"The Lance Armstrong lie"

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

But the independent experts in the article seem to refute that. Or at least, they refute the specific idea that the six year delay could have caused EPO to somehow appear (or to trigger a false positive).

If Armstrong is referring to something else, then he may have a case, but he needs to spell it out in more detail than just saying "faulty science" and leaving it at that.

Of course, the lab can't confirm the sample was Armstrong's at all anyway.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Of course, the lab can't confirm the sample was Armstrong's at all anyway.

Right, and even if they could they can't test the A samples anyway.

I'd like to see some more information about the link between the two photos of the ID numbers -- one on the positive test, one on Armstrong's race documents. I'd like to know how conclusive that really is, as well as if whether there's any chance the numbers were tampered with.

[Surtt]

"EPO tests on the 1999 B urine samples were not carried out until last year, when scientists performed research on them to fine-tune EPO testing methods, the paper said.

The national anti-doping laboratory in Chatenay-Malabry, which developed the EPO test and analyzed the urine samples in question, said it could not confirm that the positive EPO results were Armstrong's.

It noted that the samples were anonymous, bearing only a a six-digit number to identify the rider, and could not be matched with the name of any one cyclist. "



This whole story doesn't make any sense to me.

1. The lab was doing research to fine tune there methods. Wouldn't you use a know sample to judge how effective the methods are? Maybe they're faulty and you turn up false positives.

2. How did they happen to use the Tdf samples for research? Were they just lying around? Why not use fresher samples?

3. Who called the newspaper and why? At that point there was nothing connecting the sample to Armstrong. "Were doing research on urine sampling methodology and have some positives on an anonymous sample. ", sounds like a major story to me.

4. Would a major newspaper waist its time if it didn't already know who's sample it was? Or did they already decide who's sample it was going to be?

This sure sounds like there is more going on here then the paper is saying.

[Maple Leafs]

Good article on the subject by King Kaufman. Particularly interesting point about the conflict of interest with the newspaper (towards the end of the article)
http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col...day/print.html

Aug. 25, 2005 | Two things are certain in the latest doping controversy surrounding Lance Armstrong: If you believed on Monday that he was dirty for his seven-year run of Tour de France titles, you still believe it today. And if you had your doubts or were sure he's always been clean, you haven't changed your mind.

Being a sports fan in the 21st century isn't about picking what team or athlete to root for. It's about choosing whose version of reality you want to believe.

The great thing about sports, from the time of the Greeks, I suppose, has always been that they provide unambiguous results. Winners and losers. Heroes and goats. We can debate forever whether the '27 Yankees or '75 Reds were greater, Muhammad Ali or Joe Louis, Wayne Gretzky or Gordie Howe, Secretariat or Man o' War.

But there was no doubting that any of them were great champions, conquerors, the best of their time.

We've lost that.

Now all but the most naive of us meet athletic achievement with skeptical admiration at best. The greater the achievement, the greater the skepticism.

In 1988, when Kirk Gibson limped out of the dugout on two bad knees to hit a game-winning home run in Game 1 of the World Series, Jack Buck blurted an immortal line into the CBS Radio microphone: "I don't believe what I just saw!" Seventeen years later, that sentence, carrying a very different meaning, defines sports fandom.

To put it another way, a silly way, three decades ago we came out of our movie theater seats to cheer journeyman club fighter Rocky Balboa as he gave heavyweight champ Apollo Creed the fight of his life. Today we'd be intrigued, but we'd wait on the drug tests before we suspended our disbelief -- a little.

We'd still wonder, even in the absence of positive results. Many of those whose reputations have taken the biggest hit from doping accusations have never tested positive, including Marion Jones, a pariah in the track and field world, Mark McGwire and, before this week if you believe the French sporting newspaper L'Equipe, Armstrong.

I'm not saying I want to go back. I don't need to be protected from harsh reality. I believe that the truth is a beautiful thing and the seeking of it noble.

But not wanting to go back to a more innocent time doesn't mean I can't mourn for it.

I keep thinking of another famous radio call, the signature cry of Mel Allen: "How about that!" It doesn't mean I want to live with my head in the sand to mourn for a time when that was an exclamation, not a question.

So what of this latest Armstrong story? You probably know the outline by now. L'Equipe, the French sporting daily, reported Tuesday that it has "incontestable" evidence that Armstrong used EPO, a banned blood enhancer, in 1999, the year of his first Tour victory, when no test could detect it. "The extraordinary champion, the escapee from cancer, has become a legend by means of a lie," the paper wrote.

L'Equipe published the results of retests on anonymous 1999 Tour de France urine samples by the French National Anti-Doping Laboratory. The lab was retesting the samples for research purposes, but the paper says it was able to match registration numbers on six of the samples that turned up EPO with Armstrong's paperwork, which it says proves they belonged to the champion.

The samples were so-called B samples, which had been kept frozen over the years. Under cycling rules, the A and B samples must turn up positive before an athlete can be sanctioned.

Armstrong proclaimed his innocence and lashed out at Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc, long an Armstrong defender, who backed the report and said, "I was fooled. We were all fooled." Armstrong called Leblanc's comment "preposterous" and pointed out again that he's never failed a drug test.

As usual, there's plenty of ambiguity to go around, on top of the ambiguity that's always come with Armstrong's success.

That is: Did he really go from just another rider in the '90s to one of the greatest in history only because of single-minded determination and a brilliant nutritional and training strategy after his recovery from cancer, or did he have some illegal help?

And despite all those negative drug tests, is it really possible that in a sport where performance enhancers were the coin of the realm -- the 1998 Tour de France was the site of the biggest sports drug bust in history at the time -- Armstrong not only won seven straight Tours, but he did so while standing nearly alone as an abstainer?

One way or the other, he's a hell of an athlete and a hell of a man, because he really did win those seven Tours. But was he just too good to be true?

The answer, of course: Maybe, maybe not.

International doping experts have been quoted disagreeing about whether EPO can survive and be detected in a sample frozen for so long, and the lab where the tests were conducted wouldn't confirm L'Equipe's report that the test in question belonged to Armstrong.

There are also chain-of-evidence questions involved when a sample is 6 years old and is being used for a purpose different from the one for which it was given.

On the other hand, L'Equipe, which is serious and respected worldwide, is owned by Amaury Sports Organisation, the same company that owns and runs the Tour de France. French anti-Lance feelings aside, if there's a conflict of interest, it points in the other direction.

Yeah, the French hate it that this Texan ran roughshod over their most famous sporting event, but he also did wonders for it. He raised its profile internationally, especially in the United States. But more important than that, he came along at a time when the Tour and the sport were one big doping story.

In 1998, the year before Armstrong started his winning streak, a traffic stop turned up 250 vials of EPO in a car belonging to the French Festina team. A few months before Armstrong's first win in the '99 Tour, cycling reporter Andrew Taber wrote in Salon that the sport of bicycle racing "may be on its deathbed."

Times have changed and Lance Armstrong changed them. If there were some corporate edict to get Lance, it would be a classic case of Amaury Sports cutting off Armstrong's nose to spite its face. I'm not aware of too many large corporations that would torpedo the reputation of one of their most important properties for patriotic reasons.

Lance Armstrong sipping champagne as he glides down the Champs-Elysées on the way to his seventh straight Tour de France crown. How about that!

How about that?

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Surtt

4. Would a major newspaper waist its time if it didn't already know who's sample it was? Or did they already decide who's sample it was going to be?

Not sure about your other points, but this one isn't hard to imagine an explanation for. There has been speculation for years that Armstrong was doping, so there's not much question that they knew what they were looking for. It's not much different than if ESPN found out that there were leftover drug tests that indicated that someone on the 2001 Giants has failed a steroid test -- you don't think they'd dig further to see if they could nail Bonds? If it is him, they have a major story. If not, they probably don't bother with it.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

Not sure about your other points, but this one isn't hard to imagine an explanation for. There has been speculation for years that Armstrong was doping, so there's not much question that they knew what they were looking for. It's not much different than if ESPN found out that there were leftover drug tests that indicated that someone on the 2001 Giants has failed a steroid test -- you don't think they'd dig further to see if they could nail Bonds? If it is him, they have a major story. If not, they probably don't bother with it.

Aren't their hundreds of cyclists in a Tour? Isn't it more akin to being told that someone in the AFC was busted for steroids, but we don't know who?


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

Dola -

Actually, I was on the phone with my gf who lived in France for a while, and she said that although th French really care about the TdF, their level of interest in things cycling is really about the level of their fifth or sixth most popular sport. If her recollection is correct, than this is more analagous to someone calling up ESPN and saying that there was a random NHL sample that turned up oistive and asking if they want to pursue it.

-Anxiety

[fantastic flying froggies]

Very good article, Maple Leafs. It put things in perspective a bit.

Anxiety, your girlfriend is wrong about the importance of the Tour de France in France. While it is true that cycling in general is not that big a deal, the Tour is one of the top 2 or 3 sporting events each year.
Also, for info, there are 180 riders in the TdF.

[illinifan999]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I find ESPN's coverage of this story pretty brutal as well. If this were Bonds being mentioned, even pre-BALCO, it would have at least had a headline of "Bonds accused of 'roids" or something straight up.

I attribute the difference to a few factors:
1) France v America. This is the #1 reason the US media will defend Armstrong to the death.
2) Bonds is a jerk, Armstrong is a cancer survivor.
3) Bonds is black, Armstrong is white.

If Armstrong was black he could just say the French were racists. But since he's white, he's fucked.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

Actually, I was on the phone with my gf who lived in France for a while, and she said that although th French really care about the TdF, their level of interest in things cycling is really about the level of their fifth or sixth most popular sport. If her recollection is correct, than this is more analagous to someone calling up ESPN and saying that there was a random NHL sample that turned up oistive and asking if they want to pursue it.

I was using baseball as an example more due to the desire to see Bonds busted, not so much due to any popularity comparison. I think Bonds is an imperfect comparison, but he's at least in the same ballpark in terms of being a guy who is strongly suspected of using enhancers, isn't especially well-liked, and who would sell a lot of newspapers for whoever could nail him on it.

As for their being hundreds of riders, you're right, but there were also multiple positives. So maybe a better analogy would be if ESPN found out that two dozen players in the National League had tested positive. I think they'd still dig on that a little.

You can probably call it a witch hunt, but I don't buy the conspiracy talk. I think people here assume that every European newspaper is the equivalent of the British tabloids, but from what I've heard this one is very credible.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by fantastic flying froggies

Very good article, Maple Leafs. It put things in perspective a bit.

Anxiety, your girlfriend is wrong about the importance of the Tour de France in France. While it is true that cycling in general is not that big a deal, the Tour is one of the top 2 or 3 sporting events each year.
Also, for info, there are 180 riders in the TdF.

Ummm, that's what I said. The TDF is really big, yet cycling as a sport is only 5th or so on the sports list.


-Anxiety