Is the net tightening around Armstrong, or is this purely a conspiracy to unseat a truly great athlete?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/18788834
In fairness, if you worked with Dr Ferrari for so long, questions are bound to be asked.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Sport
Conspiracy, or justice?
(19 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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Yeah, like why is Michele Ferrari still working??
Posted 12 years ago # -
Will this ban last this time or will he be let off scot-free once again to continue doping athletes? Why are they not being jailed?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Its wider than Armstrong and Dr EPO.
The UCI (in my opinion) were entirely complicit in all of this, knew about Armstrongs failed tests, and were deliberately blind to the fact that this one man, out of all the athletes on the podium in all 7 tour wins, was the only one not caught for doping at the time!!
His performance levels against equally fantastic (but doped)cyclists indicate (to me) that its inconceivable that he was not doping.
Why was / is it not obvious to them?
Money, and the requirement to increase the profile of the sport in the USA? Who knows.Lets not forget that people have died due to their blood being thicker than my porridge - its not just about Lance, despite what he thinks.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Oh it goes right to the top alright. Which is why these doctors are only now being grudgingly shuffled off to the Retirement Home For The Terminally Evil and will no doubt be back in an "advisory" role as soon as media interest dies down.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Erythropoietin, for those (like me) who have only ever heard of 'that EPO stuff that makes your blood too thick'.
I had always hoped that Armstrong was one of the good guys, blessed with being a genetic superman with a huge heart and lungs and with muscles that ate lactic acid for breakfast. And that in fact he might be no better, morally, than the next rider on whom I have been hitherto only too happy to pour scorn?
It's like the history of the 100 metres that's on TV at the moment: there was a turning point at which the sport stopped being about simply training better and better, and started being about athletes modifying themselves artifically. When does 'good food' become 'scientific food' and when does that become 'magic potions'? It doesn't negate the fact however that chemical assistance or not, it's still a spectacular demonstration of what a human body can ultimately achieve before it conks out.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Indeed. It'll be awful if Armstrong was doping, though I firmly suspect he was. But at the time so was everyone else, so he was still a better rider than the rest of them. Doesn't make it morally right, just that it doesn't stop it being a stunning achievement.
I remember when Miguel Indurain dominated there were stats about his lung capacity and heart rate that were truly frightening (his nickname, apart from Big Mig, was the Extra Terrestrial). He definnitely had a natural superhumaness, though I'd suspect there was also some artificial help then as well.
At least cycling is actively trying to clean itself up now - not many sports as open about the doping problem.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Yep, Lance was unquestionably brilliant.
To an extent, if he admitted doping we could all just move on and say 'yep, they were all at it, but he was still the best'.
What sticks in my craw is that he consistently denies all wrongdoing - i.e. please believe that I could beat all the dopers while being entirely clean.
However, dont take my view as gospel - I never liked him anyway !!
Posted 12 years ago # -
Dunno if he was the best rider or just the best at doping...?
That's the real tragedy of all this - the riders who didn't cheat (and, I suppose, even those who did dope "because everyone else was doing it") will never know how they could have done on a level playing field.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I think the UCI's dispensation allowing Lance to use EPO therapeutically continued when they saw how he was reviving the fortunes of the Tour. They could tell themselves it was medical, as could Lance - especially if he thought the UCI approved of that position. But it's still a stunning athletic achievement.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Is there such a thing as a level playing field in sport?
I can think of three cases: monozygotic twins, Dolly-style cloning, and teleporter accidents from Star Trek.
"Dope test us both, Spock!"
Posted 12 years ago # -
@uberuce You'd need two sets of competitions: one for identically-trained clones/monozygotic multiplicates racing on different machines for a constructors' competition without the confusing variable of differing rider abilities and another where all the different naturally-birthed competitors ride using the same kit, like the dinghy races in the Olympics.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The Tour has always had dope, it is very hard to recover after big climbs etc. Lance just pushed it beyond what people are willing to tolerate (Merckx and Indurain remain icons to me regardless of any doping slur).
Being the best doper means not being so obvious? So dope has its own tactics. But aside from dope tactics there are also tactics of the team. The best rider doesn't always win. THe Hinault Lemond story that Richard Moore has written in his latest book is testament. Froome Wiggins may be similar?. THe team instructed to work for No1
The best team has the best riders, the best tactics, the best doctors and nutritionists, the best facilities [eg Team GBs wind tunnel) the best training schedules, the best lawyers, the best lobbyists and payola people.
The guy still has to go out on the bike and do it.
That was Cadel Evans point last year on the third or fourth last stage? [thereabouts] He came off the bike after winning the stage and was followed into hotel by camera crew - quite wired from the climb and shouting "I did it by myself" over and over.
He had a team behind him but in the closing kilometres he was on his own
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Is there such a thing as a level playing field in sport?"
Ooh time for a tale from my childhood.
The village football pitch was on the side of a hill.
The local builder/haulage contractor offered to level it.
At the bottom end this created an embankment about 10 feet high.
I scrambled up and saw a flat field of new green grass.
I took a step onto the 'pitch' and my foot sank about 4".
Level but unplayable!!
It is now a housing estate.
Posted 12 years ago # -
...and Team Sky are getting criticism for adopting the same team plan because it's "boring". I wish T-Mobile/Deutche-Telecom had been as single minded. All those years when Ulrich could have been in contention wasted because half his team were there to lead out Zabel.
The best account I've read of the work the USPS team did is in "A Significant Other" by Matt Rendell/Victor Hugo Peña.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Level playing field" suggests that the field is level, so doesn't take into account the skills/abilities of the players.
Throw doping into the equation and everything's skewed - some athletes won't dope full stop; some athletes will dope on their own without help and may not be able to get the full potential benefit of the doping; other athletes will be part of an organised and scientific team-wide doping programme - of these, some of their bodies will react better to the doping, so will gain an additional advantage within the "doped athlete" population.
It puts in a load more variables than the simple genetic freakiness, monk-like dedication and application, high-end equipment and team tactics that we really want to see.
Posted 12 years ago # -
A few years ago I was one of the believers, watched in awe, bought the DVDs, and thought the man was a god.
I was aware of a doping problem, it wasn't possible not to be, but somehow I didn't recognize the scale of the problem. I thought after the Festina affair, and the rider 'strikes' that the authorities had got to grips with the problem and we were seeing isolated (albeit still frequent) cases. Looking back now I think (as eluded to above) it just became more organised, more scientific, and much harder to detect.
I still think there is a significant minority of riders who are prepared to dope, but I do detect a change since Contador was caught.
Think back a few days to the stage Froome won, there were 3 men chasing each other up a hill all on the point of collapse, pain etched into their faces. Those are expressions I haven't witnessed in over 20 years of watching the Tour, and I for one find it a refreshing change to the set expressionless faces of era's gone by...Posted 12 years ago # -
To the extent that the teams and sponsors are literally asking the impossible from riders the drug culture is institutionalised and the riders could be seen as victims. Drug taking was organised at a team level in Festina. It's possible that the need to dope would fall if fewer teams were asked to send more riders and stages were shortened.
Posted 12 years ago # -
If my understanding of the obsessive competitive nature of the sportsperson is at all accurate, the only thing that would eliminate doping from a sport would be to have one entrant per competition, and change the equipment, course, rules, gender and age categories etc between each one so that meaningful comparison was impossible.
Posted 12 years ago #
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