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

[TomLPC]

"Lets get Uran on the podcast and ask him how much Vino paid him for that gold medal"

 

[absolutely_not]

Re:

Thank you Aragon - I was lazy to go after this one.

People forget that while the reasoned decision made a very good job to show that Armstrong did use PED, it did a very poor job to show he doped more than others riders, or with more powerfull products, or with more help from UCI than others.
Even the CIRC could only come up with McQuaid allowing Armstrong to ride in Australia in exchange from Armstrong riding in Ireland. We are very far from those urban legends that Armstrong was exclusively protected by UCI or that he played a part in Landis or Hamilton testing positive.

Not saying that it definitly didn't happen. But so far those stories remain just that : legends supported by nothing concrete

"the most sophisticated doping program in the History os sports"
It most likely wasn't even the most sophisticated doping program in cyclism those years :lol:

And if we talk only about quantity, a rider like Hamilton for exemple was a far bigger doper than Armstrong.

Speaking of Hamilton - Armstrong talked about the famous Beloki crash in his podcast today and at 42m25 he was talking about Hamilton when the feed got lost. Too bad! I'm curious what he said. To me he seems to suggest Hamilton was overplaying his broken collarbone.
Weird from Armstrong if I got this right
What it even the good arm?

The vid :arrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baGM5Lxmw8I

 

[86TDFWinner]

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

This made me LOL, he tries so hard to stay relevant :lol:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/531a00d7-6910-329b-954e-96b0ca264bf3/ss_lance-armstrong%3A-%27a-man-with.html

 

[Aragon]

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

[T]here's also been speculation he might have played a role (at least influentially, maybe moreso) in the positives of FLandis and El Pistolero.

I've never quite figured out why Lance would've wanted his old teammates to get busted as they knew about his secrets also. He himself insisted that the French lab that busted Landis was incompetent and Landis himself has told that the USADA wanted him to rat out Lance almost the minute he tested positive in 2006. It is true that there was some speculation in 2006 that he didn't want Landis to win the Tour, but that is a different issue.

He didn't even seem to have used all the opportunities to go after his former teammates. According to Tyler Hamilton, Lance even knew about Fuentes and his blood clinic quite early on. If he truly would've wanted to get rid of most part of his opponents, he could've simply busted the Madrid clinic instead of bitching and whining to Hein Verbruggen about Hamilton's OFF-Scores in 2004. Apparently he didn't do that.

Tyler Hamilton also tells that Lance borderline hated Jonathan Vaughters after he left the USPS and considered him "the king choad" who was "the worst kind of hypocrite in Lance's eyes because he'd used his Postal results to sign a big two-year contract with Crédit Agricole" and "suddenly JV was Mister Clean, moaning about doping, proclaiming his righteousness".

Still Jonathan Vaughters tells that Lance possibly saved him from testing positive when he had a good opportunity to give him misinformation:

96. Later in 2001 I had a conversation with a friend about a new EPO product called "Aranesp" my friend said he could get some but that it was expensive. I asked Lance about Aranesp and he told me that he would not touch it with a ten foot pole. Lance said it was a totally different molecule from EPO and that it would be easy to find when they go looking for it. That conversation saved me some money and, sure enough, at the 2002 Winter Olympics a number of athletes were detected using Aranesp.

Again, this is not to claim that there aren't some troubling aspects in his behaviour, but I am not fully convinced about the particular claim about him colluding with the UCI in order to bust his former USPS friends.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

HOWEVER, the one thing that was never cleared in the Armstrong case was if Lance was tipped off before out of competition tests. There has been some reports:

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/12726/AFLD-claims-Armstrong-was-regularly-tipped-off-about-tests.aspx

But I feel like CN forums and others has soundly failed in this part of the Armstrong story. If he was tipped off, then by who? There are multiple organizations that do tests, WADA, USADA, AFLD and perhaps even more. Did he have people everywhere? Or are there a central unit (the UCI) that has information of all the different organizers and knows when they aim to test riders? Thus making it possible to gain all the necessary information through one source?

Others have failed? It's in the bloody USADA report. Try reading it.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Aragon, you do have a point. Pharmstrong is cycling's Bogeyman. Which at least partly is by his own making with the perpetual lying and coyness. He's made himself a magnet to suspicions by behaving suspiciously.

But exclusive of FLandis and Contador, there also was his former mechanic, Mike Anderson (who fled to New Zealand to escape Pharmstrong's persecution) and his former soigneur, Emma O'Reilly. There is no doubt but that he hounded the both of them in a manner most people would consider malicious despite the both of them having direct knowledge of his doping practices. Your mistake, I think, is expecting to find some correlation between Pharmstrong's behaviour and what is regarded as "normal."

 

[thehog]

Re:

Aragon, you do have a point. Pharmstrong is cycling's Bogeyman. Which at least partly is by his own making with the perpetual lying and coyness. He's made himself a magnet to suspicions by behaving suspiciously.

But exclusive of FLandis and Contador, there also was his former mechanic, Mike Anderson (who fled to New Zealand to escape Pharmstrong's persecution) and his former soigneur, Emma O'Reilly. There is no doubt but that he hounded the both of them in a manner most people would consider malicious despite the both of them having direct knowledge of his doping practices. Your mistake, I think, is expecting to find some correlation between Pharmstrong's behaviour and what is regarded as "normal."

O'Reilly tells people now "to get over it". I think many have carried it on too long. The guy is suspended for life. He is not coming back.

Although his podcast is good because he calls out BS, which is sadly lacking in today's sports commentary. Armstrong has a book on the way so the Race Radio types will be crying in their sleep for sometime yet.

 

[aphronesis]

Uh huh. Armstrong messed with people during the avaricious Bush bubble. Froome offs baby animals and its all cool.

 

[eleven]

I listened to a few of the Stages podcasts and, as I said earlier, usually found them pretty entertaining and occasionally insightful -certainly better than most TdF coverage.

On the other hand, FFS do some homework beforehand. Stage 21 and Lance and his compadre still don't know if there are bonus seconds for intermediate sprints? That the route goes around L'Arc? How to pronounce the names of some riders in breakaways? Sometimes Armstrong sounded as if he couldn't be bothered to do some basic research or spend a second over the allotted time in order to finish a point. The stage 21 'recap' was as brief as it was dull. Barely a word about the Tour as a whole.

 

[Aragon]

Re:

Your mistake, I think, is expecting to find some correlation between Pharmstrong's behaviour and what is regarded as "normal."

I don't dispute that there are some troubling aspects in Armstrong's behaviour, many of his teammates and his associates have testified that he could be a bully. And as Armstrong has himself admitted, he indeed went too far in suing many people and calling Bassons all kind of names during the 1999 Tour. My point is perhaps that because it is easy to find negative material about him, there is no reason to succumb to use the unsupported material.

I am mostly interested about level playing field, and from that viewpoint, the lawsuits aren't that relevant. One could even make the claim that if you don't respond to the allegations (by O'Reilly, Walsh) in any way, you are implicitly admitting that the accusations are sound.

In the end, there are some items that I find truly troubling and I would change my opinion about him instantly to significantly more negative one if any of the following will be proven accurate:

1) Allegedly trying to bribe cyclists to testify that they knew about LeMond having used rEPO. As far as I know, LeMond hasn't followed this serious accusation at all in legal manners.
2) Having a hand in the Landis's transfusion-gone-wrong in 2005 when FL stored his blood at the Dr. Del Moral clinic.
3) Possibly tipping off police about Fuentes's courier delivering blood to his rivals at the 2004 Tour de France.

 

[absolutely_not]

Good list Aragon, tho I don't know who is making the 2) and 3) claims

I would add
4) Really being the one who introduced mechanical doping to the peloton in 98 as tried to claim Lemond/Betsy/Varjas as it would entirely and irrevocably disminish his performances on bike (doping didn't do that as far as I'm concerned. It's not his fault doping was mandatory to be a pro in his time)

 

[Aragon]

Re:

Good list Aragon, tho I don't know who is making the 2) and 3) claims

I would add
4) Really being the one who introduced mechanical doping to the peloton in 98 as tried to claim Lemond/Betsy/Varjas as it would entirely and irrevocably disminish his performances on bike (doping didn't do that as far as I'm concerned. It's not his fault doping was mandatory to be a pro in his time)

The possibility of claim 2 has been brought up in the Juliet Macur's Cycle of Lies. I think the source is Allen Lim and it isn't that clear whether Landis really thought so or whether it was a "reconstructed" memory what he might've thought. I am also pretty confident that the book Wheelmen confirms that the botched transfusion took place based on information by someone "familiar" with the matter.

In this light, it is interesting that Landis himself told the following to Paul Kimmage in 2010:

Q: Did you do a blood transfusion in ‘05 that went wrong?
A: Landis: No.
Q: Did you ever do a transfusion that went wrong?
A: No, not that I know of, sometimes they felt more effective than other times but…

http://nyvelocity.com/articles/interviews/landiskimmage/

The item (3) isn't specifically mentioned in Tyler Hamilton's The Secret Race, but he tells that Fuentes told him that his courier had to dump his blood supplies because he was to be stopped by the French police during the 2004 TDF. Hamilton mentions also being very suspicious when he heard the same happening to the blood refills of Ullrich. He is not all that clear what to think about it in the book, but I've seen (or heard) a Q&A where he specifically tells that he thought that Lance had indeed something to do with the thing.
(I have a very little sources to refer to, because working from my memory)

To tell the truth, I haven't followed too closely that motor thing, but that would definitely be the item four in the list. And it is telling about the guy and about what is told about him that I had to think literally like a minute to come up with those three items of which all are quite damning.

 

[Pennino]

Re: Re:

Good list Aragon, tho I don't know who is making the 2) and 3) claims

I would add
4) Really being the one who introduced mechanical doping to the peloton in 98 as tried to claim Lemond/Betsy/Varjas as it would entirely and irrevocably disminish his performances on bike (doping didn't do that as far as I'm concerned. It's not his fault doping was mandatory to be a pro in his time)

The possibility of claim 2 has been brought up in the Juliet Macur's Cycle of Lies. I think the source is Allen Lim and it isn't that clear whether Landis really thought so or whether it was a "reconstructed" memory what he might've thought. I am also pretty confident that the book Wheelmen confirms that the botched transfusion took place based on information by someone "familiar" with the matter.

In this light, it is interesting that Landis himself told the following to Paul Kimmage in 2010:

Q: Did you do a blood transfusion in ‘05 that went wrong?
A: Landis: No.
Q: Did you ever do a transfusion that went wrong?
A: No, not that I know of, sometimes they felt more effective than other times but…

http://nyvelocity.com/articles/interviews/landiskimmage/

The item (3) isn't specifically mentioned in Tyler Hamilton's The Secret Race, but he tells that Fuentes told him that his courier had to dump his blood supplies because he was to be stopped by the French police during the 2004 TDF. Hamilton mentions also being very suspicious when he heard the same happening to the blood refills of Ullrich. He is not all that clear what to think about it in the book, but I've seen (or heard) a Q&A where he specifically tells that he thought that Lance had indeed something to do with the thing.
(I have a very little sources to refer to, because working from my memory)

To tell the truth, I haven't followed too closely that motor thing, but that would definitely be the item four in the list. And it is telling about the guy and about what is told about him that I had to think literally like a minute to come up with those three items of which all are quite damning.

As far as I can remember, he stated literally "Lance had offered two of his pawns in exchange for the queen", like in a game of chess. He told one of his Fuentes guys just to cancel the delivery so all these blood bags became suddenly worthless.

To me it was the most saddening part of the book. Doping and all that stuff: doesn't matter. But manipulating the level playing field that way... makes me sad.

 

[B_Ugli]

I never buy the whole 'everyone was doping so it was a level playing field' argument insofar as it relates to Armstrong. Tyler Hamilton alludes in his book to the enhanced program he believed Armstrong was on with Ferrari and in one part states quite clearly how a few weeks before the Tour Armstrong was out of shape on training rides and then after some visits to Ferrari tearing everyones legs off.

This says to me that he was (a) using something others didn't have access to or (b) a motor or (c) both.

The most chilling account I think is in Walsh's book where he describes LA attending the Cofidis team presentation in Nice then driving around the coast to see Ferrari in Italy. This is days after he was staring death in the face in an oncology ward. The account of this speaks volume as to the nature of Ferrari and Armstrongs relationship.

IMHO i think that Armstrong was a Frankenstein character who was willing to let Ferrari test/try/use/experiment anything on him, no matter how harmful - that above else was what gave him the advantage.

Its pretty chilling, but I don't think we will ever know the full extent of it.

 

[absolutely_not]

Re: Re:

Good list Aragon, tho I don't know who is making the 2) and 3) claims

I would add
4) Really being the one who introduced mechanical doping to the peloton in 98 as tried to claim Lemond/Betsy/Varjas as it would entirely and irrevocably disminish his performances on bike (doping didn't do that as far as I'm concerned. It's not his fault doping was mandatory to be a pro in his time)

The possibility of claim 2 has been brought up in the Juliet Macur's Cycle of Lies. I think the source is Allen Lim and it isn't that clear whether Landis really thought so or whether it was a "reconstructed" memory what he might've thought. I am also pretty confident that the book Wheelmen confirms that the botched transfusion took place based on information by someone "familiar" with the matter.

In this light, it is interesting that Landis himself told the following to Paul Kimmage in 2010:

Q: Did you do a blood transfusion in ‘05 that went wrong?
A: Landis: No.
Q: Did you ever do a transfusion that went wrong?
A: No, not that I know of, sometimes they felt more effective than other times but…

http://nyvelocity.com/articles/interviews/landiskimmage/

The item (3) isn't specifically mentioned in Tyler Hamilton's The Secret Race, but he tells that Fuentes told him that his courier had to dump his blood supplies because he was to be stopped by the French police during the 2004 TDF. Hamilton mentions also being very suspicious when he heard the same happening to the blood refills of Ullrich. He is not all that clear what to think about it in the book, but I've seen (or heard) a Q&A where he specifically tells that he thought that Lance had indeed something to do with the thing.
(I have a very little sources to refer to, because working from my memory)

To tell the truth, I haven't followed too closely that motor thing, but that would definitely be the item four in the list. And it is telling about the guy and about what is told about him that I had to think literally like a minute to come up with those three items of which all are quite damning.

Yeah. But when it comes to Armstrong, people are often ready to assume the worst motives by him without feeling the need to support them with any evidences.
A bit like the "he forced people to dope" or "he had better dope" or "he has special protection by UCI others didn't have"

I don't know if Floys Landis thinks Lance Armstrong had anything to do with him testing positive in 2006. With the number of people here who are said to be in contact with him (digger, vayerism, damianomachavelli) it's a pity that we don't get to know what are his beliefs on why he tested positive.
What we do know is that Landis never venture himself into accusing or even implying that Armstrong was responsable. Even tho Landis suffer a great lack of popularity right now and such a story could help him a great deal in the coming legal case agaisnt Armstrong.
There just seems to be no objective evidence right here expect the desire to blame everything on one guy and the "we can't proove that he didn't do it so why not"

Same goes with 3) and Hamilton. In his book he implied that Armstrong had secret PED, that he hacked his computer,that he denounced other people... But Hamilton throwing some accusations at the star rider in order to disminish his own sins is not a proove.

Again,not saying that it definitely didn't happen. But rumors started by grudge,paranoia or jealousy are not enough. Someone give me something more substential and then we're talking

 

[absolutely_not]

Re:

I never buy the whole 'everyone was doping so it was a level playing field' argument insofar as it relates to Armstrong. Tyler Hamilton alludes in his book to the enhanced program he believed Armstrong was on with Ferrari and in one part states quite clearly how a few weeks before the Tour Armstrong was out of shape on training rides and then after some visits to Ferrari tearing everyones legs off.

This says to me that he was (a) using something others didn't have access to or (b) a motor or (c) both.

The most chilling account I think is in Walsh's book where he describes LA attending the Cofidis team presentation in Nice then driving around the coast to see Ferrari in Italy. This is days after he was staring death in the face in an oncology ward. The account of this speaks volume as to the nature of Ferrari and Armstrongs relationship.

IMHO i think that Armstrong was a Frankenstein character who was willing to let Ferrari test/try/use/experiment anything on him, no matter how harmful - that above else was what gave him the advantage.

Its pretty chilling, but I don't think we will ever know the full extent of it.

Here we go.
This contradicts every testimonies we ever had on Ferrari and his doping program. All ex-riders/clients we know about all say Ferrari was a genious but very conservative with doping.
No one during their time at the US Postal described anything that could support that.

But hey! Why not?

 

[ScienceIsCool]

How does one be conservative with their doping?

John Swanson

 

[absolutely_not]

Re:

How does one be conservative with their doping?

John Swanson

In many ways

The quantity and the frequence one takes ped for exemple.

Hamilton was known among his peers to take a large amount of ped all year round.
Many ex-clients of Ferrari described how he adviced them to take just the right amount of ped at the good moment instead of lots of it.
Vaughters explains in one book how he claimed the record of the Mont Ventoux by doping the right way.


Conservative can also mean the kind of product one takes and the risks he is willing to take for his health.

We heard stories about how some spanish teams tried to use homologous transfusion.
IIRC Rassmussen explained how he was willing to try everything. As far as we know, Armstrong and Ferrari stucked to autologous transfusion. We also know that Armstrong stopped HGH after his cancer because they feared that if his cancer ever came back, such product would help the cancer grow. Then the story that Aragon reported days ago about how Armstrong adviced Vaughters to not usea new product because it was too easily detectable.

All of this doesn't paint Ferrari/Armstrong being reckless about doping and trying all kind of experiments.

As always, if someone has any kind of real information about Armstrong being more doped and more careless about doping than the others GC contenders, please feel free to contribute.
Really.
But so far the evidences we have lead to the contrary

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

How does one be conservative with their doping?

John Swanson

In many ways

The quantity and the frequence one takes ped for exemple.

Hamilton was known among his peers to take a large amount of ped all year round.
Many ex-clients of Ferrari described how he adviced them to take just the right amount of ped at the good moment instead of lots of it.
Vaughters explains in one book how he claimed the record of the Mont Ventoux by doping the right way.


Conservative can also mean the kind of product one takes and the risks he is willing to take for his health.

We heard stories about how some spanish teams tried to use homologous transfusion.
IIRC Rassmussen explained how he was willing to try everything. As far as we know, Armstrong and Ferrari stucked to autologous transfusion. We also know that Armstrong stopped HGH after his cancer because they feared that if his cancer ever came back, such product would help the cancer grow. Then the story that Aragon reported days ago about how Armstrong adviced Vaughters to not usea new product because it was too easily detectable.

All of this doesn't paint Ferrari/Armstrong being reckless about doping and trying all kind of experiments.

As always, if someone has any kind of real information about Armstrong being more doped and more careless about doping than the others GC contenders, please feel free to contribute.
Really.
But so far the evidences we have lead to the contrary

All I hear is, conservative = highly managed by a professional to get the optimal results.

That's not conservative at all. If Ferrari said "All EPO all the time!!", then that's what Lance would have done.

John Swanson

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

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

I don't think I ever before have heard anyone refer to Ferrari's doping regimen as "conservative." For starters, this was the man who often remarked that a rider must produce a minimum of 6.7 Watts per kilo to win the TdF. Show me the man who can produce 6.7 W/kg doping "conservatively" and I'll shake his hand and buy him a Daniel Webster seegar.

Ferrari also remained intimately aware of what all the Posties' Hct levels were. In The Secret Race, Hamilton cites a number of times when Ferrari chided him for his Hct being too low, implying that he needed to be LESS conservative and take MORE EPO. And he exhorted the team in general to take ever more (without risking a 'positive') by preaching that it was no more dangerous than orange juice. If he ever tried to rein in riders EPO use when their Hct was yet sub-50, I've never heard tell of it. Although Hamilton did write that Ferrari once gave him up to Pharmstrong for an Hct of 49.7, not because it was too extreme but because on some level it posed a threat to Pharmstrong's superiority.

Ferrari already had done all the requisite "experimentation" under conditions that didn't put his paying clients (or their careers) at risk. What he and Pharmstrong were about was exploiting data Ferrari already had gathered to systemically and incrementally creep up to (but never exceed) the brink of illegality and/or detectability. That involved empirical goals and I doubt non-deterministic words like "conservative" or "extreme" ever entered into their deliberations. There are rules, which they knew by rote. And (for the most part) they had the same medical lab equipment as did WADA, so they could self-test and determine -- empirically -- whether there were any further gains could be made before potentially running afoul of detectability and/or the legal threshold.

That was Ferrari's stock in trade. His riders doped better than anyone else's. Had that not been the case, if he had begun to fall behind because other riders doped better than he, Pharmstrong would not have kept Ferrari around.


Culturally, FLandis had a lot to learn very quickly when he left the farm. And the learning curve got steeper still when the news of his positive doping control broke post the 2006 TdF. He obviously was overwhelmed on all fronts when the story first broke, ergo the aimless "wiki" defense. But in later interviews he clearly had gathered his wits about him and in fact learned to be quite circumspect. In a 2012 interview linked to in another thread in this forum, several times he backs away from questions that would have required speculation on his part, apparently preferring to stick to matters he had certain knowledge of. Quite a different tack on his part.

Plus he also displays a certain droll resignation to the fact that life isn't fair, and pro cycling certainly wasn't fair to him. Now older and wiser, I think he realizes that speculating to the cause of his false positive will only see him labeled a vindictive whinger. So lacking so much as the first scrap of evidence, he keeps his suspicions about any role Pharmstrong might have played in his downfall under his hat.

But it's a classic case of lack of evidence not equaling evidence of lack.

 

[thehog]

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

I don't think I ever before have heard anyone refer to Ferrari's doping regimen as "conservative." For starters, this was the man who often remarked that a rider must produce a minimum of 6.7 Watts per kilo to win the TdF. Show me the man who can produce 6.7 W/kg doping "conservatively" and I'll shake his hand and buy him a Daniel Webster seegar.

Ferrari also remained intimately aware of what all the Posties' Hct levels were. In The Secret Race, Hamilton cites a number of times when Ferrari chided him for his Hct being too low, implying that he needed to be LESS conservative and take MORE EPO. And he exhorted the team in general to take ever more (without risking a 'positive') by preaching that it was no more dangerous than orange juice. If he ever tried to rein in riders EPO use when their Hct was yet sub-50, I've never heard tell of it. Although Hamilton did write that Ferrari once gave him up to Pharmstrong for an Hct of 49.7, not because it was too extreme but because on some level it posed a threat to Pharmstrong's superiority.

Ferrari already had done all the requisite "experimentation" under conditions that didn't put his paying clients (or their careers) at risk. What he and Pharmstrong were about was exploiting data Ferrari already had gathered to systemically and incrementally creep up to (but never exceed) the brink of illegality and/or detectability. That involved empirical goals and I doubt non-deterministic words like "conservative" or "extreme" ever entered into their deliberations. There are rules, which they knew by rote. And (for the most part) they had the same medical lab equipment as did WADA, so they could self-test and determine -- empirically -- whether there were any further gains could be made before potentially running afoul of detectability and/or the legal threshold.

That was Ferrari's stock in trade. His riders doped better than anyone else's. Had that not been the case, if he had begun to fall behind because other riders doped better than he, Pharmstrong would not have kept Ferrari around.


Culturally, FLandis had a lot to learn very quickly when he left the farm. And the learning curve got steeper still when the news of his positive doping control broke post the 2006 TdF. He obviously was overwhelmed on all fronts when the story first broke, ergo the aimless "wiki" defense. But in later interviews he clearly had gathered his wits about him and in fact learned to be quite circumspect. In a 2012 interview linked to in another thread in this forum, several times he backs away from questions that would have required speculation on his part, apparently preferring to stick to matters he had certain knowledge of. Quite a different tack on his part.

Plus he also displays a certain droll resignation to the fact that life isn't fair, and pro cycling certainly wasn't fair to him. Now older and wiser, I think he realizes that speculating to the cause of his false positive will only see him labeled a vindictive whinger. So lacking so much as the first scrap of evidence, he keeps his suspicions about any role Pharmstrong might have played in his downfall under his hat.

But it's a classic case of lack of evidence not equaling evidence of lack.

The reason riders like Ferrari so much is that he is so precise. You can dope to the exact level of not being caught. That is key. Conservative doesn't come into as well as full on doping.

 

[aphronesis]

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

I don't think I ever before have heard anyone refer to Ferrari's doping regimen as "conservative." For starters, this was the man who often remarked that a rider must produce a minimum of 6.7 Watts per kilo to win the TdF. Show me the man who can produce 6.7 W/kg doping "conservatively" and I'll shake his hand and buy him a Daniel Webster seegar.

Ferrari also remained intimately aware of what all the Posties' Hct levels were. In The Secret Race, Hamilton cites a number of times when Ferrari chided him for his Hct being too low, implying that he needed to be LESS conservative and take MORE EPO. And he exhorted the team in general to take ever more (without risking a 'positive') by preaching that it was no more dangerous than orange juice. If he ever tried to rein in riders EPO use when their Hct was yet sub-50, I've never heard tell of it. Although Hamilton did write that Ferrari once gave him up to Pharmstrong for an Hct of 49.7, not because it was too extreme but because on some level it posed a threat to Pharmstrong's superiority.

Ferrari already had done all the requisite "experimentation" under conditions that didn't put his paying clients (or their careers) at risk. What he and Pharmstrong were about was exploiting data Ferrari already had gathered to systemically and incrementally creep up to (but never exceed) the brink of illegality and/or detectability. That involved empirical goals and I doubt non-deterministic words like "conservative" or "extreme" ever entered into their deliberations. There are rules, which they knew by rote. And (for the most part) they had the same medical lab equipment as did WADA, so they could self-test and determine -- empirically -- whether there were any further gains could be made before potentially running afoul of detectability and/or the legal threshold.

That was Ferrari's stock in trade. His riders doped better than anyone else's. Had that not been the case, if he had begun to fall behind because other riders doped better than he, Pharmstrong would not have kept Ferrari around.


Culturally, FLandis had a lot to learn very quickly when he left the farm. And the learning curve got steeper still when the news of his positive doping control broke post the 2006 TdF. He obviously was overwhelmed on all fronts when the story first broke, ergo the aimless "wiki" defense. But in later interviews he clearly had gathered his wits about him and in fact learned to be quite circumspect. In a 2012 interview linked to in another thread in this forum, several times he backs away from questions that would have required speculation on his part, apparently preferring to stick to matters he had certain knowledge of. Quite a different tack on his part.

Plus he also displays a certain droll resignation to the fact that life isn't fair, and pro cycling certainly wasn't fair to him. Now older and wiser, I think he realizes that speculating to the cause of his false positive will only see him labeled a vindictive whinger. So lacking so much as the first scrap of evidence, he keeps his suspicions about any role Pharmstrong might have played in his downfall under his hat.

But it's a classic case of lack of evidence not equaling evidence of lack.

The reason riders like Ferrari so much is that he is so precise. You can dope to the exact level of not being caught. That is key. Conservative doesn't come into as well as full on doping.

Weird how years later people can't sort their vitriol and morals. Let's call it responsible doping?

 

[absolutely_not]

Re: Re:

How does one be conservative with their doping?

John Swanson

In many ways

The quantity and the frequence one takes ped for exemple.

Hamilton was known among his peers to take a large amount of ped all year round.
Many ex-clients of Ferrari described how he adviced them to take just the right amount of ped at the good moment instead of lots of it.
Vaughters explains in one book how he claimed the record of the Mont Ventoux by doping the right way.


Conservative can also mean the kind of product one takes and the risks he is willing to take for his health.

We heard stories about how some spanish teams tried to use homologous transfusion.
IIRC Rassmussen explained how he was willing to try everything. As far as we know, Armstrong and Ferrari stucked to autologous transfusion. We also know that Armstrong stopped HGH after his cancer because they feared that if his cancer ever came back, such product would help the cancer grow. Then the story that Aragon reported days ago about how Armstrong adviced Vaughters to not usea new product because it was too easily detectable.

All of this doesn't paint Ferrari/Armstrong being reckless about doping and trying all kind of experiments.

As always, if someone has any kind of real information about Armstrong being more doped and more careless about doping than the others GC contenders, please feel free to contribute.
Really.
But so far the evidences we have lead to the contrary

All I hear is, conservative = highly managed by a professional to get the optimal results.

That's not conservative at all. If Ferrari said "All EPO all the time!!", then that's what Lance would have done.

John Swanson

If it's really all that you hear maybe it means you already had your mind set up and did not intend to really exchange on the subject, don't you think?

Why speculate on the "if... would have"?
Some took EPO all the time. Some took more dangerous stuff. Ferrari and Armstrong didn't AFAIK

If you don't like the world "conservative" let's settle on the fact that Ferrari was a serious professionnel who didn't over-dope his client and who apparently, unlike Fuentes, never put his clients in danger.

Why is it a bad thing? Is it better to gofull *** with doping? To buy chinese stuff on the internet? To do a blood transfusion in your bathroom without supervision?
Odd

 

[The Hegelian]

Re: Re:

How does one be conservative with their doping?

John Swanson

In many ways

The quantity and the frequence one takes ped for exemple.

Hamilton was known among his peers to take a large amount of ped all year round.
Many ex-clients of Ferrari described how he adviced them to take just the right amount of ped at the good moment instead of lots of it.
Vaughters explains in one book how he claimed the record of the Mont Ventoux by doping the right way.


Conservative can also mean the kind of product one takes and the risks he is willing to take for his health.

We heard stories about how some spanish teams tried to use homologous transfusion.
IIRC Rassmussen explained how he was willing to try everything. As far as we know, Armstrong and Ferrari stucked to autologous transfusion. We also know that Armstrong stopped HGH after his cancer because they feared that if his cancer ever came back, such product would help the cancer grow. Then the story that Aragon reported days ago about how Armstrong adviced Vaughters to not usea new product because it was too easily detectable.

All of this doesn't paint Ferrari/Armstrong being reckless about doping and trying all kind of experiments.

As always, if someone has any kind of real information about Armstrong being more doped and more careless about doping than the others GC contenders, please feel free to contribute.
Really.
But so far the evidences we have lead to the contrary

All I hear is, conservative = highly managed by a professional to get the optimal results.

That's not conservative at all. If Ferrari said "All EPO all the time!!", then that's what Lance would have done.

John Swanson

Yes, but the point is that he didn't say that, ergo, the strategy was conservative.

You're conflating the moral sense of the term conservative with the pragmatic or strategic sense.

The moral sense implies conducting one's life and actions in accord with conventionally agreed upon principles such as fairness or justice. No one is remotely close to proposing that this is what Armstrong and Ferrari were doing.

The pragmatic or strategic sense simply implies being risk averse. i.e. with respect to positive tests. Ferrari and Armstrong were quite obviously risk averse. Their strategy was to be exceedingly refined and meticulous about doping so that one can succeed without generating risks. That is why Ferrari was the best + cost the most.

 

[Archibald]

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

I don't think I ever before have heard anyone refer to Ferrari's doping regimen as "conservative." For starters, this was the man who often remarked that a rider must produce a minimum of 6.7 Watts per kilo to win the TdF. Show me the man who can produce 6.7 W/kg doping "conservatively" and I'll shake his hand and buy him a Daniel Webster seegar.

Ferrari also remained intimately aware of what all the Posties' Hct levels were. In The Secret Race, Hamilton cites a number of times when Ferrari chided him for his Hct being too low, implying that he needed to be LESS conservative and take MORE EPO. And he exhorted the team in general to take ever more (without risking a 'positive') by preaching that it was no more dangerous than orange juice. If he ever tried to rein in riders EPO use when their Hct was yet sub-50, I've never heard tell of it. Although Hamilton did write that Ferrari once gave him up to Pharmstrong for an Hct of 49.7, not because it was too extreme but because on some level it posed a threat to Pharmstrong's superiority.

Ferrari already had done all the requisite "experimentation" under conditions that didn't put his paying clients (or their careers) at risk. What he and Pharmstrong were about was exploiting data Ferrari already had gathered to systemically and incrementally creep up to (but never exceed) the brink of illegality and/or detectability. That involved empirical goals and I doubt non-deterministic words like "conservative" or "extreme" ever entered into their deliberations. There are rules, which they knew by rote. And (for the most part) they had the same medical lab equipment as did WADA, so they could self-test and determine -- empirically -- whether there were any further gains could be made before potentially running afoul of detectability and/or the legal threshold.

That was Ferrari's stock in trade. His riders doped better than anyone else's. Had that not been the case, if he had begun to fall behind because other riders doped better than he, Pharmstrong would not have kept Ferrari around.


Culturally, FLandis had a lot to learn very quickly when he left the farm. And the learning curve got steeper still when the news of his positive doping control broke post the 2006 TdF. He obviously was overwhelmed on all fronts when the story first broke, ergo the aimless "wiki" defense. But in later interviews he clearly had gathered his wits about him and in fact learned to be quite circumspect. In a 2012 interview linked to in another thread in this forum, several times he backs away from questions that would have required speculation on his part, apparently preferring to stick to matters he had certain knowledge of. Quite a different tack on his part.

Plus he also displays a certain droll resignation to the fact that life isn't fair, and pro cycling certainly wasn't fair to him. Now older and wiser, I think he realizes that speculating to the cause of his false positive will only see him labeled a vindictive whinger. So lacking so much as the first scrap of evidence, he keeps his suspicions about any role Pharmstrong might have played in his downfall under his hat.

But it's a classic case of lack of evidence not equaling evidence of lack.

The reason riders like Ferrari so much is that he is so precise. You can dope to the exact level of not being caught. That is key. Conservative doesn't come into as well as full on doping.

Weird how years later people can't sort their vitriol and morals. Let's call it responsible doping?

"High Octane"?