LeMond and Trek Settle

[buckwheat]

Please don't. CAS Court shut the book on that one. It's in the past and I really doubt people on here want to re-live (or re-litigate) the case.

You just don't understand. I've got reams of data that hasn't passed through my discerning logical filter. Really!

 

[BroDeal]

If you took testosterone in April and withdrew blood in April, then reintroduced that blood in, say, July when you weren't taking testosterone...could that trip a positive test ?

We had on eof our resident experts address this possibility. I cannot remember which thread it was in, but the gist of it was that it was very unlikely.

 

[buckwheat]

He only banned me twice. I tried using the "contact us" link on both RBR and the corporate parent's site to explain why I felt my ban was unjustified. Never heard back from them.

Maybe I'll send them a trojan horse.

That pic might open up some interesting trolling possibilities on RBR. Would have to wait until Coolhand is asleep so it stays for a while. Not that I would ever think of doing such a thing.

If someone did do such a thing, it would be very sweet.

 

[RTMcFadden]

Where do these nut lickers come from?

From above 5000 feet.

 

[patricknd]

From above 5000 feet.

that's pretty funny

 

[Serbski]

Coolhand, fat, angry Masters racer

thinks that by tossing Lance's salad he will have meaning in his life.

"Coolwhip" might be more accurate. I've not visited RBR for many months because of this chap (although Swiftsolo was a real piece of work) and it is too funny to see this mugshot. Some casting agent needs to get this guy some acting work on cable in one of the myriad of "Unsolved Mystery"-styled shows as the "heavy" - you know, as the wifebeater/killer/kidnapper/neo-Nazi/escaped ex-con/flinty-eyed moderator... Sorry for the off topic rant but that guy ruined that forum and runs it as his personal fiefdom allowing low blow personal attacks as long as they are in line with his views. Quite a civilized scene over here...

 

[buckwheat]

"Coolwhip" might be more accurate. I've not visited RBR for many months because of this chap (although Swiftsolo was a real piece of work) and it is too funny to see this mugshot. Some casting agent needs to get this guy some acting work on cable in one of the myriad of "Unsolved Mystery"-styled shows as the "heavy" - you know, as the wifebeater/killer/kidnapper/neo-Nazi/escaped ex-con/flinty-eyed moderator... Sorry for the off topic rant but that guy ruined that forum and runs it as his personal fiefdom allowing low blow personal attacks as long as they are in line with his views. Quite a civilized scene over here...

You don't have to apologize, he's a douche bag.

BTW, Ekimov just got banned, anyone know who that is?

Sincerely,

Lookrider/Jimmyjack/Provigil/Reid Rothchild

 

[The Crusher]

If you took testosterone in April and withdrew blood in April, then reintroduced that blood in, say, July when you weren't taking testosterone...could that trip a positive test ?

The half life of testosterone in the blood is about 30 minutes to a half an hour. Let's call it an hour, then after four hours that'd mean you had 1/16 of the original injection remaining in your blood. So you'd pretty much have to inject it on April 1st at noon, and then withdraw your blood on April 1st at 12:30 pm.

Also you'd have to withdraw ALL of your blood, and then reinject ALL of it back in July. Because otherwise you're only talking about maybe 1/10th of that original dose being reintroduced in July, and that's not going to be enough by itself to pop a positive. And if you had waited four hours before withdrawing a pint, then it would about 1/160th of the original dose.

By the way, removing all of your blood is not really that performance enhancing.

Oh yeah, also, blood doping generally removes the plasma and freezes only the red blood cells. Something about the freezing plasma destroying the red blood cells. And the testosterone is in the plasma, not the cells. So it would all be removed anyway, even if you did inject a bunch of testosterone and then immediately remove all of your blood.

 

[The Crusher]

Flick the T in Floyd's blood was synthetic. You don't even need to worry about the T/E ratio, lab misconduct, French hackers, crazy Arnie Baker, witness intimidation, or annoying lawyers that come on this board and type a lot.

Synthetic Testosterone.
In Floyd's blood.

That is all.

Synthetic testosterone is the exact same molecule as natural testosterone. There is no test today that can definitively say this T is natural and that T is synthetic.

The test works by looking at the carbon-13 in your testosterone, and comparing it with the carbon-13 in other natural steroids. If they're a little different, that's perfectly normal. If they're a lot different, then it's a strong indication of something funky going on. If they're in the middle, well, it's ambiguous.

Some people would have you believe the test is like checking to see if someone put their pee in your water just by tasting it. But it's more like checking to see if someone put their pee in your pee by tasting it.

 

[The Crusher]

Ok, I'll bite.

If the emails weren't in fact sent by Baker, then I'm stuck on a couple of things.

One, how could the forger find Baker's alleged IP address (assuming it was a static IP) in order to "plant" it in his forgery?

Two, how did the French investigators, in turn, also trace this IP address back to Baker?

1. Arnie Baker does have an IP address associated with him, sort of. He owns arniebakercycling.com:

> host arniebakercycling.com
arniebakercycling.com has address 38.113.1.181
arniebakercycling.com mail is handled by 30 mail.arniebakercycling.com.

As for 2. That's where things get more interesting. Suppose they had this IP address. They could look up what name is tied to this address. And this is what they'd find:

> host 38.113.1.181
181.1.113.38.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ip38-113-1-181.yourhostingaccount.com.

The address is associated with a web hosting company. Even the name of the company is obscured. It turns out that Tucows owns this domain, and they do webhosting for literally millions of websites. There is no direct lookup you can do on this IP address that will give you arniebakercycling.com. You can contact Tucows and tell them you have a possible mail forgery and they'll yawn and say what else is new, we only had a few million other mail forgeries today, and they'd tell you they can't divulge any customer records without a court order, and you're in France, so that'll take weeks to months, by which time Tucows probably deleted all those logs, because their lawyers insisted that they have a logfile expunging policy, precisely so they couldn't be sued for not keeping those files around forever.

But what if the mail headers DID say that the mail was received from arniebakercycling.com specifically, and not just an IP address? That's clearly a red herring. Because when a mail server receives mail, it only sees the IP address, which it then looks up using the same methods I used above, meaning it would find yourhostingaccount.com and put that in the Received-by line, and not arniebakercycling.com. So it would be impossible for a Received-by line of a mail header to contain arniebakercycling.com, unless it was a forgery.

So now do you start to see why it makes no sense that they reported they had Arnie Baker's IP address?

And that's the simplest possible case. It's actually really unlikely they would be receiving email directly from that IP address for a variety of reasons. Likely scenarios are much more complicated and would require getting court orders for three of four different big service providers, one at a time before you ever find your way to anything that can be connected to a person.

 

[Anonymous]

Going back to the original post...."Looks like someone caved"...?

Does anyone have insight as to why Greg settled out of court?
Was Greg made an "offer he could not refuse" money wise?
Was the prospect of a Jury Trial, maybe with Lance on the stand under oath, a situation that Greg would just as soon avoid - for the health of the sport or maybe the stress of the whole courtroom and media thing?

Now going off topic sorry - will Greg be going to France to watch/comment on this years TdF?

If the US court system is anything like the UK's, then if Greg refused a formal offer to settle, then at Court was successful but was awarded less money than the pre-trial offer, then Greg could have been made to pay the costs of the trial as he could just have accepted the initial offer and saved everyone time and expense. Given costs of trial, particularly in this case I imagine, are usually fairly substantial Greg could have ended up paying a large amount just for his "day in court". And, of course, there's no guarantee he would even have been successful at Court. So any talk of "bottling it" is probably way off.

And is there even any guarantee Lance would have been at a trial? Would the Minnesota court have jurisdiction to subpoena someone living/working abroad?

 

[Race Radio]

1. Arnie Baker does have an IP address associated with him, sort of. He owns arniebakercycling.com:

> host arniebakercycling.com
arniebakercycling.com has address 38.113.1.181
arniebakercycling.com mail is handled by 30 mail.arniebakercycling.com.

As for 2. That's where things get more interesting. Suppose they had this IP address. They could look up what name is tied to this address. And this is what they'd find:

> host 38.113.1.181
181.1.113.38.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ip38-113-1-181.yourhostingaccount.com.

The address is associated with a web hosting company. Even the name of the company is obscured. It turns out that Tucows owns this domain, and they do webhosting for literally millions of websites. There is no direct lookup you can do on this IP address that will give you arniebakercycling.com. You can contact Tucows and tell them you have a possible mail forgery and they'll yawn and say what else is new, we only had a few million other mail forgeries today, and they'd tell you they can't divulge any customer records without a court order, and you're in France, so that'll take weeks to months, by which time Tucows probably deleted all those logs, because their lawyers insisted that they have a logfile expunging policy, precisely so they couldn't be sued for not keeping those files around forever.

But what if the mail headers DID say that the mail was received from arniebakercycling.com specifically, and not just an IP address? That's clearly a red herring. Because when a mail server receives mail, it only sees the IP address, which it then looks up using the same methods I used above, meaning it would find yourhostingaccount.com and put that in the Received-by line, and not arniebakercycling.com. So it would be impossible for a Received-by line of a mail header to contain arniebakercycling.com, unless it was a forgery.

So now do you start to see why it makes no sense that they reported they had Arnie Baker's IP address?

And that's the simplest possible case. It's actually really unlikely they would be receiving email directly from that IP address for a variety of reasons. Likely scenarios are much more complicated and would require getting court orders for three of four different big service providers, one at a time before you ever find your way to anything that can be connected to a person.

and if it is sent from a hotmail account from Arnie's house it would show his home IP address. This address just so happens to match the IP address he used to send other previous emails to the media.

 

[Race Radio]

Synthetic testosterone is the exact same molecule as natural testosterone. There is no test today that can definitively say this T is natural and that T is synthetic.

The test works by looking at the carbon-13 in your testosterone, and comparing it with the carbon-13 in other natural steroids. If they're a little different, that's perfectly normal. If they're a lot different, then it's a strong indication of something funky going on. If they're in the middle, well, it's ambiguous.

Some people would have you believe the test is like checking to see if someone put their pee in your water just by tasting it. But it's more like checking to see if someone put their pee in your pee by tasting it.

Good thing WADA does not agree with you. The IRMS test works fine, Floyd flunked it.

Are you paid by the word? If you want to start a thread to talk about Floyd then please start another one and don't high jack this one.

 

[Race Radio]

to get this back on topic

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lemond-not-precluded-from-further-comments-on-doping

Sounds like Greg got a big check and Trek tried hard to cover up Lance's actions

 

[Tangled Tango]

Going back to the original post...."Looks like someone caved"...?

Does anyone have insight as to why Greg settled out of court?
Was Greg made an "offer he could not refuse" money wise?
Was the prospect of a Jury Trial, maybe with Lance on the stand under oath, a situation that Greg would just as soon avoid - for the health of the sport or maybe the stress of the whole courtroom and media thing?

I would suggest Trek (and Lance) decided they didn´t want to risk Lance being suppeoned and taking the stand under oath. Between his part in the smear campaign and the potential doping issue arrising there was far too much to lose for both Trek and Armstrong. It was not Greg who wanted to avoid that, but Lance and Trek.

 

[Ferminal]

Was interesting for the early part where the discussion was based on the implications for Greg/Trek. Probably a "win" for Trek considering the hole they dug.

When are people going to stop discussion conspiracy theories regarding spiked samples or inproper testing? Where are the people inventing conspiracies regarding Rasumussen (UCI lied about him being MIA) or Vino (he ate food which had been unkowningly contaiminated by the blood of the person who prepared it). What makes the conspiracies regarding the high profile postives of 1999 or 2006 any more plausible than any other athlete who has tested positive in the last decade?

 

[flicker]

I am so sick of hearing about Floyd. He broke my heart as well as about a zillion other people.

If he needs a better place to crash, I have a very nice spare bedroom, he can have it until he is 80 years old, and happily offered. But I just don't want to hear about him or from him or innocence or whatever anymore.

I feel sad for his messed up life and divorce and hip and death of family and all of that. But just, enough already.

And, no, I don't feel the same for anyone else who has been caught. I believed in him for too long and it makes me ill. ok, i feel better.

Sorry to hear that Heath. Watch the presciption medications.

 

[elizab]

I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say on this.....that said I'm chiming in with what I think I can say.

#1 To say Greg is arrogant is nothing but an outright lie to further attempt to sully him. He is affable, approachable and genuinely a nice guy. Sure, if you screw him and he holds you accountable you may not think he's nice. In October, he and Kathy were in Detroit. We had a dinner party to go to while he was here. It was a family event - kids of friends were there as well. We invited them to come with us. Other than us, Kathy and Greg were the only non Italians there. My friend's relatives were there from Italy. Greg didn't know these people from atom (if you're familiar with "From Lance to Landis" we were at Lory's house), yet, he was sociable with everyone. He even tried his Italian which makes me laugh just thinking about him trying to talk it! At the end of the night he forgot his camera and went back to get it. To no surprise I had to go in after him and yank him away from everyone. I can assure you that not all elite cyclists would enjoy such an evening with "common folk" he'd never met.

#2 I think it is safe to say that Trek did not want their dirty laundry aired as it also pertained to the second coming. I will leave it to Greg to tell why this settled instead of going to court. If you note, Greg and Kathy fired the law firm which was originally representing them. Had they gone with the current firm, Wilson Sonsini et. al., I'm pretty confident this thing would've gone to trial.

#3 Lance may be good for the sport to the people on the outside looking in i.e. from the fan and media perspective but to the people within cycling it's a far different story.

 

[flicker]

Lance and Floyd and Greg brought American interest and sponsorship to cycling. Thus I can watch the sport. Other then that they are 3 entertainers. Not role models. I am not a fan-boy. That would be disappointing in the long run.

Originally Posted by ravens
I am so sick of hearing about Floyd. He broke my heart as well as about a zillion other people.

I know Heath here jokes but people follow sport and live vicareously on the accomplishments of popular figures and become disuaded and cynical.

 

[ChrisE]

I would suggest Trek (and Lance) decided they didn´t want to risk Lance being suppeoned and taking the stand under oath. Between his part in the smear campaign and the potential doping issue arrising there was far too much to lose for both Trek and Armstrong. It was not Greg who wanted to avoid that, but Lance and Trek.

It's funny how wrong things can be written and go unchallenged, as long as one is on the right side of an argument, ie making Trek/Lance look as bad and weak as possible.

FYI LA would never had to take the stand due to jurisdiction issues. Now, I think that it is BS but that is the way it is.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say on this.....that said I'm chiming in with what I think I can say.

#1 To say Greg is arrogant is nothing but an outright lie to further attempt to sully him. He is affable, approachable and genuinely a nice guy. Sure, if you screw him and he holds you accountable you may not think he's nice. In October, he and Kathy were in Detroit. We had a dinner party to go to while he was here. It was a family event - kids of friends were there as well. We invited them to come with us. Other than us, Kathy and Greg were the only non Italians there. My friend's relatives were there from Italy. Greg didn't know these people from atom (if you're familiar with "From Lance to Landis" we were at Lory's house), yet, he was sociable with everyone. He even tried his Italian which makes me laugh just thinking about him trying to talk it! At the end of the night he forgot his camera and went back to get it. To no surprise I had to go in after him and yank him away from everyone. I can assure you that not all elite cyclists would enjoy such an evening with "common folk" he'd never met.

[snip]

#3 Lance may be good for the sport to the people on the outside looking in i.e. from the fan and media perspective but to the people within cycling it's a far different story.

I'm pleased that how Greg comes across is genuinely how he is in person then. He's my only childhood hero that hasn't fallen by the wayside of some drugs or sex scandal.

I don't want to turn this into another thread about LA, but as half the thread is on Flandis I think I can just ask one question on #3.... Many fans too know he is not good for the sport, it's the casual fans who are more "LA" than "cycling" fans who think otherwise. I'm a little surprised that you say from people within cycling it's a far different story though. As no-one in the cycling world seems to dare criticise him and indeed (apparently) idolise him - Ligget, Sherwen, Wiggins, Cav etc etc, I just assumed their complicity in what he does was because they are happy riding the gravy train of increased public interest, and therefore sponsorship cash, that he brings. If people within cycling know the damage he is causing to the sport, why do more people not speak up? I really don't get it. Does he really yield that much power, even now? If so, how? Through the UCI? There's a certain hypocrisy of knowing someone does bad for the sport but yet not daring to speak of it - surely then that person is complicit in what he does.

Anyway, roll on 2011 when we wll be rid of him and the Hog for good. Hopefully.

Maybe I should have asked this in the Official LA Thread! We need an official LA thread in the Clinic, I think.

 

[Polish]

I would suggest Trek (and Lance) decided they didn´t want to risk Lance being suppeoned and taking the stand under oath. Between his part in the smear campaign and the potential doping issue arrising there was far too much to lose for both Trek and Armstrong. It was not Greg who wanted to avoid that, but Lance and Trek.

TT, I was not asking why Trek settled out of court - EVERYONE seems to know the answer to that question lol.

I was asking the tougher question - why did GREG settle out of court?
Should we just assume it was because of a big payoff?

 

[Digger]

I'm pleased that how Greg comes across is genuinely how he is in person then. He's my only childhood hero that hasn't fallen by the wayside of some drugs or sex scandal.

I don't want to turn this into another thread about LA, but as half the thread is on Flandis I think I can just ask one question on #3.... Many fans too know he is not good for the sport, it's the casual fans who are more "LA" than "cycling" fans who think otherwise. I'm a little surprised that you say from people within cycling it's a far different story though. As no-one in the cycling world seems to dare criticise him and indeed (apparently) idolise him - Ligget, Sherwen, Wiggins, Cav etc etc, I just assumed their complicity in what he does was because they are happy riding the gravy train of increased public interest, and therefore sponsorship cash, that he brings. If people within cycling know the damage he is causing to the sport, why do more people not speak up? I really don't get it. Does he really yield that much power, even now? If so, how? Through the UCI? There's a certain hypocrisy of knowing someone does bad for the sport but yet not daring to speak of it - surely then that person is complicit in what he does.

Anyway, roll on 2011 when we wll be rid of him and the Hog for good. Hopefully.

Maybe I should have asked this in the Official LA Thread! We need an official LA thread in the Clinic, I think.

Various reasons in my opinion for current riders not speaking up.
They themselves either currently doping, or having doped in hte past, is a major reason. Honour among thieves.
Next, there is in my opinion a genuine fear of Lance and the power he holds. Just look at Simeoni and Bassons. Even Linus last year got villified by Lance for raising his concerns about the second coming. Cunego had an argument with Lance also during the Giro - not long after Cunego saying that at least he'll be able to look himself in the mirror.
An Australian journo was put on the black list of not getting access to Lance's press conferences, for being in the same company as David Walsh.

But for me the biggest problem with why riders don't criticise him is simply glasshouses, stones and all that. Which is why I was so disappointed to see Bradley lick his a**. If Bradley was really as clean as the snow, why idolise such a cheat?

 

[Kennf1]

If the US court system is anything like the UK's, then if Greg refused a formal offer to settle, then at Court was successful but was awarded less money than the pre-trial offer, then Greg could have been made to pay the costs of the trial as he could just have accepted the initial offer and saved everyone time and expense. Given costs of trial, particularly in this case I imagine, are usually fairly substantial Greg could have ended up paying a large amount just for his "day in court". And, of course, there's no guarantee he would even have been successful at Court. So any talk of "bottling it" is probably way off.

And is there even any guarantee Lance would have been at a trial? Would the Minnesota court have jurisdiction to subpoena someone living/working abroad?

Yes, the federal rules allow a defendant to make an offer of judgment to the other side. If the offer is rejected, and the judgment obtained is less favorable than the offer, that party must pay costs incurred after the offer was made.

The court would not have trial subpoena power over Lance if he was out of state. While they could have subpoenaed his deposition, attendance at trial is a different matter. I think the trial judge, during the arguments on the motions for summary judgment, suggested to Trek that they bring Lance to trial voluntarily.

 

[Anonymous]

Various reasons in my opinion for current riders not speaking up.
They themselves either currently doping, or having doped in hte past, is a major reason. Honour among thieves.
Next, there is in my opinion a genuine fear of Lance and the power he holds. Just look at Simeoni and Bassons. Even Linus last year got villified by Lance for raising his concerns about the second coming. Cunego had an argument with Lance also during the Giro - not long after Cunego saying that at least he'll be able to look himself in the mirror.
An Australian journo was put on the black list of not getting access to Lance's press conferences, for being in the same company as David Walsh.

But for me the biggest problem with why riders don't criticise him is simply glasshouses, stones and all that. Which is why I was so disappointed to see Bradley lick his a**. If Bradley was really as clean as the snow, why idolise such a cheat?

So it's either:

a) they do the same thing and therefore they cannot criticise. Fair enough, but surely they're then not the ones who will be complaining about him damaging the sport as they're doing exactly the same thing.

or

b) they're scared of him and the power he yields.

It's this second one I don't understand. How on earth does he still hold so much power over the other riders? He's a fading old man who has this and at the most next season left. Contador has shown that LA is all about bullying but when it comes down to it there's little he can do. At least AC had the balls not to be intimidated.

And yeah, I'm with you on Wiggins. His creeping to LA by emailing him to apologise after his "I'm better than LA" bragging, and admitting he needs to BS more "like LA", was incredibly disappointing, even more than lying about wanting to join Sky all that time. He's now admitted he decided to join Sky at the first rest day of the Tour. It's nice to know he's become a rider who is happy manipulating fans like that.