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

[DirtyWorks]

Well, if you want to assume 65 kg with no loss of power, you can get his V02max up to 94, based on 6.1 l reported/estimated by Coyle

You lost me at Coyle. That work is not credible. It served some purpose, but a scientific reference was not it. And I don't even understand it to your level. IMO, referring to it only confuses any other thing.

The document DW linked reports a HT in the upper 40s, which is very hard to reconcile with the much lower HT in his published passport data.

IMO, the data, assuming it's real, will be almost impossible to reconcile with passport data given the amount of doping he did for 10+ years.

 

[DirtyWorks]

You can easily get Lance's weight lower.

Can you explain how?

 

[blackcat]

Can you explain how?

diet? ricecakes?

gluten free?

 

[elapid]

... LA achieved a large increase in power not through any significant increase in absolute V02max, but through weight loss and efficiency increase.

The trouble with Coyle's claim is that all of LA's measured weights, both pre and post 1999, were 74-79kg. In fact, his highest weight was post-1999. The only weight lower than this was not measured by Coyle, but self-reported by LA and unverified as 72kg. So there is no evidence of weight loss unless you believe what LA tells you.

 

[python]

i totally fail to understand what the endless discussions about the culprit's weight are aimed at ?

he coulda/woulda/shoulda 68 kg, 70kg ? who gives a fork

there is not one single source, including the controversial coyle that would bring him that low. none. and if he could have reached that low, he would be the subject of the laws of human physiology - not the fantasies and whims of his fans.

if he did get that far below his NATURALLY healthy racing weigh, he'd not only lose power almost in direct proportion to his lean mass (a physiological certainty), in fact, he'd undermine his health and immunity and then (in quick succession) lose recovery, become over trained and soon fall sick.


otoh, as was conclusively shown by hard trending data, collected over a span of at least a 5 year (a huge chunk of time in the maturation curve of any professional rider) he was CONSISTENTLY shown unremarkable in one of the most important markers of athletic potential - an athletic talent if you will - watts at lactic/anaerobic threshold.

over the 5 years of available data he stayed at the consistent sub par 340-350 watts. period... 20 yo, 24 yo, fat, lean, fit, off-season...did not matter.

in fact, according to the testers own opinion, during the 1993 testing he was close to his performance peak for the season...still scored so low that they noted in writing, he needed another 50 watts to compete at the top itt level.

the forker was good, perhaps quite good, but please get off the dream liner and trust hard data.

little to no evidence that his talent was naturally superman- or above dozens of other elite riders - and plenty of evidence that hard doping made him.

the only question left, at least for me, why other dopers got trumped so easily...

 

[blackcat]

actually python, all these bio indicators, would actually give pause to Armstrong being the best competitor known to man in any sport. Yes, he may have doped thru the roof and undermined and put his health at risk.

but if he was just an ordinary pro for his markers, the guy could compete like God, and I am an atheist. This is where Prance StrongArm does deserve some credit. Yes, might have borderline personality disorder and be on the spectrum of sociopathy, but gees, could this man compete. That, is, 'respect.

 

[Benotti69]

i totally fail to understand what the endless discussions about the culprit's weight are aimed at ?

he coulda/woulda/shoulda 68 kg, 70kg ? who gives a fork

there is not one single source, including the controversial coyle that would bring him that low. none. and if he could have reached that low, he would be the subject of the laws of human physiology - not the fantasies and whims of his fans.

if he did get that far below his NATURALLY healthy racing weigh, he'd not only lose power almost in direct proportion to his lean mass (a physiological certainty), in fact, he'd undermine his health and immunity and then (in quick succession) lose recovery, become over trained and soon fall sick.


otoh, as was conclusively shown by hard trending data, collected over a span of at least a 5 year (a huge chunk of time in the maturation curve of any professional rider) he was CONSISTENTLY shown unremarkable in one of the most important markers of athletic potential - an athletic talent if you will - watts at lactic/anaerobic threshold.

over the 5 years of available data he stayed at the consistent sub par 340-350 watts. period... 20 yo, 24 yo, fat, lean, fit, off-season...did not matter.

in fact, according to the testers own opinion, during the 1993 testing he was close to his performance peak for the season...still scored so low that they noted in writing, he needed another 50 watts to compete at the top itt level.

the forker was good, perhaps quite good, but please get off the dream liner and trust hard data.

little to no evidence that his talent was naturally superman- or above dozens of other elite riders - and plenty of evidence that hard doping made him.

the only question left, at least for me, why other dopers got trumped so easily...

Hein can no doubt answer that one.............

 

[DirtyWorks]

i totally fail to understand what the endless discussions about the culprit's weight are aimed at ?

he coulda/woulda/shoulda 68 kg, 70kg ? who gives a fork

It radically changes the Watts/Kilo ratio. IMO, Ferrari's (?) greatest contribution was reducing a grand tour podium to the greatest W/Kilo ratio.

little to no evidence that his talent was naturally superman- or above dozens of other elite riders - and plenty of evidence that hard doping made him.

Which, is what I've argued all along.

Maybe I'm reading MI wrong, I think the only question left is the biological details of how a grand tour podium happened despite these numbers.

the only question left, at least for me, why other dopers got trumped so easily...

The simplest answer is it's understood that if you are not Wonderboy, then anti-doping rules MIGHT apply. But, that doesn't quite work because of so many super-fueled times on climbs.

We know Julich was on page 1. Who else is tested?

 

[DirtyWorks]

but if he was just an ordinary pro for his markers, the guy could compete like God, and I am an atheist. This is where Prance StrongArm does deserve some credit.

But, there's no data to support his ability to compete. You would have to throw out most of what's understood about human performance and basic physics if he's suddenly able to generate and *ENORMOUS* increase in power despite not-so-elite testing doping or not.

At least, that is my understanding reading MI's posts on the topic.

To be clear the difference in power between a grand tour podium place and places 5-10 is quite large on the physics of defeating gravity and air alone.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Wonderboy got an interview!

I read it through some translation trickery, so I probably missed quite a bit. Just like the UCI, he's moved on. Turned the page... Not his fault.

http://kiosque.leditiondusoir.fr/data/361/reader/reader.html#preferred/1/package/361/pub/362/page/12

 

[Kicker661]

Well, if you want to assume 65 kg with no loss of power, would get him up to 6.4 watts/kg, and fairly consistent with his best climbs. E.g., that corresponds to an ADH climb of roughly 38 minutes.

Thanks for all the data and comments, very insightful.

At the end of the day the guy and those around him lied for over a decade. You can't trust the data because it's leading you to a different result to what he achieved in the real world. Therefore the data is bad, especially his claimed race weight. For all we know when tested he held back on purpose to not chuck up good data? It's a possibility. Look how secretive Team SKY are about Froome's data.

Are you sure of Ben's weight ?
If you have a look on NBA players' weights it's incorrect!

Yep. He looked much larger than what he actually weighed because of the shape of muscle bellies. I believe people stated him around 215lbs but that was miles off.

Maurice Greene is 5'10 and 75kg and looks more jacked than Johnson. The 100m sprinters aren't huge because too much muscle slows them down as it reduces their strike power.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. Being very lean gives the impression of being massive. If you look at the men's physique 75kg category most guys are around the 5'10 mark @ sub 5%. Compare with Lance's shirt off pics when he was race weight in the TDF. You could go one further and look at Rowan Row - 6ft, 70kg @ sub 4% BF. Rowan is jacked vs Lance.

 

[gooner]

Showtime in the US will be airing the Stop at Nothing on Friday 9pm. Many European broadcasters have also acquired rights to it.

http://news.abccommercial.com/post/101729675592/stop-at-nothing-the-lance-armstrong-story-to-air-on

 

[python]

.... For all we know when tested he held back on purpose to not chuck up good data? It's a possibility. Look how secretive Team SKY are about Froome's data.

dont conflate, YOU with US.

all YOU know is what YOUR imagination thru YOUR picture viewing tells YOU.

what WE know, and this was linked to and posted multiple times,is that armstrong could not hold back when his heart rate was maxed at 200, when he quit pushing at 500 watts during the vo2 test (though he always claimed 600), that he could not sustained 32 mph (even for one kilometer) when timed and maxed on a track...that he generated submaximal 340-350 watts times and again.

invest in understanding judicially binding data in stead of looking at misleading imagery and you will stop confusing US with YOU.

 

[Merckx index]

You lost me at Coyle. That work is not credible. It served some purpose, but a scientific reference was not it. And I don't even understand it to your level. IMO, referring to it only confuses any other thing.

I’m not supporting Coyle, I’m pointing out what Coyle’s claim was. And I’m also noting that even if we accept this claim of a large increase in efficiency, and combine this with the numbers in the document you provided, we still don’t get an FTP that accounts for LA’s best climbing times. Remember, those times were real--the most reliable data we have here. We can argue all day about what LA’s weight was, what his efficiency was, what his V02max was, what his lactate threshold was—but he really did put out power considerably in excess of 6 watts/kg on some climbs. That has to be explained.

The value of this document, and yes, of Coyle’s work, is providing insight into how this was accomplished. While Coyle’s claim of a high efficiency has been heavily criticized, there is no reason not to believe an absolute V02max of 6.1. That value is consistent with the numbers in the document you linked to, in fact, the latter implies an even higher value. In that document, LA’s relative V02max was reported to be 80. With a body weight of 78 kilos, that works out to about 6.25 for absolute V02max.

But again, a relative V02max of 80 simply does not explain his climbing times. If we take 85% as the maximum lactate threshold—and again, Coyle and the other document are in fairly close agreement here—and if we accept Coyle’s 23% efficiency—not because it’s necessarily correct, but because, again, we’re trying to explain the actual times that he did record—we need a much higher relative V02max--more than 90. The only ways to get it are to assume a much lower racing weight, or a much higher V02max than was recorded by either Coyle or in that other document.

My guess is his racing weight was a little lower than in those documents, say 72-74 kg., combined with a much higher absolute V02max (> 6.5), the result of blood doping to a degree that he did not do when he was subjected to all those measurements. I agree with Python that he couldn't have lost much weight from what was recorded in those documents without a loss in power--this is the same logic I used earlier to criticize Froome--so the only other possibility is a much higher absolute V02max while racing than was ever recorded in the lab. He would have achieved this through blood doping, something he probably wasn't doing during most of those lab tests.

But again, that still leaves us with the HT discrepancy, which certainly suggests he was blood doping during those tests. So maybe he was just doping a lot more during racing, and on some kind of maintenance in the offseason, I don't know. That high HT is a real puzzle to me, and frankly, I wonder why if he was on record in the passport as low 40s, they were unaware of earlier tests in which he was in the high 40s.

 

[D-Queued]

...

otoh, as was conclusively shown by hard trending data, collected over a span of at least a 5 year (a huge chunk of time in the maturation curve of any professional rider) he was CONSISTENTLY shown unremarkable in one of the most important markers of athletic potential - an athletic talent if you will - watts at lactic/anaerobic threshold.

over the 5 years of available data he stayed at the consistent sub par 340-350 watts. period... 20 yo, 24 yo, fat, lean, fit, off-season...did not matter.

...

I love that you keep highlighting this. It makes me feel really good about my own performance.

What a donkey.

Dave.

 

[ChrisE]

So what are we talking here to explain all of this? Bionics? Spinach? Radioactive spider?

 

[D-Queued]

So what are we talking here to explain all of this? Bionics? Spinach? Radioactive spider?

No.

The man traded in his Detroit clunker and got a Ferrari.

Dave.

 

[ralphbert]

but if he was just an ordinary pro for his markers, the guy could compete like God, and I am an atheist.

It should give the average Fred hope, if you are willing to do anything necessary then you can be a world beater too. Top percentile physiology not required.

 

[python]

what was it ?

...when i asked JV, he said something like 'we'll never know' (the actual quote must be still some place in his thread). i think he has some good guesses he's reluctant to go public with...

in reality, the answer must be in NOT having some single miracle product, rather, in the superiority of one's doping SYSTEM...

the system must include several things...such as, the AMOUNT of dope (for ex. 3 blood bags vs 1 in a grand tour), the superiority of masking/avoidance techniques (the uci corruption included), the unique individual responsiveness to a given drug (any hospital anaesthesiologist will concur)..perhaps something else i cant quite think up atm...of course, these things, particularly the chemicals, are inter-connected.

based on the testing evidence that armstrong was a particularly good responder to altitude (haemoglobin saturation), i speculate he was a superior responder to most forms of blood doping (the exact mechanism, though intuitively sound, may be illusive)

in the same vane, given armstrong's own impaired testosterone production, i speculate that copious anabolic steroids (which are all testosterone derivatives) might have played a special role. that testo is a must for rejuvenation and recovery has been known since the 50s. and that grand tours are about the superior recovery...has been known for..100 years.

and so on. all speculation but...

 

[DirtyWorks]

It should give the average Fred hope, if you are willing to do anything necessary then you can be a world beater too. Top percentile physiology not required.

You need a national federation owner as your boss who has some kind of mancrush on you so the entire sport revolves around one donkey. And then your boss' boss to be all in too. Then it is on!!

Which, gets me thinking about Lapartient's arrival and a few short months later, French riders are gracing a slower podium.

 

[Race Radio]

More filings in the Qui Tam case today. Lance's lawyers want access to the Grand Jury evidence the Government has. The Feds say no. Lawyers drop to the ground, kicking and screaming, like a 5 year old who can't get the box of Coco Puffs they wanted at the super market. 120 pages of Waaaaaaaa

While none of the interviews are public the Feds submitted some more interviews. Hendershot. Micheal Ball. Pat McIlvain (Stephanie's Husband) and some guy named Dr. Robert Przybelski.

Who was Dr. Robert Przybelski? He was the director of hemoglobin therapeutics at Baxter in the late '90s....mmmmm, Hemassist.

 

[old.edu]

Robert Przybelski is mentioned in the following CN article.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/experts-call-armstrong-hemassist-connection-unlikely

 

[Bluenote]

So what are we talking here to explain all of this? Bionics? Spinach? Radioactive spider?

Here, I think this'll explain it to you.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/10/news/usadas-armstrong-reasoned-decision-full-text_256618

 

[poupou]

If I remember it correctly, Lance said in his SCA testimony that he raced all TDF around 74kg!

 

[D-Queued]

If I remember it correctly, Lance said in his SCA testimony that he raced all TDF around 74kg!

Okay, give me an hour or two and I will try and find a reference in the testimony.

Dave.