joe_papp said:
This is America, man, where Michael Vick - who served 21 months in federal prison + 2 months home confinement - is now QB for the Philadelphia Eagles. That's a pretty exalted position position for a sportsman, as there are...what, 30 teams in the NFL?
Are you aware that a very large number of NFL fans still hate Michael Vick? And this is after a remarkable athletic comeback, which is out of the question for LA. Suppose Michael Vick had been convicted when he was a few years older, so that there would be no possibility of returning to football after his jail sentence. How many people do you think would express positive feelings about him in that case?
I agree with you that in America, people can forgive almost anything short of capital crimes--IF the perp has a chance to redeem himself on the field, or wherever he made a name for himself previously. LA simply does not have that option open to him.
Finally, I myself have never wanted to see LA in jail--unless he's done a lot worse than I thought he has, which may yet prove to be the case. I think MV treatment--a total pariah, followed in LA's case, by fading into obscurity--would be plenty of punishment. Assuming his worst "crime" is doping, in no way comparable to what Vick did, he could probably resuscitate his image somewhat by continuing cancer work. Of course, if he is guilty of the more serious crimes that some in this forum are convinced of, all bets are off.
anyone know how many samples were actually taken that Tour?
LA had 17 samples, of which 6 were definite positives, and according to Ashenden, 2-3 more were officially borderline, but almost certainly indicated EPO also. IIRC, there were 87 additional samples (other riders), of which about 10-12 were positive. So, no surprise, LA was not the only doper, but he did appear to dope more often than anyone else.
If I can throw in my $.02 (it's actually worth much less, btw) - I think Lance will have a good defense against a dirty '99 sample:
1. Who has had access to the samples in the 12 years since they were taken? Can they prove the samples weren't tampered with?
2. How were they stored? Does the methodology ensure the integrity of the samples? Can it hold up in court?
3. How secure were the samples during the transfer from France to the US? Who had access to them. Proving that the samples are Lances isn't the problem. Proving that no one slipped them a Jeffrey may be more difficult.
Ashenden addressed the tampering issue several years ago (the link is undoubtedly buried somewhere in the back pages of this forum). Basically, he pointed out that for the samples to appear to have the levels of EPO that were found, it would be necessary to do a series of dilutions. You could not simply take some EPO out of the vial and inject it into the sample, because then the samples would test for far more EPO than is ever present in the urine under any conditions.
So it would have to be someone with significantly laboratory expertise. This same perison would also have to know, of course, which samples were LA's, a virtually impossible task (think how difficult it was for Ressiot to identify them, the hoops he had to jump through). This person would also have to know that someone like Ressiot would come along and publicize the findings, or else why bother?
All of that is improbable enough. But then you have the additional fact that it wasn't just LA's samples that tested positive. Four other riders IIRC also did. So was this person trying to incriminate everyone? But even that doesn't work, because as I noted above, a much higher % of LA's samples tested positive than those for other riders. So this hypothetical mad scientist could not have simply randomly spiked a selection of all the samples, either.
To make a long story short, the results are very much as one would expect if LA and these other riders really did use EPO. Other scenarios don't make sense. And that includes degradation, which is far more likely to turn a positive into a negative than the other way around.
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