'Enough is Enough' - Lance Armstrong

Hermy wrote: »

None of them won the Tour de France. They took banned PED's and in doing so disqualified themselves from the race. Discussion over in my humble...

Ulrich is still the official winner of the 97 Tour! Personally, I think all these Tours should be removed from the records. That or else leave Lance as the winner of his 7!

Beasty

letape wrote: »

Ulrich is still the official winner of the 97 Tour! Personally, I think all these Tours should be removed from the records. That or else leave Lance as the winner of his 7!

I think you end up in Statute of Limitation issues - Armstrong was stripped because he did not contest that he was "charged" after expiry of the relevant limit for bringing proceedings

Proceedings would need to be brought against the others and they too would have to waive their right to appeal on this basis to be stripped of their "titles"

Hermy

petethedrummer wrote: »

I think they should put names in a hat and pick out the winner.

Yeah, names like Moncoutie and Bassons.

Beasty wrote: »

I think you end up in Statute of Limitation issues - Armstrong was stripped because he did not contest that he was "charged" after expiry of the relevant limit for bringing proceedings

Proceedings would need to be brought against the others and they too would have to waive their right to appeal on this basis to be stripped of their "titles"

I don't quite fully understand how the statute of limitations did not apply in the Armstrong case, although I know he and his team argued that it should. Whether he choose to defend himself and appeal the findings shouldn't be the point, as the results would ordinarinly be statute barred in the first place and therefore protected from investigation.

I just think we have a ridiculous situation now. Jalabert won the green and mountains jerseys twice each and won the Vuelta, Virenque podiumed on the Tour twice and won the mountains jersey for a record seven times, Zabel won the green jersey for a record six times, not to mention Ulrich, Riis and Pantani...

In the meantime Armstrong who came after all of the above lost all his professional results post cancer.

Capt'n Midnight

does anyone have an updated one ?

Glass Prison 1214

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

does anyone have an updated one ?

Christian Vande Velde has two top tens in 08 and 09, and was part of the US Postal Team, he can be added.

Edit: Bobby Julich also admitted to doping in the 98 tour where he came 3rd. Michael Boogerd, came 5th in 98 and 10th in 01 admitted to using Epo.

dedocdude

WTF? 70 people clicked 'No' to this? It was only this time last year!

letape wrote: »

I don't quite fully understand how the statute of limitations did not apply in the Armstrong case, although I know he and his team argued that it should.

They ended up not arguing that, and the reason it wasn't covered is that the investigation started before the statute was up on his last win, and there is provision in the rules to waive it if there's evidence of large scale coverups.

Also don't forget that the 98 retests are not WADA binding -they are retrospective analysis on 'B' samples that have not been stored and treated in the correct manner, so cannot be used to give bans or strip titles. The only way that could happen is if someone admitted to using PEDs within the status of limitations, and as Zabel etc say it was over 7 years ago, they can't be stripped of their titles -well, they possibly *could*, but not without a whole heap of legal wrangling as you can bet they'd get their lawyers to argue the 7 year rule. Lance didn't do this, and accepted the judgement so he's stripped, the others aren't!

redzerredzer

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Lance didn't do this, and accepted the judgement so he's stripped, the others aren't!

Yet he's the biggest villain.

ok, that is for his other actions too, but it seems ludicrous that when absolutely everyone cheats that one is singled out more than the others.

Also I see Richard Virenque in that picture. Has he been proven to have doped? I know about the accusations but was there an official ruling regarding him?

AstraMonti

redzerredzer wrote: »

ok, that is for his other actions too, but it seems ludicrous that when absolutely everyone cheats that one is singled out more than the others.

I despise Armstrong as much as everyone else but I agree on that, UCI needs to be consistent in punishment.

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Also don't forget that the 98 retests are not WADA binding -they are retrospective analysis on 'B' samples that have not been stored and treated in the correct manner, so cannot be used to give bans or strip titles. The only way that could happen is if someone admitted to using PEDs within the status of limitations, and as Zabel etc say it was over 7 years ago, they can't be stripped of their titles -well, they possibly *could*, but not without a whole heap of legal wrangling as you can bet they'd get their lawyers to argue the 7 year rule. Lance didn't do this, and accepted the judgement so he's stripped, the others aren't!

Cheers Tiny. As you say - Zabel has admitted to the use of PEDs as Ulrich and Riis have admitted to cheating when they won. Then we have Olano, Virenque, Pantani, JaJa - I'm not defending Armstrong and absolutely he brought cheating to a whole new level and treated people dispecibly... but when he came into the sport the problem was already there. Ferrari was already working with the Italian teams abd there some very obvious "unbelievable" perfornances by Gewiss and Mapei. I have a problem with some of the records standing and others being struck out.

Personally, I watched all those Tours from the early 90s onwards and clearly me and others didn't know what we were watching; those results standing is a joke.

redzerredzer wrote: »

Yet he's the biggest villain.

ok, that is for his other actions too, but it seems ludicrous that when absolutely everyone cheats that one is singled out more than the others.

Nobody is saying it's ok at all -Lance is possibly seen as the biggest villain because he made such a show about being 'the most tested man on the planet' and aggressively sued people who dared write or say things to the contrary, so I think a lot of the backlash is simply seeing a bully taken down a notch or two.

The only way he's been singled out is in a USADA investigation, and that was into the practises that went into US Postal etc -don't forget they precipitated the end of Hincapie, Zabriske etc etc (some of whom took smaller bans for confessions), so it was an investigation into USPS fraud, headed by Lance, not necessarily a witch hunt on Lance himself (though there are a lot of people who will disagree with that).

letape wrote: »

I have a problem with some of the records standing and others being struck out.

The UCI can only strike out records from people who have been found to be cheating within the statute of limitations (though it can be backdated in certain circumstances, usually when the investigation starts within and shows abuses going from that point backward), and also within the rules of the sport. The reasoned decision by USADA provided the correct level of proof required to ban an athlete, a single 'B' sample who's storage is unclear is not enough to impose any kind of ban (even if the riders were still competing).

So it's not really comparing like with like (certainly not legally) to look at the Armstrong case and the others, like Zabel -Armstrong could have dragged the reasoned decision out for years in courts, as most of the testimony was circumstantial, and it would have eaten up millions of dollars -the UCI decided it was worth the risk and sanctioned him, and Armstrong gave up the ghost and accepted it -if they tried to do the same with the dodgy legal standing of the '98 samples, you can bet there'd be a few riders who'd potentially sue, and that could be very costly.

As it is, the names are published, and we can make up our own mind who the 'winner' is of the various tours -it's not like scrubbing peoples names out is going to change anything for the riders -they're not going to retrospectively give a fat cheque to the 12th placed rider on the xx tour cos he happened to be clean, so it makes no difference!

TinyExplosions wrote: »

if they tried to do the same with the dodgy legal standing of the '98 samples, you can bet there'd be a few riders who'd potentially sue, and that could be very costly

I fully understand that the 98 and 99 retrospective testing wouldn't be sufficient from a legal perspective to change those results, although it is nice to get some clearer insight into what was going on.

But where riders have admitted to cheating to obtain results, I feel those results should be amended, like Armstrongs Olympic results.

petethedrummer

AstraMonti wrote: »

I despise Armstrong as much as everyone else but I agree on that, UCI needs to be consistent in punishment.

This notion that everyone (which now it seems includes the UCI) is against Armstrong is false. The UCI backed him all the way until they had to throw him under the bus. There was no witch hunt by the UCI. They didn't want to punish Armstrong. They didn't even want to investigate him. He was their cash cow. They were forced by negative PR to accept the USADA decision and to strike him from the results.

They simply aren't going to bother striking the others from the record. Unless the negative PR of not doing so outweighs the negative PR of doing it. Politics and PR will make the decision. The morality of who deserves the victories does not enter the equation. As we found out from the Myles Dungan interview, morals aren't high on the agenda.

Also had Armstrong complied with the USADA investigation they may not have been so forceful in recommending all his results be declared void.

Armstrong played a high stakes game and lost this battle. boo hoo.

TinyExplosions wrote: »

as most of the testimony was circumstantial,

No it wasn't. Most of the evidence was eyewitness reports of either Lance taking drugs or telling people he was taking drugs. I've posted on this before as it (along with the trotting out of "hearsay") is a bugbear of mine.

Circumstantial is just a word to describe a diffferent type of evidence, it does not diminish the quality of that evidence. Circumstantial merely means that a connection needs to be inferred between the evidence and the act. It's right up there with people describing eye-witness testimony as hearsay.

Here's the difference;
Tyler Hamilton told me he saw Lance inject EPO and I testify about it - hearsay
Tyler Hamilton testifies he saw Lance inject EPO - direct evidence
EPO vials are found in a pro cyclist's fridge - circumstantial evidence

Which one of these would you rather rely on? In the latter, the inference must be made that the EPO is for doping, but the point here is that the word circumstantial is thrown around in an attempt to devalue evidence.

mcgratheoin wrote: »

No it wasn't. Most of the evidence was eyewitness reports of either Lance taking drugs or telling people he was taking drugs. I've posted on this before as it (along with the trotting out of "hearsay") is a bugbear of mine.

Circumstantial is just a word to describe a diffferent type of evidence, it does not diminish the quality of that evidence. Circumstantial merely means that a connection needs to be inferred between the evidence and the act. It's right up there with people describing eye-witness testimony as hearsay.

Here's the difference;
Tyler Hamilton told me he saw Lance inject EPO and I testify about it - hearsay
Tyler Hamilton testifies he saw Lance inject EPO - direct evidence
EPO vials are found in a pro cyclist's fridge - circumstantial evidence

Which one of these would you rather rely on? In the latter, the inference must be made that the EPO is for doping, but the point here is that the word circumstantial is thrown around in an attempt to devalue evidence.

I don't remember anyone testifying that they saw him inject EPO?

petethedrummer

letape wrote: »

I don't remember anyone testifying that they saw him inject EPO?

Fairly sure mcgratheoin was only creating some examples to explain the difference in evidence types not stating the exact goings on.

Will the bloodbags on the Bus incident do?

The bus had long benches on each side, and a couple of riders lay down on each one, Mr. Landis said. The doctors hooked them up, taping their blood bags to the sides of the bus, he said. Mr. Armstrong took his transfusion lying on the bus floor, he said. Mr. Landis said the process took about an hour.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704911704575326753200584006.html

petethedrummer

Here it is:

Asked what he actually witnessed, Hamilton told Pelley, "I saw it in his refrigerator, you know. I saw him inject it more than one time."

"You saw Lance Armstrong inject EPO?" Pelley asked.

"Yeah, like we all did, like I did many, many times," Hamilton said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-20064858/ex-teammate-i-saw-lance-armstrong-inject-epo/

petethedrummer wrote: »

Here it is:

Yes - that will do! I did read Hamilton's book but didn't remember him being as clear as that!

letape wrote: »

I don't remember anyone testifying that they saw him inject EPO?

Maybe your memory isn't what it used to be

I was actuallly going to use Lance's name in the 3rd example as well but I figured somebody would point out that EPO vials were never found in his fridge...

mcgratheoin wrote: »

No it wasn't. Most of the evidence was eyewitness reports of either Lance taking drugs or telling people he was taking drugs. I've posted on this before as it (along with the trotting out of "hearsay") is a bugbear of mine.

Sorry sir, consider me chastised!

I ain't a legal boffin so I can get terms mixed up -I suppose the thrust of what I was saying is that it was sworn testimony that sunk him, but that testimony was the opposite of previous sworn testimony (in that first off all people swore not was going on, then they swore it was -does that diminish the testimony legally?)

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Sorry sir, consider me chastised!

I ain't a legal boffin so I can get terms mixed up -I suppose the thrust of what I was saying is that it was sworn testimony that sunk him, but that testimony was the opposite of previous sworn testimony (in that first off all people swore not was going on, then they swore it was -does that diminish the testimony legally?)

The situation in Ireland (USA may be different) is that there are 2 judges in a courtroom - the judge adjudicates on matters of law and the jury adjudicates on matters of fact - therefore the jury decide on the facts of the case and the judge interprets those facts within the law.

So to answer your question, the testimony is only diminished if a defence advocate can convince the jury that the witness is unreliable and his or her testimony cannot be accepted as factual. Previous perjury may indeed be one way in which present testimony could be called into doubt, however I'm not aware in the Armstrong case of any perjury by the main witnesses for the (hypothetical) prosecution. Did any of the parties who testifed for the reasoned decision previously testify the opposite under oath?

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Did any of the parties who testifed for the reasoned decision previously testify the opposite under oath?

I think Hamilton and Lance did... either way, thanks for the clarification on circumstantial evidence!

TinyExplosions wrote: »

I think Hamilton and Lance did... either way, thanks for the clarification on circumstantial evidence!

Yeah, I knew Lance had allegedly perjured himself (although he didn't testify for the reasoned decision), but I thought that Hamilton hadn't been under oath prior to that?

**edit** the whole circumstantial thing is coming up again in the David Walsh thread - where's that Picard face palm when I need it....

Capt'n Midnight

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Circumstantial is just a word to describe a diffferent type of evidence, it does not diminish the quality of that evidence. Circumstantial merely means that a connection needs to be inferred between the evidence and the act.

Just a reminder, a lot of murder cases are based on circumstantial evidence simply because the victim isn't able to testify.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Just a reminder, a lot of murder cases are based on circumstantial evidence simply because the victim isn't able to testify.

Absolutely - it's just a word to describe a subset of evidence, like "forensic". It is not of lesser value than other evidence, provided it is accompanied by the correct circumstances.

Cheers