L'Equipe 2 (doping version)

[joe_papp]

It was vindictive and nasty...

Ha! I thought for a moment that you were describing Lance's chasing down Simeoni in the 2004 Tour.

 

[Mongol_Waaijer]

It was a nasty bit of journalism to go back and test samples that had not been kept for the purpose of doing so. If they wanted to change the rules to allowold blood files were kept and tested in official conditions years later, which they do in fact do now, then they should have campaigned for that. Not pick on the most successful Tour de France rider in history. It was vindictive and nasty and rightfully not recognized by the doping authorities.

It wasn't recognized by the authorities because it was more than 5 years old - and rules back then forbade the sanctioning of riders for offences older than 5 years. Vindictiveness and nastiness had nothing to do with it.

Now we have a new one guys! Because Lance is the most succesful TdF rider ever it is "vindictive and nasty" to try and find out whether or not he used doping products.

 

[TheArbiter]

It wasn't recognized by the authorities because it was more than 5 years old - and rules back then forbade the sanctioning of riders for offences older than 5 years. Vindictiveness and nastiness had nothing to do with it.

Now we have a new one guys! Because Lance is the most succesful TdF rider ever it is "vindictive and nasty" to try and find out whether or not he used doping products.

The blood files were not kept in official lab conditions and thus it was very shoddy to test them. They are now kept in a proper lab for 7 years. I have no problem testing these years later. But to wait until the guy has retired and then spring this hatchet job on him was a nasty, shameful, stunt.

 

[workingclasshero]

It was a nasty bit of journalism to go back and test samples that had not been kept for the purpose of doing so.

Not pick on the most successful Tour de France rider in history. It was vindictive and nasty and rightfully not recognized by the doping authorities.

aye what an evil bástard that hack is doing his job, that's bang out of order that and in the process proving that cycling fans were cheated. that fella actually makes me blood boil the truth, who wants that

 

[Eva Maria]

The blood files were not kept in official lab conditions and thus it was very shoddy to test them. They are now kept in a proper lab for 7 years. I have no problem testing these years later. But to wait until the guy has retired and then spring this hatchet job on him was a nasty, shameful, stunt.

It is clear that you don't know what you are talking about. Please actually read the Ashenden interview and you might not embarrass yourself

The samples were stored correctly, the testing was not a "nasty bit of journalism" as the journalist had nothing to do with the testing. The tests were done long before Armstrong retired, but since the results were anonymous there was no way to connect them to Armstrong until Lance approved the UCI releasing his forms.

 

[TheArbiter]

The samples were stored correctly.

No they were not stored correctly. They were supposed to be disposed of at the time. The doping authorities were quite clear about this and criticise the conditions in which they were stored. The blood files should not have been used, it was done for a research project and not for an official test, so it was shameful to use that.

Like I said, they should go back and retest samples in future years that were taken today, but not like that. We can all agree it was a terribly bit of journalism and a shoddy way to treat the Tour's greatest rider.

 

[Eva Maria]

No they were not stored correctly. They were supposed to be disposed of at the time. The doping authorities were quite clear about this and criticise the conditions in which they were stored. The blood files should not have been used, it was done for a research project and not for an official test, so it was shameful to use that.

Like I said, they should go back and retest samples in future years that were taken today, but not like that. We can all agree it was a terribly bit of journalism and a shoddy way to treat the Tour's greatest rider.

I am sure you are a perfectly nice person but you really don't know what you are talking about.

No "Blood Files" were used. The "Doping Authorities" never criticized the conditions. In fact the "Doping Authorities" (WADA) saw this as proof that Armstrong doped and called out the UCI for covering it up.

Ashenden, who knows more about the test then you or I because he developed it, said the storage and the testing procedure were not an issue.

 

[pmcg76]

The Arbiter is clueless, his source of information on cycling subjects is wikipedia, just go back and look at his arguments about Stephen Roche.

He is again showing his lack of knowledge concerning the testing of the 99 samples. It was done as a trial for new procedures and never intended to finger anybody, it was done long before Lance announced his retirement and the lab didnt know who they were testing. It was the journalists who put the puzzle together.

The Vrijmen report was critical of a lot of things but it never once said the samples didnt belong to Lance or there was no way it could have been EPO in the samples, it criticises the procedures, not the samples.

 

[TheArbiter]

No, you have this wrong. Blood files were not supposed to be retained after the Tour. The storage and the conditions of their keeping could not be verified. It was simply done as an experiment and not to be taken seriously. It was very unfortunate, and nasty.

You guys aren't up to speed on this so you probably don't know that the publication titled their report "The Armstrong myth". That's where they were coming from.

Never again must this be allowed to happen to a professional athlete. They work incredibly hard and don't deserve this treatment. We can all unite and agree on this point.

 

[elapid]

No they were not stored correctly. They were supposed to be disposed of at the time. The doping authorities were quite clear about this and criticise the conditions in which they were stored. The blood files should not have been used, it was done for a research project and not for an official test, so it was shameful to use that.

Like I said, they should go back and retest samples in future years that were taken today, but not like that. We can all agree it was a terribly bit of journalism and a shoddy way to treat the Tour's greatest rider.

It was an excellent piece of investigative journalism. None of this would have been known if it wasn't for the journalist. For the UCI, it was just a research project investigating an EPO test. It was never intended to be used to sanction a rider testing positive, and for this reason the samples were not handled according to antidoping protocols. However, they were stored properly. The researchers did not know who tested positive because they just had case numbers. The journalist, with Armstrong's permission, pieced all the evidence together and worked out that six of those samples that were positive for EPO belonged to Armstrong. WADA then wanted the UCI to sanction Armstrong, but this was not possible because again this wasn't the intention of the research project. However, that was investigative journalism at its best and in no way shoddy. Do you think people think that Nixon should not have been investigated for the Watergate scandal just because he was President of the United States of America? Do you think Watergate was shoddy journalism? Investigative journalism is just that - it exposes people for who they really are or what they do, and these people are usually prominent in one way or another, whether they be sportspeople, politicians or business people.

 

[TheArbiter]

Elapid, we simply cannot confirm the conditions of the blood files. They were not supposed to be kept, no other scientists could retest them to verify these claims. That is unacceptable.

Never again will athletes be abused in this way. Everybody agrees.

 

[Eva Maria]

No, you have this wrong. Blood files were not supposed to be retained after the Tour. The storage and the conditions of their keeping could not be verified. It was simply done as an experiment and not to be taken seriously. It was very unfortunate, and nasty.

You guys aren't up to speed on this so you probably don't know that the publication titled their report "The Armstrong myth". That's where they were coming from.

Never again must this be allowed to happen to a professional athlete. They work incredibly hard and don't deserve this treatment. We can all unite and agree on this point.

I am not uniting with you on anything. You don't even know that they were Urine sample, not "Blood files"

 

[Eva Maria]

Elapid, we simply cannot confirm the conditions of the blood files. They were not supposed to be kept, no other scientists could retest them to verify these claims. That is unacceptable.

Never again will athletes be abused in this way. Everybody agrees.

Nobody agrees.

 

[elapid]

Elapid, we simply cannot confirm the conditions of the blood files. They were not supposed to be kept, no other scientists could retest them to verify these claims. That is unacceptable.

Never again will athletes be abused in this way. Everybody agrees.

The Vrijman report is very telling in this regard and I do agree with you in some respects. If it weren't for the l'Equipe journalist, none of this would have been made public and it would have remained a simple research project with anonymous results. But the journalist exposed the positive results, and it was a good piece of investigative journalism for him to have done so, and the subsequent investigations also exposed the deficiencies of the research. (And the subsequent criticisms of the Vjirman report also exposed deficiencies in Vrijman's report ... and the story goes on). Yes, there were deficiencies in the research methods and most research can be criticized in one way or another. The results could not be verified because there was not sufficient sample remaining, not because the test was faulty. Regardless of the criticism of the research, it does not change the results of those tests or the veracity of the test.

 

[Digger]

No, you have this wrong. Blood files were not supposed to be retained after the Tour. The storage and the conditions of their keeping could not be verified. It was simply done as an experiment and not to be taken seriously. It was very unfortunate, and nasty.

You guys aren't up to speed on this so you probably don't know that the publication titled their report "The Armstrong myth". That's where they were coming from.

Never again must this be allowed to happen to a professional athlete. They work incredibly hard and don't deserve this treatment. We can all unite and agree on this point.

You're blaming the journalist as if he was the one who put EPO in the sample, when he only reported facts. The samples WERE URINE SAMPLES. The lab didn't even know what samples they were testing, due to the samples being anonymous. Ashenden has shown that it is impossible to spike EPO in the intricate measurements required, to produce the results which did come about. Do you think EPO appears in urine magically?