Lance armstrong drops fight against doping charges

Good post Seanah, but I'd have to say I'm more on the side of Titan's.

titan18 wrote: »

He could be clean, I wouldn't be surprised if he never tests positive, but I'll always doubt an improvement like his, considering the history of the sport showing that things like that tended to be too good to be true.

This. It's one helluva improvement.

There's also other things I'd point to like Sky saying they'd be a fully transparent team when they joined cycling and that they wouldn't hire anyone with a dodgy past. After a pretty bad first year, they hired Geert Leinders as a doctor, who has a pretty dodgy history even in cycling terms, and their results have been pretty good since then.

Indeed. Plus Wiggins went from a major anti drug proponent ranting against all such people as being beyond the pale. He was famous for it. Then he shares a tour with Armstrong and is all lovey dovey about the guy who has had a beady eye and major suspicion on him since the late 90's. Either Lance is more charming than God himself or... Wiggins certainly seemed to change his tune.

There's also the leaked 2010 suspicion list by the UCI that had rated the riders bio-passports on a scale of 1-10 with anything over 6 being that there was evidence of odd blood values etc, and Sky had several riders over that - Rogers,Knees and Siutsiu(Wiggins himself was a 5, same as Contador, higher than Lance)

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ucis-suspicious-list-leaked-from-2010-tour-de-france

That's not a good sign. Neither is the latest from his camp where he "has been advised by his doctors" not to release his current blood passport results as they could be open to "misinterpretation". It just seems the Wiggins of 07 would have put them up on billboards for all to see.

Colmustard wrote: »

It appears the cycling government bodies has questions to answer,

Oh they most certainly do if the allegations of blind eyes being turned, heads up information when testing was about to be carried out and even bribes changing hands to quash positive tests. The sport seems to be in a serious internal crisis, from the governing body, down through sponsors(whose money and need for results drives much of this), through team leaders and doctors and finally the riders themselves. T'is mad Ted.

86% :eek:

Thats mad! :eek:

It is indeed B man. Mad indeed. Pre 67 they were at it too. Jacques anquetil an utter monster on a bike was very open about it. As was Coppi another champion the generation before him. People used to actually line the roads of Italy to watch Coppi train, never mind race.

The diff really came with the advent of stuff like EPO and blood boosting(which wasn't illegal at first IIRC). Previously the cyclists took uppers to stay upright on the bike because of the hideous demands on the body(which killed the aforementioned British pro when his heart blew up on a climb). Very very few sports come close to a pro racing season in sheer bodily hell. They gave the advantage of well keeping the guy awake and in the saddle, but didn't boost performance per se. They didn't change the actual physiology of the rider. EPO etc do. Look at the speeds the Tours started to hit. There were daft excuses like training and the bikes. Yes training will make a big diff, but not that big and as for the bikes? Some of the top pro steel bikes back in the 80's and 90's were only a couple of pounds heavier than the legal limit for the lightest carbon yokes and in any case that lightness really only comes into play on climbs and even there it's in terms of seconds not half an hour.

The drugs can make huge diffs in power output when mixed with steriods and human growth hormone. I read an interesting article(dunno if it's online) by a guy in the US, a club rider, who did the odd race, a weekend warrior in his late 30's. The kinda chap you see of a certain age swanning around in lycra on 8 grands worth of testicle destroying carbon fibre NASA reject every weekend. Fair play too, better than growing a gut in the pub like far too many...

Annnnyhooo this bloke got a doc legally(in his state I presume) to micro dose him with EPO, HGH and a couple of other tweaks. He drew the line at drawing his own blood and storing it for later mind you. The upshot was that he noticed he had more in the legs. He didn't get nearly as tired. His training could go on for longer and he wouldn't feel like the living dead the next day. His performance got better and he started going off with the real heavy duty guys training for races. He could hang onto younger non tweaked guys who previously may as well have been on motorbikes. He saw definite and measurable gains and he wasn't dosing that high or as precisely as the real deals do.

He also noted he had a constant headache from the EPO. IIRC the testosterone made him a bit bleh and bloated. He also noted how quickly his wallet was emptying, this stuff aint cheap. Even so he reckoned if money was no object the HGH was great stuff for older guys. Skin and hair looked better, he just felt "younger" and he was a fit man to start with.

So the usual idea you hear is let them all do it. Two probs with that. 1) some of this shít is dangerous, even deadly and given the choice between winning and second place people will push and push and push and people will ad have died. 2) and a biggie, this stuff works well with some and not so great with others. They improve, but don't see the sometimes huge gains of other guys on the same gear and there's no real way to tell how someone will react. So you could juice a guy already who's say 20th in the peloton and he might gain enough to hit 15th, whereas a guy who's languishing in the low 30's could end up number 10. No supposed level playing field.

TBH I could see myself taking HGH if it was cheap and easy to get. At least to keep the levels of youth going for longer. Hormone replacement therapy. It can make a big diff for the ladies so that and testosterone for the chaps might not be a bridge too far. On the test front, I found out in my 20's that I had higher than normal levels of same. It defo didn't build muscle or strength in my case. In fact my doc who told me of the results prefaced the disclosure with a hearty laugh and "you'll never effin believe this". The prick Naw he's a good bloke, but I could see the reasons for a snigger. That said I've noticeably fewer wrinkles than my peers and middle aged spread never hit, so it might be doing something. Outside of athletes being the equivalent of alco drunks on this stuff, I'd be interested to see what their extreme experiences and results may have on the rest of us who might benefit from the equivalent glass of vino a day. Something good for all of us might come out of it if full disclosure happened.