Armstrong drops fight against doping charges

[Benhur]

1. Is there or is there not an 8 year statue of limitation on doping? If there is, how can it be dismissed so easily?

2. Many of the riders that will inherit those Tours (or a place in the podium) have themselves been confirmed to be involved in doping.

Ullrich has acknowledged being a doper and was part of Operación Puerto. Zülle was in the Festina doping case. Beloki was in Operación Puerto. So was Basso. Klöden was accused of having received illegal blood transfussions at the Freiburg University Clinic. Dufaux, who would get a podium spot, was ejected from the Tour in 1998 with the Festina doping case, and later acknowledged having doped. Same thing with Moreau. Botero was in Operación Puerto. Hamilton also failed some drug tests. Armstrong’s 2 Dauphiné victories would go to Landis and Mayo, both official dopers. His Midi Libre would go to Igor González, also a doper. All of them are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ses_in_cycling

Is the USADA prepared to go after all these guys with the same zeal and strip them of those titles and podium spots as well? If so, would they then investigate the ones taking their place? How far?

What this effectively means is merely a transfer of titles and podium spots from one alleged doper to a bunch of confirmed dopers.

What a joke.

[sureshs]

Originally Posted by volleygirl

Agree with you. Argueing that "everyone else is cheating so its really not cheating" is the dumbest argument I have heard.

Probably because you are unaware of life's realities. You will do the same if the circumstances warrant it. Everytime someone drives 56 mph in a 55 mph zone, he is breaking the law and hence is a criminal.

[Bartelby]

1. You need to look at the judgement and you'll see they followed all applicable rules.

2. Its up to other associations to decide if places are reassigned.

[Bartelby]

This is what the statute of limitation actually says and its only about the commencement of an action against an individual:


ARTICLE 17: STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
No action may be commenced against an Athleteor other
Personfor an anti-doping rule violation contained in the Code
unless such action is commenced within eight ( years from
the date the violation is asserted to have occurred.

[TomT]

Originally Posted by volleygirl

Argueing that "everyone else is cheating so its really not cheating" is the dumbest argument I have heard.

It's just a semantic point. Cheating can be used to refer to rule breaking. But it's more commonly used to refer to behaviors which confer an unfair advantage to a competitor. Insofar as Armstrong's competition in the big events was other dopers, then the deciding factor becomes something other than the doping, per se.

Keep in mind that I've mentioned that I'm against the use of PEDs. I think it's a very sad state of affairs that men and women, in some sports, who want to compete cleanly and honestly find it almost impossible to do so.

Unfortunately, the amorality of big business and big money rules, and the desire to win (or just the need to make a decent living) often trumps the desire to do it fairly.

I have much more respect for the people who compete without the aid of PEDs than for the poeple who do.

[FastFreddy]

Originally Posted by jonnythan

All that doping and unable to produce a single failed blood teat from hundreds of samples.

If you remember the French showed up without warning to test him. Lance said this dude was no tester and left the sight of the tester for more than 30 mins which should have failed him right then and there. At no point is the person beging tested allowed to leave. Lance passed all 500 test you know why? I know why because someone tipped him off 20-30mins ahead of time so he could prepare and beat the test



It would be one thing if all they were up against was cutting-edge, chemistry lab wizardry, but dishwasher crystals and contact lens fluid?

Athletes will go to mind-bending lengths in search of a competitive edge – and to cover up the various misdeeds that provide it.

A decade ago, at a time when Lance Armstrong was terrorizing the rest of the Tour de France peloton, that sometimes meant riders craftily altering a urine sample with a dash of protease – an enzyme found in many household soaps and cleansers.


By dabbing powder on one’s fingers and then urinating on them during a drug test, traces of synthetic erythropoietin – or EPO, a hormone that bolsters endurance – melted away.

Other approaches weren’t quite as low-tech: urine replacement through a catheter, masking substances, blood and muscle-boosting drugs that were not yet commercially available.

In the international cops-and-robbers game that pits bodies such as the World Anti-Doping Agency against a sophisticated and surprisingly vast netherworld of unscrupulous chemists and exercise doctors, it is accepted that dope cheats are generally a step or two ahead.

But the testers are making steady progress – the protease dodge, for example, hasn’t worked for years.

Among the biggest recent advances: Testing for human growth hormone, one of the more prevalent performance-enhancing substances, is now more refined than ever.

And there is promising research on a test for gene doping, where it is theoretically possible to alter an athlete’s genetic code to increase red blood cell production or muscle mass.

The main weapon in the battle against performance-enhancing substances in cycling and athletics – where their use has been rampant for decades – is the biological passport.

The theory underpinning it is mostly statistical: Longitudinal analysis reveals more about an athlete’s body than intermittent testing, so blood chemistry is monitored over time.

Earlier this year, the International Association of Athletics Federations banned veteran Portuguese distance runner Helder Ornelas for doping with only his blood profile as evidence; you don’t need to test positive any more to get caught.

At the London 2012 Games, anti-doping authorities partnered with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to unleash a testing regime that WADA head John Fahey called the most stringent in Olympic history – it nabbed nine athletes, including gold-medal winning women’s shot-putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk.

But no test is foolproof.

An article published this month in the British Journal of Medicine acknowledged the existence of techniques that skirt the current testing procedures, some researchers have suggested there are as many as 100 undetectable EPO variants.

And the practice of micro-dosing – a series of small courses of testosterone, EPO, corticosteroids or growth hormones – is notoriously difficult to detect.

Minnesota-based physiologist Dan Zeman, who has written on how people evade positive results, said there’s an ever-evolving variety of chemicals to disguise banned substances.“You’re looking for the masking agent, not the drug,” he explained. “It’s really a cat and mouse game of what to look for in the blood and urine.”

Every time an agency such as WADA discovers and bans a technique – such as saline infusions to thin suspect blood, or a new substance such as AICAR, a slimming drug that dilates blood vessels, or SARM, which mimics testosterone – a substitute is quickly found. “There’s an awful lot of money for coming up with ways to get across the finish line first,” Mr. Zeman said.

Antoine Vayer, a former team official for Festina, a cycling team dissolved after a doping scandal in the late 1990s, speculated in the French newspaper Le Monde that Mr. Armstrong likely managed to avoid positive results through a mix of subterfuge and careful use of micro-dosing.

“He was just better at it than the others

[TennisLovaLova]

^^^^ 100% agreed: no test is fullproof
That's why the most important affairs, Festina and Vuelta cases, were police cases, with policemen going in hotels to find the drugs and bust the teams concerned.
All the agencies and pro federations are fed by sponsors to allow doping or at least tolerate it and defend the runners. But it's really the police who made the difference when it mattered. Wiretapes, undercovers stuff etc

[West Coast Ace]

Originally Posted by FastFreddy

If you remember the French showed up without warning to test him. ...

Great post. I remember when reading 'Game of Shadows' about Bonds and Balco how the chemists were moving on to their next concoction as soon as they finished the previous one.

[Bobby Jr]

Yeah, that French unannounced test is the kicker here for Armstrong. I recall that - didn't they try to block the door as well?

The thing about this case now is, as I said earlier, Armstrong played his best card because he had to - he's just conveniently dressed it up as him being over defending himself.

By pulling the plug he's able to keep many of his supporters intact by preventing the public airing of all those witness's stories... if he'd gone ahead we would have heard the detailed testimony of these people saying, amongst other things, that they were instructed by Armstrong personally to use certain drugs and that they saw him handling them. With such crystal clear stories on it he would not be able to maintain quite the veneer he does. His corporate supporters wouldn't abide that - even if many still held the view he was clean.

For that reason alone I think they should allow those people to tell their story still. Armstrong is banking on many people thinking it was a huge or somehow corrupt system as being out to get him - when in fact the character assassinations led by his inner circle over the past few years have been the astonishing twist to the saga.

[adventure]

There will always be people who ignore evidence. There's nothing you can do to convince them.

I remember arguing with my classmates in high school: wrestling was real to me, dammit!

Originally Posted by Bobby Jr

Yeah, that French unannounced test is the kicker here for Armstrong. I recall that - didn't they try to block the door as well?

The thing about this case now is, as I said earlier, Armstrong played his best card because he had to - he's just conveniently dressed it up as him being over defending himself.

By pulling the plug he's able to keep many of his supporters intact by preventing the public airing of all those witness's stories... if he'd gone ahead we would have heard the detailed testimony of these people saying, amongst other things, that they were instructed by Armstrong personally to use certain drugs and that they saw him handling them. With such crystal clear stories on it he would not be able to maintain quite the veneer he does. His corporate supporters wouldn't abide that - even if many still held the view he was clean.

For that reason alone I think they should allow those people to tell their story still. Armstrong is banking on many people thinking it was a huge or somehow corrupt system as being out to get him - when in fact the character assassinations led by his inner circle over the past few years have been the astonishing twist to the saga.

[Fearsome Forehand]

Originally Posted by Benhur

The way the law works is incomprehensible to me. First the federal prosecutors were unable to sustain any charges against him. So then they let an organization outside the justice system, and outside the governing body of international cycling, do the lynching pretty muych as they please – while fully acknowledging that many of the USADA methods would not pass muster in federal courts, and adding: “Among the Court’s concerns is the fact that USADA has targeted Armstrong for prosecution many years after his alleged doping violations occurred,” in the words of judge Sam Sparks.

There are many valid points in Armstrong’s statement:

Over the past three years, I have been subjected to a two-year federal criminal investigation followed by Travis Tygart’s unconstitutional witch hunt. The toll this has taken on my family, and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today – finished with this nonsense.

I had hoped that a federal court would stop USADA’s charade. Although the court was sympathetic to my concerns and recognized the many improprieties and deficiencies in USADA’s motives, its conduct, and its process, the court ultimately decided that it could not intervene.

If I thought for one moment that by participating in USADA’s process, I could confront these allegations in a fair setting and – once and for all – put these charges to rest, I would jump at the chance. But I refuse to participate in a process that is so one-sided and unfair. Regardless of what Travis Tygart says, there is zero physical evidence to support his outlandish and heinous claims. The only physical evidence here is the hundreds of controls I have passed with flying colors. I made myself available around the clock and around the world. In-competition. Out of competition. Blood. Urine. Whatever they asked for I provided. What is the point of all this testing if, in the end, USADA will not stand by it?

From the beginning, however, this investigation has not been about learning the truth or cleaning up cycling, but about punishing me at all costs. I am a retired cyclist, yet USADA has lodged charges over 17 years old despite its own 8-year limitation. As respected organizations such as UCI and USA Cycling have made clear, USADA lacks jurisdiction even to bring these charges. The international bodies governing cycling have ordered USADA to stop, have given notice that no one should participate in USADA’s improper proceedings, and have made it clear the pronouncements by USADA that it has banned people for life or stripped them of their accomplishments are made without authority. And as many others, including USADA’s own arbitrators, have found, there is nothing even remotely fair about its process.

USADA has broken the law, turned its back on its own rules, and stiff-armed those who have tried to persuade USADA to honor its obligations. At every turn, USADA has played the role of a bully, threatening everyone in its way and challenging the good faith of anyone who questions its motives or its methods, all at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. For the last two months, USADA has endlessly repeated the mantra that there should be a single set of rules, applicable to all, but they have arrogantly refused to practice what they preach. On top of all that, USADA has allegedly made deals with other riders that circumvent their own rules as long as they said I cheated. Many of those riders continue to race today.

The bottom line is I played by the rules that were put in place by the UCI, WADA and USADA when I raced. The idea that athletes can be convicted today without positive A and B samples, under the same rules and procedures that apply to athletes with positive tests, per verts the system and creates a process where any begrudged ex-teammate can open a USADA case out of spite or for personal gain or a cheating cyclist can cut a sweetheart deal for themselves. It’s an unfair approach, applied selectively, in opposition to all the rules. It’s just not right.

USADA cannot assert control of a professional international sport and attempt to strip my seven Tour de France titles. I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won those seven Tours, and everyone I competed against knows who won those seven Tours. We all raced together. For three weeks over the same roads, the same mountains, and against all the weather and elements that we had to confront. There were no shortcuts, there was no special treatment. The same courses, the same rules. The toughest event in the world where the strongest man wins. Nobody can ever change that. Especially not Travis Tygart.

Seems like the cycling equivalent of McCarthyism. Fail a drug test and name names to get a pass. No wonder Lance said F off. I don't blame him one bit.
It will be interesting to see if he is actually stripped of his titles since it seems the USADA is sort of a whacky, renegade organization without a lot of credibility or authority.

On its face, it also seems extremely unlikely to me that if LA was doing something against the rules, he would not do so secretly but rather tell every other pro cyclist exactly what to do in terms of beating drug testing. That just doesn't make any sense.

[adventure]

There is a code of silence among elite athletes: they cheat and they all agree not to rat each other out. Those who do face constant legal pressure from Team Lance, consisting of endless lawsuits for years on end.

Even former champ Greg Lemond faced these intimidation tactics. It's not that difficult to figure out that Lance pressured Trek to drop the Lemond line of bikes from the Trek distributor ship. Which is too bad, since the Lemond bicycle line was an exceptionally well thought out and innovative line of bicycles. Geometry and frame materials were first rate.

But Lance's clout led to the demise of Lemond's partnership with Trek. Lance also went after his masseuse and countless others.

The combination of legal pressure, the peloton's equivalent of 'omerta' (blood oath of silence, no pun intended), and Lance's quite obvious arrogance and sociopathic inability to feel any remorse for his wrongdoing, led to his completely open abuse of PED's for years on end.

[Bobby Jr]

Originally Posted by Benhur

*law stuff*

You need to back the tractor up for a minute. It may come as a surprise but most of the world don't give two hoots about the US legal system which is actually a minority even amongst developed nations in the way they handle many legal situations. It is basically a pointless line of thinking to apply your legal principles to the anti-doping system. They don't adhere to many concepts you think sound fair or would make sense if the alleged crime was theft or murder or corporate fraud.

The anti-doping system works by the onus on all competitors (in WADA covered sports - there are a few sports which don't go with them) to comply with the rules. They have agreed to be subject to the rules by virtue of entering any competition. Those rules, unlike most common legal concepts people relate to, can be changed by the powers-that-be as they wish. Continued participation in the sport is an automatic acceptance of the system, period.

The anti-doping system has always maintained sample storage for future testing - in a similar way the police often retain DNA from crime scenes in case one day someone involved raises the attention of the system. Similarly, there is no statute of limitations. The difference is in sports they don't have to ask for your permission or wait for you to slip up in order to get a sample of your blood - you must supply it when they want.

Armstrong has made it a decade-long sport of confusing the issue in the public domain - muddying the waters, obfuscating what has happened and framing issues in cleverly concise sound-bites which the layman can understand and sound plausible - despite them being irrelevant in the scheme of things.

The fact that there are actually millions of idiots who think it's somehow unfair that samples he submitted years ago can be retested shows how big the gap in understanding is. Armstrong's legend survives because of that gap - it's why he pulled the pin, to usurp the chance of having a lengthy procession of people stand up and state under oath that he told them to take PEDs or that they saw him take them.

He simply wouldn't survive so many pins in his balloon. He knows it and I am surprised the power-that-be haven't called his bluff and decided to continue with their testimony. After all what harm can it do to someone who is, as of now, technically already been assumed guilty?

[Sander001]

Originally Posted by Bobby Jr

Similarly, there is no statute of limitations.

You sure?

After all what harm can it do to someone who is, as of now, technically already been assumed guilty?

What does that even mean?

[Bobby Jr]

Originally Posted by Sander001

You sure?

No.

Originally Posted by Sander001

What does that even mean?

It means: Armstrong usurped the process by throwing the towel in. He says, and people think, it's because he couldn't be bothered fighting anymore but the much more likely reason is he doesn't want all the damaging testimony to make it into the public domain. I suggest they should let those people testify anyway. After all - if he's already banned and stripped of his titles, what more harm can it do to him? They can't exactly strip him of them twice.

[Sander001]

Originally Posted by Bobby Jr

After all - if he's already banned and stripped of his titles, what more harm can it do to him? They can't exactly strip him of them twice.

I don't think him being stripped is official. Not yet anyway.
And I think he even took part in a race this weekend.

[Govnor]

It's been coming forever. I know he doped, as they all did.

He has a lot to lose if he straight up admits it, so I can see why he has taken this route. He's looking out for himself and others by just stepping back and letting it play out. Smart play by him.

[Bartelby]

The UCI might take some legal action once they receive a written determination, but that would seem an odd move that would cause self-inflicted harm.

[Benhur]

Originally Posted by Bobby Jr

You need to back the tractor up for a minute. It may come as a surprise but most of the world don't give two hoots about the US legal system which is actually a minority even amongst developed nations in the way they handle many legal situations. It is basically a pointless line of thinking to apply your legal principles to the anti-doping system. They don't adhere to many concepts you think sound fair or would make sense if the alleged crime was theft or murder or corporate fraud.

That the US legal system is not universal is so true we can call it a truism.

But it’s not clear to me why you think you need to bring that up.

Because few would fail to notice that, while you correctly point out the lack of universality of the US legal system, what you are in fact defending as having universal scope is the findings and determinations of an organization, the USADA, which is even far more local, whimsical, idiosyncratic and even neurasthenic in its methods than the US legal system. In any case, people the world over are quite justified in supposing that the USADA cannot possibly have among its powers the ability to strip a cyclist from titles that were conferred to him by foreign organizations, like the title of Tour the France winner. And if many nations “don’t give two hoots,” as you put it, about the US legal system, then it’s not clear why foreign sports organizations like the Tour the France or the UCI, should give more than two hoots about the particular obsessions and vendettas of the USADA.

[Bartelby]

Its because the UCI ceded powers indirectly to USADA, which administers WADA's anti-doping code, that it can punish Armstrong thus.