Point-Counterpoint responses to Armstrong defenses

[python]

we shall learn rather soon but i dont see texas giving an inch...

the nature of the usada sweeping charges and his response so far (refusing usada's invite for a talk) tell me that the entrenched psychopath will chose the path he always did - the road of arrogant denial. i hope this maniacal intransigence will lead, as it has done so far since his refusal to deal with flandis, to opening more naive minds...and to more of his destruction.

it's not even that hard to see what his defense strategy will be - the same as the usada's reliance on non-analytical evidence - inviting scores of those who will deny seeing or knowing anything and hoping to outspend usada. yes, i see this being dragged into cas.

ultimately, texas imo has no strong defense and may lose all his titles though i admit it's far fetched. then, we may still be out for a surprise or two from usada as they would hardly be writing 15 pages without having more.

 

[Paco_P]

I'm not at all sure that Armstrong is going to make a defense.
....
There is a huge chance that Lance will just eat the USADA sanctions. Why should he spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) to fight a battle that he is doomed to lose and one that can reopen the risk of a felony prosecution? Furthermore, the ongoing PR hit would be brutal, as well as the emotional toll that fighting would take on him and his family.

I'd bet that Lance won't fight. He's paying lawyers good money and their first responsibility is to keep him out of jail. They'll advise him to stick with the "most tested" mantra and otherwise STFU. That's my prediction.

This sounds about right to me. Any kind of sworn testimony opens him to perjury charges ala Bonds/Clemens. His line is that he is falsely accused by a system that is out to get him; it's colored by the political leanings of his supporters (I think it is fair to say that the typical fanboy also spouts refrains like big government is bad and so forth).

His future is that of Pete Rose. Disgraced in the eyes of the establishment and all those who thought he was an a***** anyway before he got caught being one, but still making a good living signing autographed balls for his fans. Denying everything would have worked for even OJ (whose crime was of an entirely different nature than those of Armstrong or Rose) except that he felt the need to pistol whip some guy who had something he thought was his.

Lance might just run for Congress.

 

[Berzin]

5. Those testifying against him are discredited.

No, the only ones against whom that charged can even be plausible are Hamilton and Landis, both of whom have very good reasons to NOT testify against Armstrong. Hincapie was Lance's right-hand man, and the guy Lance called a "brother". Others expected to testify have not had their credibility challenged at all.

"Others expected to testify had not had their credibility challenged" because no one knows who they are.

I wonder what sort of bile the fanboys will spew on someone like Lance's ex-wife Kirsten if she corroborates the refrigerator full of blood bags and EPO when they lived in Girona, Spain.

 

[TubularBills]

Finally. The perfect thread.

Intelligent discourse.

Bravo.

Thank you M. Mc K's.

 

[veganrob]

we shall learn rather soon but i dont see texas giving an inch...

the nature of the usada sweeping charges and his response so far (refusing usada's invite for a talk) tell me that the entrenched psychopath will chose the path he always did - the road of arrogant denial. i hope this maniacal intransigence will lead, as it has done so far since his refusal to deal with flandis, to opening more naive minds...and to more of his destruction.

it's not even that hard to see what his defense strategy will be - the same as the usada's reliance on non-analytical evidence - inviting scores of those who will deny seeing or knowing anything and hoping to outspend usada. yes, i see this being dragged into cas.

ultimately, texas imo has no strong defense and may lose all his titles though i admit it's far fetched. then, we may still be out for a surprise or two from usada as they would hardly be writing 15 pages without having more.

I tend to agree with you. Lance will fight with all that he can. IT is in his arrogant, above it all nature.
He also will lose all of his improper titles. How can they not take all of them away? Which ones could he possibly bargain to keep? Not 99' or 01', there are positive tests. can't be 04' or 05'. There was a conspiracy going on from 98' at least.
He will go down fighting but will indeed go down. And that is good for cycling and moving on from that wretched era. He has to pay the piper now.

 

[Benotti69]

True and untrue, the TUE was validated making it a not positive. Weak, but lawful.

Getting a backdated TUE is not lawful.

 

[Red Rick]

Something tells me this is gonna drag on for a long, long time, while i think the best thing for the sport is clarity. Who's gonna get those TDF titles, then, Dirty Basso, Dirty Ullrich, or is it better to just strip them of LA and give them to nobody, saying there were no champions for 7 years?

 

[Benotti69]

Something tells me this is gonna drag on for a long, long time, while i think the best thing for the sport is clarity. Who's gonna get those TDF titles, then, Dirty Basso, Dirty Ullrich, or is it better to just strip them of LA and give them to nobody, saying there were no champions for 7 years?

who cares who gets them the years were so epo dirty that they should be consigned to the bin

check the following for an idea how prevalent doping was and how many got caught

http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/armstrong1150px.jpg

not that it is not prevalent now but it was stratospheric with epo.

 

[GotDropped]

Good post, but as for point #1 I think that Ullrich and Bonds are not as good of examples as Marion Jones, since she admitted using doping products despite having never tested positive, while the same can't be said for Ullrich and Bonds. Valverde is a bit of a foggy case as well, since he too was only circumstantially linked to OP and continues to deny he doped.

Bjarne Riis and David Millar might be more clear-cut examples, since they never tested positive but later absolutely confessed to using doping products. Tyler Hamilton admitting he cheated to win Olympic gold after not testing positive at that event is another good example, and quite relevant since he is surely central to the USADA case.

Valverde doesn't deny that he doped. Valverde says that he "believes" that he didn't do anything wrong and that he has "nothing to hide". (BTW, traces of EPO were found in the blood bags that contained his DNA.)

http://perfiles.laverdad.es/alejand...de-tienen-que-cortar-una-cabeza-y-sa-es-la-ma


Tyler Hamilton DID test positive at the Olympics, but got off because "results could not be obtained from the second sample".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Hamilton

Please if you are going to state "facts" make sure that they are correct.

 

[B_Ugli]

The problem with the scenario of him just rolling over is that there are others charged at the same time with the same things. They are personally far more threatened in the livelihood than he is, so it will be hard for them to just roll over and eat lifetime sanctions. They will have to fight, and in having to fight, things will come out. It is not a good scenario for him, because so many others are involved. There may not be cause for them to cooperate with his interests, and he may have run out of leverage. In game theory terms, there are already at least 10 defectors, so viable options shrink.

Pepe looks like the weak link of the named respondents.

-dB

I think you are right. I suspect that the evidence they have is mainly circumstancial and based around what individuals saw/witnesed rather than any smoking guns. Its pretty clever what USADA have done by naming a group of individuals - when presented with evidence their stories will need to be identical in "truth" to hold any sway whatsoever. Effectively they have given each of them a spade to dig their own holes. A can of worms for the UCI indeed!

edit: You also have to assume that whatever come out of USADA will go straight back to Novitsky - a bit like catching a fish with two nets - if one doesnt work the other will!

 

[Berzin]

Something tells me this is gonna drag on for a long, long time, while i think the best thing for the sport is clarity. Who's gonna get those TDF titles, then, Dirty Basso, Dirty Ullrich, or is it better to just strip them of LA and give them to nobody, saying there were no champions for 7 years?

Yes. Leave those years blank with no winner. That is what the riders, team directors and everyone else involved deserve for the mess they all helped put cycling in.

I think Armstrong got more aggressive, in direct contradiction to the interview he gave to Men's Journal, because he figured he may lose one or two Tours, not all seven. He resigned himself to losing a couple, but all seven? Them's fightin' words...

I guess he took offense to having all his hard work potentially erased from the record books.

 

[Red Rick]

In the end, Armstrong will still benefit of the fact that he doped, no matter how many wins are taken, because he has made a huge amount of money of his cancer->clean tour winner story. The fact he had cancer is probably the thing that can't be discussed in his whole freaking career

 

[Muzzin]

I think Armstrong got more aggressive, in direct contradiction to the interview he gave to Men's Journal, because he figured he may lose one or two Tours, not all seven. He resigned himself to losing a couple, but all seven? Them's fightin' words...

I guess he took offense to having all his hard work potentially erased from the record books.

This is exactly my take. I think the fact that USADA is going after all 7 victories was a shocker to LA. Take a title or two... whatever, but all 7 was a blindside amd threatens to erase his entire legacy.

 

[pleyser]

Cycling's history is the greatest proof?

When I see the "most tested, never positive" mantra spouted, I find myself wanting to engage fanboys in person and on-line again...but I've resisted the urge. Often fanboys don't know much about cycling's history, but isn't a quick look at the history of cycling the greatest proof of USPS and Discovery's doping? The true miracle would be that they weren't doping when most competitors like Kelme, T-Mobile, etc. all had well funded, team sponsored programs.

Also, just the physiological requirements of riding over 2000 miles in 3 weeks (including mountainous terrain) at 38-40 km/h average?

If you're not cheating, you're not trying? (sarcasm)

Sometimes the simplest arguments are best, but then again, we're daring to question a deity in human form according to some.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

"Others expected to testify had not had their credibility challenged" because no one knows who they are.

I wonder what sort of bile the fanboys will spew on someone like Lance's ex-wife Kirsten if she corroborates the refrigerator full of blood bags and EPO when they lived in Girona, Spain.

I think we can make some informed guesses as to who they are. There aren't many choices anyway. I would surmise those include (other than Hamilton/Landis): Hincapie, VdV, Leipheimer, Vaughters, Andreu (?), Zabriskie, maybe Danielson.

Outside the cyclist circle, I would say maybe his ex, Kristen (as you said), and a few others, but I don't have sufficient knowledge to guess there.

The coup de grace would be Hincapie, frankly. Armstrong cannot turn around and call George a liar after all these years.

 

[MarkvW]

This is exactly my take. I think the fact that USADA is going after all 7 victories was a shocker to LA. Take a title or two... whatever, but all 7 was a blindside amd threatens to erase his entire legacy.

And the fact that they might get a lifetime ban (impacting tri) based upon the magnitude of the doping program.

USADA is basically telling Armstrong: "Bring it on!" USADA doesn't want to settle. They want to show the world what happened.

And what a show it will be!

 

[Race Radio]

Armstrong claims 500 tests, with nothing to back it up.

US Antidoping, the agency in charge of testing in the US, shows only 29 tests on Armstrong in the last 11 years.

 

[ChrisE]

Armstrong claims 500 tests, with nothing to back it up.

US Antidoping, the agency in charge of testing in the US, shows only 29 tests on Armstrong in the last 11 years.

29 passed tests, and what about the 90's? Whatever the number, USADA will have to admit their drug testing is a farce.

 

[Master50]

Armstrong claims 500 tests, with nothing to back it up.

US Antidoping, the agency in charge of testing in the US, shows only 29 tests on Armstrong in the last 11 years.

Most of his tests would have been in Europe.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

29 passed tests, and what about the 90's? Whatever the number, USADA will have to admit their drug testing is a farce.

Hold on a second. They certainly don't, or didn't, have a test for HGH or autologous blood doping. Micro-dosing was extremely hard to catch.

Plus, as the letter explains, Lance was using Ferrari who is an expert at getting around the tests. I don't think you can draw the conclusion that the testing overall is a farce. Rather, well-paid cheaters were well ahead of the testers.

 

[andy1234]

29 passed tests, and what about the 90's? Whatever the number, USADA will have to admit their drug testing is a farce.

USADA is as relevant to European sport as McDonalds is to the Michelin guide.

As soon as they got thrown this bone, they probably had one of their top guys trying to find out where France actually was.

 

[Merckx index]

USADA is as relevant to European sport as McDonalds is to the Michelin guide.

LOL, there are more than 800 McDos in France.

 

[Cloxxki]

I'm not at all sure that Armstrong is going to make a defense.

(1) If he makes a defense he has to lie.
(2) If he makes a defense he has to subject himself to cross-examination by USADA.
(3) The feds will be watching.
(4) If he lies about any material detail, and the feds have evidence that contradicts that lie, then he runs the risk of a perjury prosecution.
(5) USADA won't be asking just general questions. They will also be asking very particular questions (date, time, place kind of stuff).
(6) To prevail, Lance will have to lie in his answers to these very particular questions. Keeping all the lies straight for all that doping over all that time is a difficult task.
(7) Lance's particular problem is that he does not know what the federal government knows about the details of his doping (and I bet they know a lot). If he is not careful with his lies, he could walk right into a perjury prosecution. On cross-examination, he would be walking through a minefield blindfolded.

There is a huge chance that Lance will just eat the USADA sanctions. Why should he spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) to fight a battle that he is doomed to lose and one that can reopen the risk of a felony prosecution? Furthermore, the ongoing PR hit would be brutal, as well as the emotional toll that fighting would take on him and his family.

I'd bet that Lance won't fight. He's paying lawyers good money and their first responsibility is to keep him out of jail. They'll advise him to stick with the "most tested" mantra and otherwise STFU. That's my prediction.

I couldn't help but notice the verb "to lie" above.
You do realize who's being challenged here, to take the verb orders of magnitude beyond our grasp of its meaning?
This may be his ultimate boobytrap. Trick him into lying, the one thing he does better than sports or p'ing independently thinking people off. Then let the FED's do the one thing they do well.

 

[TheEnoculator]

Thanks for this thread. I haven't been a cycling fan for that long (since 2006), so this really helps me counter some of the overused arguments that Lance and his fans used.

If Lance loses all 7 of his titles, that would be the greatest victory for cycling against doping. I too think Lance will fight the charges, because this is not some tabloid accusations from Landis or Hamilton. This is the USADA, there is actually a doping charge, and his whole cycling legacy is at risk. His cancer foundation lives off of his cycling legacy, his name, his supporters, all the cancer patients out there who look up to him. There is too much at risk.

 

[Race Radio]

Most of his tests would have been in Europe.

Mike Anderson said he was never tested OOC in Spain while he was working for him