanted to compete in their field of passion. I just want cycling to be clean. If Lance walks... so be it. Let's just not return to the old days of the entrenched omerta and institutional cover-ups.

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Don't you know about the Lance factor? It's the same as the Hitler factor. Proven. Really (well maybe not officially ). As soon as the name is dropped in any thread, then the thread is officially dead, forever off topic with endless debate about Lance.

I acknowledge your points. I guess it depends on what side of the fence you come from. If you really believed during the Lance era that everyone was clean . . . then yeah, I agree with you as to the result of multiple riders coming up positive with regularity.

However, if you went into the sport, during the LA reign even, assuming the vast majority of pro athletes dope, almost always have and likely always will . . . then well, I think my end result makes more sense. (In case you can't tell, my perspective has always been the latter ).

i hate to make this post about LA, but i am just piling on......

i was a huge supporter of LA and the Disco boys back in their day. I was new to watching professional cycling in spite of being a cyclist myself for 10+ years by the time LA started his run of Tour victories.

I didn't even know about doping in cycling until several years after starting to follow Disco. i spent time researching doping and even wrote a paper about the subject for a class i was taking.

it wasn't until several of LA's ex teammates were busted (Hamilton, Heras) that i began to doubt LA. after hearing the lame excuses offered by Hamilton in his hearing, and reading a few more books including Game of Shadows, from Lance to Landis, i really began to believe LA may not be innocent.

Then the L'Equippe story broke about the '99 samples. later, the whole mess with all of LA's key rivals (Ulrich, Basso, all of the Puerto affair) made me become reasonably sure LA was most likely just like the rest of the elite cyclists with regard to doping. Game of Shadows taught me that "i have never tested positive" carries very little weight.

couple all that with Bruyneel's dumbass move of hiring Basso after CSC fired him, and it seemed like Bruyneel & Disco were capable of doing whatever it took to win including possibly being part of the unspoken doping culture that seemed to be pervasive on many teams for many years. Then Basso's famous excuse ("i was GOING to dope"), and i had pretty much been convinced that LA was probably just like all the rest.

Then Landis, Chicken Man, Vino........Now comes Landis's million dollar defense which was thankfully shot down in its entirety. Now another one of LA's ex teammates is busted for EPO.

guilt by association is not a good thing, and i wish LA didn't hang out with such stinky people..........but i have been in the camp of the doubters for quite some time.

that doesn't mean i still don't enjoy watching LA's conquests on YouTube or on DVD. on the contrary, i still love to watch his great climbs & time trials, as well as his battles with Ulrich.

i am suggesting that just a bit of the luster has been removed and replaced with cynicism.

From cyclismag:

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6 +2 (according Ashenden) samples with EPO should have banned Lance Armstrong to start next TDF !

Not quite. If Armstrong and his supporters had taken a more sophisticated approach to doping and said or implied that he won playing by the existing rules, which included doping, then it would be as you say. But they did not. Instead Armstrong's whole mythology is based on being clean.

Anyone with a brain who knows anything about the sport already knows that Armstrong must have doped. Every time another rider of his era is busted, it makes his mythology seem ever more ridiculous. It makes the position of the Bobke/Hombre types steadily worse.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

The sad thing about this affair is that we cannot see Bobke/Hombre's response. DP's forurms are run by someone who is incompetent.

Will the entire Liquigas team be encouraged to leave the Tour?

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

We could think so but the agreement signed says that a team has to leave only if it's a none individual doping... at the moment it seems individual.

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6 +2 (according Ashenden) samples with EPO should have banned Lance Armstrong to start next TDF !

Very well said, Sir.

One thing that makes me sick is why would a 37-year old rider like Beltran, who has nothing to prove anymore take EPO????? If he dopes at 37, only God knows what was he taking when he was helping Lance Armstrong years ago.

That is an interesting point.

I would not surprise me if there are many of the older pros who simply cannot race without dope, perhaps because of recovery issues. Take someone like Vaughters, who always had recovery problems. When he was doped, he could ride at a very high level. He could climb as well as anybody. Without dope he would be hanging on for dear life after a few consecutive days of racing.

It is interesting that he got busted on the first stage. He probably injected himself right before entering France, maybe with a large dose, and it did not leave his system before the test took place. It could be a sign that doping during training is still being done full bore but riders stop some stuff right before a GT so they don't have to risk transporting the medical supplies through a country like France.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates