stephens said:
I love how you guys are using her statement of $500k as support that Landis' accusation is true, and ignoring that fact that she has also stated that it's basically impossible that a positive test would be covered up!
"I do not think that a positive doping test can be easily covered up, especially in the case of such a famous rider like Armstrong," Schenk told Cyclingnews on Tuesday. "The tests are performed in accredited labs; it would be difficult to bury a positive result as there are too many people involved. But not only that: I also doubt that the UCI would do such a thing."
I don't know about you, but in my vocabulary there's a huuuuuuge difference between "basically impossible" and "not easily"... "Not easily" means that it could be done with effort... Being head of UCI and a high-ranking member of IOC would help. And it's not like IOC itself is known as a very clean organisation in the first place, is it? How many Olympic host towns have won the honour without bribes? Which is another example of the difference of "not easy" and "practically impossible"...
Anyway; what I don't understand is: Why would LA not have paid up his bribe straight away, instead "forgetting about it" until he's sent a "reminder"??? If I was bribing someone to keep my dark secrets secret, I would make sure to make payment good asap.
My only guesses on that for the moment are:
1) The bribe was intended to be a
proper bribe and actually kept secret until some idiot starting mentioning "donations", which then had to be entered into the books somewhere, sometime
2) There is more than one bribe, either signifying a much higher total amount through many payments all the way from the beginning
or that there are more than one positive test to cover up
3) Finally, but very unlikely in my mind, it
is actually just a donation
By the way... Regarding the Lemond bit from the SCA case. If the mechanic told that to Lemond in 2000, this would put that incident
before the Tour de Suisse. Either he's bribing people before he dopes and tests positive or he led a very sloppy doping life... Or something completely third...