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Son of a bitch, does that mean I have to give up my LiveStrong bracelet?

Not necessarily. This whole USADA thing is really strange. If they have proof of positive tests, they should be required to present their evidence.

Done deal.

The French are just butt hurt that an American beat them on their own turf.

Cheater.

It was a US Agency going after him.

Sounds like he realized he was caught and is forfeiting the battle. Thought I read somewhere that they had 10 riders willing to testify against him. Not sure if they were teammates.

Really weird. Bloomberg had and article saying he will be stripped of all titles tomorrow and I went to post it and it was gone replaced by this.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...ping-case.html

Just one of your baows.

I used to believe in Lance Armstrong like almost everyone else, thinking the Euros were just jealous and after him or whatever.

However, when you really read the evidence they have against him, its pretty damning. These are the US doping authorities which have laid down the hammer, not some foreign tribunal, so from that you have to pause and wonder if there's something to it, and there is. They don't have a positive test, because what he was taking wasn't detectable at the time. The one time they did catch him, the B sample was corrupted and he got off on a technicality. Tests aside, there are a lot of other reasons to believe that he, obviously, without a doubt, cheated.

He knows he's caught, but he thinks he can go out on a high note with his reputation mostly intact in this country by repeating how he never failed a drug test, but he's done fighting, etc, and most people will probably continue to believe in him.

You almost dont even need the testimony.

The basic case against Armstrong, without witnesses, and without a positive drug test, is this:

The tour des france is an incredibly long race. Several days. Despite the race lasting several days of racing time, the winner always wins by minutes.

During Armstrong's time, we know that EVERY SINGLE ONE of his top rivals cheated. They were all caught, red-handed, no doubt about it, proven, everyone Armstrong raced against was a cheater. When cycling was cleaned up and enforcement was massively increased and cyclists had to race clean, race times ballooned to a huge extent, by several hours.

It is simply not reasonable to believe that Armstrong could have won those races, clean, against a field full of cheaters. You can say maybe he had to do what he had to do because everyone else was breaking the rules, but he's a liar.

Its going to be difficult to go down the list those 7 years and figure out which 7 guys did the best without cheating. They should probably just vacate them and award them to no one.

Here's one semi-nerdy link that gets into it a bit.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012...iscussion.html

People are climbing Alpe d'Huez a few full minutes minutes slower than during the 90's and early 2000's. A few minutes is an eternity in cycling, and that is just one climb.

Its now thought that the times that were turned in climbing that mountain during Armstrong's time are just not physiologically possible for a human being, even a top world-class athlete, without doping.

That's all well and good. But I don't cycle competitively for one reason and one reason alone:


1. Saddles.

Yeah, probably not your first guess huh? Have you ever sat on one of these things doing 35 MPH in France?

Sure the dude had a distinct advantage but that has been disclosed for a long time. Sheryl Crow told me in 1997. Seriously, Lance Armstrong is the king of the TdF because he has but one schwetty ball. Imagine if you will just how deeply you could thrust your wife if you dropped from a 54" waist to a 34", for instance. This is precisely the same benefit provided to Armstrong by virtue of his brave Halfstration.

Judge less, neuter more.