Is it true Lance Armstrong was cheating?



Originally Posted by VeloFlash .

"House of Cards" could be an accurate description of Livestrong.

It is in danger from collapsing from outside pressure or from within.

Outside pressure could come from the IRS who regulates and investigates US charities with tax exemption status and can withdraw a foundation's tax exempt status (donors would not be able to claim a tax deduction on their contributions) if non compliance is found. The IRS will act on any complaint drawn to their attention and it is understood that Livestrong is currently being investigated.

These are the known issues without accessing Livestrong's non public books and records:

  1. Demand Media purchased the sub licensing rights to "Livestrong" and Livestrong.com The sale price was split 50% each to the Foundation (Livestrong.org) and Lance Armstrong (& his company). An unprecedented arrangement. Armstrong would have made a $34m profit on the transaction if he had sold his shares on listing. However, the SEC stepped in and drastically reduced his potential benefit to about 25% by rejecting the initial IPO.
  2. The travelling expenses of Livestrong are circa $2m per annum which is 20 times higher than the largest cancer organization in the US which receives a multiple of the donations paid to Livestrong.
  3. Salaries paid to executives are substantially higher than industry norm.
  4. There are issues relating to professional costs which have substantially risen over recent years.
  5. According to the Form 990 filed as linked on the web site the Foundation has issued for the first time an explanatory note. The note claims Mr. Armstrong made the largest single donation of $6m in the Foundation's history. The note implies the donation was made in 2010 and without that amount the Foundation would have returned abysmal industry comparative results.
  6. According to the Form 990 the Foundation has published the 2010 financial statements on its website. Those 2010 statements have not been published on the website.
  7. According to the Form 990 it is claimed the financial accounts are audited by a firm of accountants and another firm of accountants prepares the Form 990. This is not so. The same Austin Tx firm both audits the accounts and prepares the Form 990.
  8. During the course of the SCA Tribunal Hearing in 2005 an amount of $1.5m was paid to Indiana University Hospital as a donation by Livestrong. This amount was donated within days of affidavits being filed by the Andreus swearing to a conversation in Armstrong's hospital room in 1996 about drugs. As an alleged result of this donation the hospital could not identify the doctors present. Armstrong claimed under oath he had made the donation. The Hospital's media release was the donation came from Livestrong. The transaction raises serious questions about governance of the Foundation in the procedures of approving and granting financial support.
  9. Relating to the above, an affidavit was produced for the 2005 SCA Tribunal Hearing by a doctor wo was not present in the hospital room who swore he was not aware of LA admitting to taking PEDs. That doctor in 2005 was on the Lance Armstrong Foundation Board and in 2006 his hospital received a $500,000 donation from Livestrong. There was no statement made in the 2006 financial reports of this donation and that there existed a conflict of interest. Further governance issues as proper governance is critical to the IRS.

Livestrong would implode from within if Armstrong is convicted. It is a personality cult all built around him.
Actually, you can be learned a lot from an internet forum. Who knew???
 
Originally Posted by 531Aussie .

Yeah, what a 'porker' he was back then. Where is 9kg coming off this guy?

armstrong_arp1625971_600.jpg
Agree'd, there is no way in hell he lost 9KG's. He was simply one of the new breed of 72KG climbers.

Like his weight, his height has also changed over the years (can drugs do this?) - 5"7, 5"8, 5"9 or is that 5"10? He looks short, i'm guessing closer to 5"7.
 
i have been watching the documentary The Lance Chronicles Wrap-Up Show (1 to 10) in youtube, by the end of the episodes Brunyeel and Armstrong let the cameras inside of the hotel room making jokes about the secrecy and the supposed hidden drugs, this was 2004 so the guys were not only getting away with it but also having a kick about the fact that they have cheated so badly, it is also very sad to see Landis and Armstrong being best friends at the time,
 
Originally Posted by Cycler6n .

/img/vbsmilies/smilies/confused.gif I heard a rumer of it. I hope he wasn't,


Guilty.




[COLOR= rgb(169, 169, 169)]_______________________________________
"I've had many problems in my life, most of which were imagined." - Mark Twain
Chuck Dee - AKA Chris[/COLOR]
 
Armstrong doped both BEFORE and AFTER his testicular Cancer. He is a typical addict, unable to stop his drug habit, even when it nearly killed him.

In addition to Armstrong being a drug cheat---so were his many teammates:

Frankie Andreu
Stephen Swartz
Tyler Hamilton
Benoit Joachim
Roberto Heras
Manuel Beltran
Pavel Padrnos
Floyd Landis (a medicated Mennonite)

Live Wrong! That's the Nike motto too!
Doping has been going on in cycling almost from the start. Armstrong might be the poster child for cheating in cycling, but he's FAR from the only name rider who did. Eddie Mercxx was caught using banned substances on a number of occasions. Riders have been caught cheating right up to this year, and I would guess it is more prevalent than people think.
 
If he was cheating and doping before this testicular cancer, did the drugs contribute or cause the cancer? Did he continually use prohibited substances while undergoing chemotherapy? I was a fan of his, I suppose I still am, and I didn't want to believe he had been cheating and using prohibited substances for a very long time. I'm glad he was eventually honest about it.
 
According to the rules, yes. However, if a majority of people were also doping, I would not consider him a cheat. If you ask me, Greg LeMond is the true beast, he was first in the Tour De' France General Classification 3 times without doping.
 
According to the rules, yes. However, if a majority of people were also doping, I would not consider him a cheat. If you ask me, Greg LeMond is the true beast, he was first in the Tour De' France General Classification 3 times without doping.
It’s not the use as such that made LA stand out. There undoubtedly were - and are - other people using banned substances.
But he is the one as far caught that has done the most damage to others while denying the accusations.
He is the one as far caught that has had the most questionable dealings with the governing bodies.
He is the one as far caught that has had the most comprehensive program both WRT the substances as such, but also about covering them up.
 
Microsoft's AI plans include self-driving vehicles


Microsoft has extended its "AirSim" artificial intelligence (AI) research project to include car simulation which will help advance the research and development of self-driving vehicles.

Earlier this year, Microsoft open-sourced "AirSim", a high-fidelity system, for testing the safety of artificial intelligence systems.

AirSim provides realistic environments, vehicle dynamics and sensing for research into how autonomous vehicles that use AI that can operate safely in the open world.

"The updated version of AirSim also includes additional tools for testing airborne vehicles. We have made it easier for people to simulate flying drones by adding a built-in flight controller, called simple_flight, that simplifies the setup process," Shital Shah, Principal Research Software Engineer at Microsoft, posted.

"This allows rapid experimentation with control and state estimation algorithms without requiring expensive debugging and development in the embedded world," she added.

According to Ashish Kapoor, Principal Researcher at Microsoft, the latest AirSim version is available now on GitHub as an open-source, cross-platform offering.

"The new version of AirSim includes car simulations, new environments, APIs to ease programming and ready-to-run scripts to jump start your research," Kapoor posted.

AirSim comes with a detailed 3D urban environment that includes a variety of diverse conditions, including traffic lights, parks, lakes and construction sites.

Users can test their systems in several types of neighbourhoods, including downtown, semi-urban, vegetation and industrial environments.

The simulation contains more than 12 kms of drivable roads spanning more than 20 city blocks.

AirSim has been developed as a plugin for "Unreal Engine", a popular tool for game development.

It means that the car simulation is decoupled from the environment it runs in.


"You can create an environment for your specific needs, such as a city or rural road, or choose from a variety of environments available online, and then simply drop in the AirSim plugin to test your self-driving algorithms in that environment," Shah informed.

AirSim extensibility also allows researchers and developers to incorporate new sensors, vehicles or even use different physics engines.

In future releases, Microsoft aims to add new sensors, better vehicle physics, weather modeling and even more detailed realistic environments.

For Any Info Related To Acer Laptops, Visit Acer Customer Support Number


 
It’s not the use as such that made LA stand out. There undoubtedly were - and are - other people using banned substances.
But he is the one as far caught that has done the most damage to others while denying the accusations.
He is the one as far caught that has had the most questionable dealings with the governing bodies.
He is the one as far caught that has had the most comprehensive program both WRT the substances as such, but also about covering them up.

I wasn't sticking up for Armstrong. In fact, I tried to give props to Greg LeMond.
 
:confused: I heard a rumer of it. I hope he wasn't,

Until something like 1989 it wasn't even illegal to dope. When they passed the rules against doping Jacques Anquetil quit saying that you could not expect a man to go through that sort of torture without help of some sort.

Did Armstrong dope? Certainly. And so did most of the rest of the team leaders with a wink and a nod.

Contrary to the idiots here that think that EPO or blood infusions are additive or could cause Lance's cancer - get real.

Lance also used Testosterone shots. But not only does this not cause cancer it is believed to prevent it.

Personally I am against performance enhancing drug use. The entire idea of any sort of athletic activity is to push the limits of human performance. If you use drugs you simply aren't doing that.

With the "passport" they now use it is unlikely that drug users will not get caught. I am told that almost the entire Columbian contingent at the race in Columbia were disqualified and given 2 year suspensions.