Official Lance Armstrong Thread: Part 3 (Post-Confession)

[frenchfry]

Good point. It is a confusing time.

On a macro level many elements of the sport are better. I do not hear as many stories of NeoPros being pressured to dope by their teams. Yeah, some may babble about what Andy Schleck did almost a decade ago but today I would not expect him to get the same pressure.

Teams have backed away from having programs because of the risk. Even Levi had to hassle and pressure Johan for months before he would authorize a team program in 2007. The Armstrong case, and others, showed that riders will flip. The Omerta can be broken. Team mangers, doctors, and DS' are scared of the risk. While Froome, Horner, Quintana, have some crazy numbers we don't see the large number of crazy performances we did 10 years ago

But enough of the good news. Doping has been forced underground in the Pro portion of the sport and has flooded the amateur portion. The stories I hear these days are very disturbing. Experimental drugs, Chinese and Russian labs making anything you want, Ricco's home transfusions. Ugh. The uneven enforcement is also a huge challenge. It is hard to ignore that some countries have a much bigger problem then others.

While overall speeds are down we still have Froome on the Madone, Horner and the Angrilu, and Quintana on the Semnoz. Not normal......oh, and Rebellin won one of my favorite races today

Ultimately Frankie is giving his opinion. One he developed via 12 years as a Pro, covering multiple Tours as Media, and managing a Pro team. While I may not agree with 100% of what he says I value it more then a handful of folks on the internet swinging handbags at windmills

"oh, and Rebellin won one of my favorite races today"

This alone is "proof" that pro cycling still has a long way to go.

As much as I would like to believe, there are far too many disturbing signs out there.

 

[Digger]

Yeah, yeah, we get it. We are all hypocrites..

Not all. But you seem to be seeing sense. Good man.

I await the topless froome pics. You seem to get a kick from that stuff. The Brailsford wedding invitation equivalent...maybe the menu to his Birthday dinner. Just so we are being consistent here. And you say we see the ones looking for conflict. Essentially it was ok for you to do all this with labor for a decade.....

By the way, that word macro you used last night. Looked loke you copied and pasted it from Jonathan vaughters. You need to be more subtle.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

I await the topless froome pics.

If you are into that kind of thing who are we to judge?

 

[D-Queued]

Can you guys take this stuff to the Frankie, Froome, Kimmage and/or Rebellin threads?

Please?

Dave.

 

[kingjr]

Well no. Clearly you're making this up with a revisionists eye... Poor form to be honest.

Kohl looked clean as much as a doper. He was not obvious. He wasn't like Froome. Kohl was a "almost there" rider, never smashed a mountain to give a full on doper appearance. He was also a little ugly on the bike. No one picked him as the doper.

I know that I did. And I'm more generous than most in that regard.

 

[thehog]

I know that I did. And I'm more generous than most in that regard.

Not generous but mystifying.

Kohl, finished d'Huez more than 2 minutes down on Sastre finishing with CVV and Efimkin. You thought that screamed doping? Kohl's time doesn't even make the top 100 accent times. Now I know you're making things up.

Alas, I'm sure you can point me to a post we've you've said as such in relation to Kohl before?

 

[blackcat]

Not generous but mystifying.

Kohl, finished d'Huez more than 2 minutes down on Sastre finishing with CVV and Efimkin. You thought that screamed doping? Kohl's time doesn't even make the top 100 accent times. Now I know you're making things up.

Alas, I'm sure you can point me to a post we've you've said as such in relation to Kohl before?

are Christian Van de Velde. Ask Mrs CVdV what she thought about keep hgh ampoules in her fridge in Gerona when she had night tremors about carabinieri (sic) breaking down her doors and tossing the place.

not tossing the place in the April Macy Lance definition...

 

[blackcat]

Not all. But you seem to be seeing sense. Good man.

I await the topless froome pics. You seem to get a kick from that stuff. The Brailsford wedding invitation equivalent...maybe the menu to his Birthday dinner. Just so we are being consistent here. And you say we see the ones looking for conflict. Essentially it was ok for you to do all this with labor for a decade.....

By the way, that word macro you used last night. Looked loke you copied and pasted it from Jonathan vaughters. You need to be more subtle.

we do miss the The Hog wedding invitations from the former EvaMarieB.

Race should have posted those on the divorce and every divorce anniversary since.

a better visual explication of EuroTrash you would never find

 

[thehog]

are Christian Van de Velde. Ask Mrs CVdV what she thought about keep hgh ampoules in her fridge in Gerona when she had night tremors about carabinieri (sic) breaking down her doors and tossing the place.

not tossing the place in the April Macy Lance definition...

I guess Kohl beat the greatest GT rider in history, froome, by 10 minutes that day, so the performance had 'doper' written all over it

 

[sniper]

I guess Kohl beat the greatest GT rider in history, froome, by 10 minutes that day, so the performance had 'doper' written all over it

don't get carried away here. according to some, that would be hesjedal.

 

[kingjr]

Not generous but mystifying.

Kohl, finished d'Huez more than 2 minutes down on Sastre finishing with CVV and Efimkin. You thought that screamed doping? Kohl's time doesn't even make the top 100 accent times. Now I know you're making things up.

Alas, I'm sure you can point me to a post we've you've said as such in relation to Kohl before?

Oh it had nothing to do with climbing times, I just watched him and thought "he's obviously doping", same as with Moises Duenas for example.

And no, I don't think there are posts of me talking about Kohl. You'll just have to take my word for it.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Is this the Lance Armstrong thread??

 

[blackcat]

Is this the Lance Armstrong thread??

cypher for doping

 

[Berzin]

Stay on-topic and stop with the trolling and baiting.

 

[Race Radio]

Here is Frankie defending froome - after AX3 Domaines...after he had pulverised everyone and pumped out 6.25w/kg.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/kimmage/day-12-of-paul-kimmages-tour-de-france-diary-29401411.html

At one stage he said the numbers weren't out of whack - yes Frankie they were.

Actually Frankie is adding context to the discussion, not unlike what Ross Tucker has said many times

what we need to avoid is what I last year termed “Performance pixellation”, where you look so closely at a single performance, that one ‘pixel’, and then decide what the picture is. Taking a single climb, or even a single rider, and making sweeping judgments on the plausibility of performances goes BEYOND what this method and concept will allow.

Same thing Frankie is saying. Hope this does not put Ross on the "Hit List" I like the guy. Think he does good work.

Frankie has also urged caution on the opposite side of the discussion. Cautioning journalists who will are willing to risk their reputation for a specific rider or push the idea that doping is no longer an issue in the sport

 

[MarkvW]

The holy war continues...

 

[Race Radio]

The holy war continues...

yeah, the religion stuff is just weird.

I really don't see the point of going after Travis because of his religion. It is pretty crazy to claim that Lance being an atheist played a role in his sanction. Dave Z, VDV, JV, Levi, none of them are religious. Del Moral and Celeya are both Catholics.

Seems like a bit of a stretch to go after a guy because of his faith.

 

[blackcat]

Hog, I'm figuring from my last round with you that people take whatever you write with a grain of salt.
The fact remains: Frankie will say on the stand facing perjury that he never saw lance inject himself with something he knew was indubitably a PED. Frankie never saw the transfusions because he was never part of the see-Ferrari-make-millions-dope-to-the-gills buddies.
His affidavit for the usada report states his knowledge of lance's doping adding to the extent that he knew it - which is far different than the people who partook in it with lance - about slew of pills lance was bragging he would take during a race.
Let's just keep things in perspective, shall we?

i wasnever inside the sport, or in a professional sport, but to me that sounds mighty mealy mouthed. because i infer that Frankie may have, or had seen, Lance inject himself with something? Just iron? vitamin b? But if Frankie sees Lance inject himself, where does this lead this conversation with The Hog? Are we talking about complicity in Lance's doping?

I am not intimating anything like the Levi and Floyd love in when they were at Phonak and Gerolsteiner and they were both helping each other get their blood bags set up and transfusion like space age monkeys being bled out. But i am just doing the devil's advocate on a pretty trivial part of the detail there

 

[elizab]

The holy war continues...

The only reason this is even an issue is because people are making it into something it's not. They could've taken Travis' nationality and made it into an issue just because they have a beef with him. Being Christian is an easy target for people who hate religion.

i wasnever inside the sport, or in a professional sport, but to me that sounds mighty mealy mouthed..... But i am just doing the devil's advocate on a pretty trivial part of the detail there

Let me ask you something, blackcat, if you see a married man on your team walking into a hotel room at night with a woman who is not his wife and you're asked by the soon-to-be ex's lawyer if you know for a fact your buddy had secks what do you answer? You don't know. If you're asked only to answer the question with FACTS. What if your buddy had a happy ending massage? You can't say can you.

 

[blackcat]

Let me ask you something, blackcat, if you see a married man on your team walking into a hotel room at night with a woman who is not his wife and you're asked by the soon-to-be ex's lawyer if you know for a fact your buddy had secks what do you answer? You don't know. If you're asked only to answer the question with FACTS. What if your buddy had a happy ending massage? You can't say can you.

well, the lawyer should ask a question that is not the binary yes-no.

did you see this person walk into the room with this woman? the ambiguity would be then left to those who were told he saw this person. if I am told i saw Lance injecting, I would put the inverse position, "do you know what was in that ampoule or hypodermic barrel?"

instead of, did you see Lance inject PEDs? I may not know what is in the barrel. So a better interrogation by counsel would be, "did you see Lance inject some substance?". Then you can answer in the affirmative, but you may still leave open room for interpretation.


I just dont know how common injecting onesself is in pro sport with vitamins and iron. Seems a bit freaky to me. Evenmore so, when teams have professioanl doctors and most races have doctors and if you are not at 100% there is only potential damage if you are riding thru ill health

just a devils advocate

 

[MarkvW]

well, the lawyer should ask a question that is not the binary yes-no.

did you see this person walk into the room with this woman? the ambiguity would be then left to those who were told he saw this person. if I am told i saw Lance injecting, I would put the inverse position, "do you know what was in that ampoule or hypodermic barrel?"

instead of, did you see Lance inject PEDs? I may not know what is in the barrel. So a better interrogation by counsel would be, "did you see Lance inject some substance?". Then you can answer in the affirmative, but you may still leave open room for interpretation.


I just dont know how common injecting onesself is in pro sport with vitamins and iron. Seems a bit freaky to me. Evenmore so, when teams have professioanl doctors and most races have doctors and if you are not at 100% there is only potential damage if you are riding thru ill health

just a devils advocate

You can fault Frankie for being a whore for the professional cycling business and his refusal to speak out more against Armstrong's (and others') doping. That's a fairly debatable subject.

But you can't fault the man's honesty. He was subpoenaed. He responded. He was asked questions under oath and nobody has suggested that he did anything other than answer those questions completely and truthfully. Just because he doesn't go full-on Vaughters (and get attacked all over the place here) is no reason to attack his truthfulness.

 

[elizab]

You can fault Frankie for being a whore for the professional cycling business and his refusal to speak out more against Armstrong's (and others') doping. That's a fairly debatable subject.

But you can't fault the man's honesty. He was subpoenaed. He responded. He was asked questions under oath and nobody has suggested that he did anything other than answer those questions completely and truthfully. Just because he doesn't go full-on Vaughters (and get attacked all over the place here) is no reason to attack his truthfulness.

Thanks, Mark W. The thing is Frankie couldn't speak out about the doping lance et al did because he was NOT part of it. no transfusions, steroids, testosterone, hgh, etc. So how can he speak about something he didn't know???

Reading Dan Coyle's book "The Secret Race" was revelatory. *Lots of "holy ***!"s

One thing I've learned is you have to eat a lot of salt with someone to really know who they are.

 

[Race Radio]

One if the smarter things Lance did was to not bring Frankie into the "blood brothers"

Doubt Frankie would have been quite about the transfusions in 2000 if he had known of them

 

[Jeremiah]

Well if you want to claim there has been no change in bike weights, race tactics or even training techniques since the 1980s, go right ahead. Live in denial all you want. I am sure your hero Ross Tucker would disagree.

Instead of trying to throw some lame deflection, how about actually addressing the points I raised.

For the record I don't believe the times from the 80s would be near the current level but then Quintana's time for Alpe d'Huez is almost 2 mins slower than Armstong's best(non-TT) and over a minute slower than Landis. Whether Quintana is doped or not, I think he is one of the greatest climbers of all time yet you look and see guys like Levi, Menchov and Kloeden who all went faster up Alpe d'Huez.

Comparing times and watts can be useful, but without context it's pointless and that is where Tucker's analysis(and many others) is lacking.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2008/nov/18/lancearmstrong-cycling-tourdefrance-donaldmcrae

And did you say why? No1 the human body evolves, training evolves, we improve over time. Duh! Shocker. Two. The suits. The Technology - it's a huge advantage. No3 - the pool. That pool was clearly faster than my neighbourhood swimming pool. Phelps was clearly motivated and all of that stuff makes up for superhuman performances but no one says anything about that. If you go up L'Alpe d'Huez faster than anyone else then it's a case of clearly you've cheated. Another example - 1999 my climbing bike weighed 21 pounds. 2005 - 14 pounds. They make so much of the average speed - this is the fastest tour so clearly they doped. That's an easy thing to say. The tough to thing is to say they repaved every road on the Tour de France this year, they took out traffic islands, they rode deep dish aerodynamic where the bike is 10% faster. Hello? You're gonna ride faster. All that adds to higher speed.

LOL

 

[DirtyWorks]

But you can't fault the man's honesty. He was subpoenaed. He responded. He was asked questions under oath and nobody has suggested that he did anything other than answer those questions completely and truthfully. Just because he doesn't go full-on Vaughters (and get attacked all over the place here) is no reason to attack his truthfulness.

Clarification for the casual reader, he revealed doping in the WSJ, was treated as hostile by the sport's actors prior to what later became the USADA's reasoned decision. The courage it took to do that, in the environment of the time, was enormous. And yet, some still attack. It's why the sport's doping problems are as much at the fan level as at the UCI.

I entirely forgot he was actually the athlete representative at USA Cycling at the time.
Thom and Steve Johsnon got right onto cleaning up the sport after the WSJ article.... Oh wait, Steve and Thom did exactly nothing.