Lance Armstrong cleared of doping charges (and now drops the fight)

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by vailpass

No positive test results? Sounds like all they have is a bunch of sour grapes from those who couldn't be Lance so they want to teal Lance down.
Why do they continue to pursue this? What can you do to him now? Strip his victories? No you can't, he already won. BFD. Move on, spend all that $ where it will do some good.

First of all, yes, they did have positive results. Its kind of hard to be caught when the UCI is completely, utterly in the tank to protecting you. A big chunk of the report was actually dedicated to strong criticism of the UCI.

Second, the new names we learned today that we didn't know about before are not random cycling nobody's that can be hand-waved away. George Hincapie was probably Armstrong's best friend in cycling and the only rider who ever raced on his team for all 7 titles. He's never spoken before and Armstrong has never spoken of him in anything but glowing terms. Also like Armstrong, Hincapie was never caught, he successfully cheated his entire career and - "officially" - passed every test. Yet now he's willing to admit everything.

Thats kind of a big deal in today's report, Lance cant just say THIS guy is also lying and expect us to believe it.

edit: not sure if its behind a paywall, but this is a pretty good article on Hincapie.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by alnorth

First of all, yes, they did have positive results. Its kind of hard to be caught when the UCI is completely, utterly in the tank to protecting you. A big chunk of the report was actually dedicated to strong criticism of the UCI.

Second, the new names we learned today that we didn't know about before are not random cycling nobody's that can be hand-waved away. George Hincapie was probably Armstrong's best friend in cycling and the only rider who ever raced on his team for all 7 titles. He's never spoken before and Armstrong has never spoken of him in anything but glowing terms. Also like Armstrong, Hincapie was never caught, he successfully cheated his entire career and passed every test. Yet now he's willing to admit everything.

Thats kind of a big deal in today's report, Lance cant just say THIS guy is also lying and expect us to believe it.

My mistake. Where were the positive results published and why wasn't he suspended or penalized at the time the positive results came in?

Other than a verifiable positive test result there is only hearsay, no matter who is doing the saying.

[WoodDraw]

Originally Posted by vailpass

My mistake. Where were the positive results published and why wasn't he suspended or penalized at the time the positive results came in?

Other than a verifiable positive test result there is only hearsay, no matter who is doing the saying.

There are blood samples from 2009 and 2010. He decided not to fight them. It's like charging "no contest" to a crime. "I'm going to say I didn't do it, but you have overwhelming proof, so **** it - here's my public relations team."

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by vailpass

My mistake. Where were the positive results published and why wasn't he suspended or penalized at the time the positive results came in?

Other than a verifiable positive test result there is only hearsay, no matter who is doing the saying.

The french test (alluded to in the OP) absolutely nailed Armstrong beyond any doubt whatsoever. He got off that on a technicality. A couple of the other tests are mentioned in the report.

Aside from that, you almost don't need the testimony to know Armstrong cheated unless you are emotionally invested into Armstrong hero-worship. The most damning evidence is the Alpe d'Huez. During the Armstrong cheater era, the best cyclists turned in times climbing that mountain that are now thought of to be physically impossible for a human. As soon as testing improved and taking EPO became harder and the sport was mostly cleaned up, race times up that mountain ballooned enormously. Aside from that, we KNOW that all his major competitors cheated. We know this. it is simply not reasonable, at all, to believe that Armstrong could have beaten an entire competition full of cheaters, clean.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Other than a verifiable positive test result there is only hearsay, no matter who is doing the saying.

Oh, also I don't think you know what hearsay means. This is not hearsay, it is testimony from literally dozens of direct eyewitnesses. Hearsay is when you heard someone describe what someone else did. If you didn't see it, we generally don't accept it. This is like having over 24 people say they saw you shoot someone, and you coming back with "they are all lying!"

People are executed in this country from eyewitness testimony, much less have race results invalidated.

[WoodDraw]

Originally Posted by alnorth

Oh, also I don't think you know what hearsay means. This is not hearsay, it is testimony from literally dozens of direct eyewitnesses. Hearsay is when you heard someone describe what someone else did. If you didn't see it, we generally don't accept it. This is like having over 24 people say they saw you shoot someone, and you coming back with "they are all lying!"

People are executed in this country from eyewitness testimony, much less have race results invalidated.

I was getting ready to post this too. Well said.