Innocent
Allegations (which are strongly denied by Armstrong and many are the subject of court action)
· In the book “L.A. Confidential, the Secrets of Lance Armstrong", Armstrong's former masseuse, Emma O'Reilly, alleges that Armstrong asked her to dispose of bags with syringes after the 1998 Tour of Holland and that in May 1999, as Armstrong trained in the Pyrenees, O'Reilly said she was asked to drive to Spain to pick up drugs which she handed to Armstrong in a parking lot. Steven Swart, a former teammate (1994 & 1995) of Armstrong's also says in the book that there was doping going on in the Motorola team and he felt pressured to take illegal drugs such as EPO.
· Although Armstrong has filed suits in both the United Kingdom and France against the authors of "LA Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong" asking courts there to pay him damages for libel and to order that a statement from Armstrong denying the charges be included in the book. However, a French court ruled that, because the rider refused to respond to the authors' queries, he had no right to have his side presented in their book. Armstrong was then ordered to pay the journalists one euro in compensation.
· Armstrong was associated with doctor/trainer Michele Ferrari, who in 2004 was found guilty in an Italian court for unlawful distribution of medicines and sporting fraud. Michele Ferrari was long known in the cycling world as one of the best doping doctors. Armstrong has explained that his connection to Ferrari did not go beyond occasional consultations on altitude training and diet. "EPO is no more dangerous than orange juice," Ferrari once told French sports daily L'Equipe.
· In his book denouncing doping in cycling (Positif), Christophe Bassons points out that Armstrong's performances are impressively (perhaps unnaturally) high given that many of his body parameters are on the same magnitude as Bassons'.
· In his testimony before a Bologna court in February 2002, Filippo Simeoni described how Dr. Ferrari showed him how to use the banned red blood cell booster EPO more effectively. Then in the 2004 Tour De France Simeoni attacked Armstrong's lead. 3 hours down on Armstrong. "I chased down Simeoni to protect the interests of the peloton."- Armstrong said. On the face of it, it seems a bit disingenuous to suggest that attacking a rider who sat almost three hours down on overall time and didn't figure in any of the superlative jersey classifications was for the best. Once back in the field, Armstrong spoke and laughed with numerous riders and at one point made the sign of zipping lips.
· In August 2005, French sports daily L'Equipe printed copies of documents suggesting six urine samples he provided during his first Tour win in 1999 tested positive for the red blood cell-booster erythropoietin, or EPO. (The lab said it could not confirm that the positive results were Armstrong's.)
"In any case," said his perennial runner-up, the German Jan Ullrich, "Armstrong remains the greatest racer of all time."
- Lance Armstrong has always denied ever taking performance-enhancing drugs and has neither tested positive for banned substances nor faced any bans over doping. He may well be the most frequently examined athlete in sporting history (tested 30 times a year) and is in a sport where top riders including Marco Pantani (Tour de France winner) and French hero Richard Virenque have been caught and banned.
- Armstrong was tested at his home, out of competition and dozens of times during all his Tours. He has always been under exceptional scrutiny, including right before his final race in June.“Just a day before the start we had a knock on the door, and the minister of sport had sent a crew down there to collect two samples of urine and two samples of blood,” Armstrong said. “And we checked around and found out that nobody else in the peloton was tested that day.” Former teammate Victor Hugo Pena said, "Not only did the sports laboratories constantly test him, but video cameras were set up in his room and police agents constantly monitored Lance's movements and who was visiting him and even his phone conversations".
- Lance Armstrong concentrated exclusively each year on the Tour de France and trained to peak for the month of July. During his preparation for the 2004 Tour, he rode virtually every stage at least once. He selected and always had one of the strongest teams on the Tour. Planning was meticulous and he even developed a quantitative set of measures of his state of fitness and strength on the bike with a consultant physician.
- Armstrong is an exceptional athlete and has most of the physiological traits that a person must have to excel in an endurance sport. His heart is almost a third larger than that of an average man. When he is at rest, it beats about thirty-two times a minute and when he is exerting himself his heart rate can edge up above two hundred beats a minute. At the age of 16 he was invited to the Cooper Institute, in Dallas, and given a test called the VO2 Max, which is commonly used to assess an athlete's aerobic ability (measures the maximum amount of oxygen the lungs can consume during exercise.) His levels were the highest ever recorded at the clinic. He also produces unbelievably low levels of lactic acid.
- None of his accusers have ever produced direct evidence to substantiate drug rumours. David Walsh and Pierre Ballester, the authors of “L.A. Confidential, the Secrets of Lance Armstrong" a book alleging he used performance-enhancing drugs readily admitted that "There's no smoking gun. It's all circumstantial evidence." Year after year the French media has asserted unsuccessfully and despite official judicial inquiries into the sport generally and Armstrong in particular, he has always received a clean bill of health.
- Armstrong regularly takes legal action against his accusers. Armstrong has faced up to, and defeated, every reasonable drug allegation to date.
- His sponsorships include lucrative deals with Nike, Subaru and Coke, and a recent Sports Illustrated survey ranked his $16.5 million in endorsements fourth among active U.S. athletes, behind only Tiger Woods ($70 million), LeBron James ($35 million) and Andre Agassi ($24.5 million). Use of performance-enhancing drugs and the risk of a positive test would jeopardise these sponsorships and significant revenue.
- In 2004, Armstrong sent a letter to the Amaury Sport Organisation, the UCI, and the WADA to warn of a possible doping method being used by other pro cyclists. He also donated money years ago to the UCI to aid research to detect drug use in sports.
- Armstrong has unbelievable mental strength having been to the edge of death & right to the limit of suffering
Allegations (which are strongly denied by Armstrong and many are the subject of court action)
· In the book “L.A. Confidential, the Secrets of Lance Armstrong", Armstrong's former masseuse, Emma O'Reilly, alleges that Armstrong asked her to dispose of bags with syringes after the 1998 Tour of Holland and that in May 1999, as Armstrong trained in the Pyrenees, O'Reilly said she was asked to drive to Spain to pick up drugs which she handed to Armstrong in a parking lot. Steven Swart, a former teammate (1994 & 1995) of Armstrong's also says in the book that there was doping going on in the Motorola team and he felt pressured to take illegal drugs such as EPO.
· Although Armstrong has filed suits in both the United Kingdom and France against the authors of "LA Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong" asking courts there to pay him damages for libel and to order that a statement from Armstrong denying the charges be included in the book. However, a French court ruled that, because the rider refused to respond to the authors' queries, he had no right to have his side presented in their book. Armstrong was then ordered to pay the journalists one euro in compensation.
· Armstrong was associated with doctor/trainer Michele Ferrari, who in 2004 was found guilty in an Italian court for unlawful distribution of medicines and sporting fraud. Michele Ferrari was long known in the cycling world as one of the best doping doctors. Armstrong has explained that his connection to Ferrari did not go beyond occasional consultations on altitude training and diet. "EPO is no more dangerous than orange juice," Ferrari once told French sports daily L'Equipe.
· In his book denouncing doping in cycling (Positif), Christophe Bassons points out that Armstrong's performances are impressively (perhaps unnaturally) high given that many of his body parameters are on the same magnitude as Bassons'.
· In his testimony before a Bologna court in February 2002, Filippo Simeoni described how Dr. Ferrari showed him how to use the banned red blood cell booster EPO more effectively. Then in the 2004 Tour De France Simeoni attacked Armstrong's lead. 3 hours down on Armstrong. "I chased down Simeoni to protect the interests of the peloton."- Armstrong said. On the face of it, it seems a bit disingenuous to suggest that attacking a rider who sat almost three hours down on overall time and didn't figure in any of the superlative jersey classifications was for the best. Once back in the field, Armstrong spoke and laughed with numerous riders and at one point made the sign of zipping lips.
· In August 2005, French sports daily L'Equipe printed copies of documents suggesting six urine samples he provided during his first Tour win in 1999 tested positive for the red blood cell-booster erythropoietin, or EPO. (The lab said it could not confirm that the positive results were Armstrong's.)
"In any case," said his perennial runner-up, the German Jan Ullrich, "Armstrong remains the greatest racer of all time."
It will be good to have him dragged through the coals, not for the drug use but for his lies. Now his final statements that e made on the podium make my stomach turn.
