USADA - Armstrong

[Hugh Januss]

You haven't read anything that I've posted have you?

Armstrong went from being being US national sprint course triathlon champion at 18, to the the youngest UCI road race champion at 23yrs to a 7 time TdF winner by using a systematic program of PEDs for many years in combination with dedicated training.

Contador won the junior national championships in cycling. Wiggins won gold medals as a junior in track endurance. Evans won the national mtb championship as a junior. Ullrich was national champion as a junior. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any GT champion that was not a junior national champion or a good single day racer in their early career. You do not become a 7 time TdF winner by having inferior physiology and then just using PEDs to make up the shortfall. In the EPO era you become a TdF winner only if you have both.

You would be hard pressed however to find a single GT winner before the EPO era who did not show early mountain goat tendencies, Lance showed none. Either I did not state that well enough or you really didn't read what I wrote.
EPO made Lance into a GT rider plain and simple, that does not mean he may have not been a very good classics rider otherwise. The choice is not as simple as GT contender or bottle fetcher, there are a lot of other races in the season that are as hard to win but take a slightly different skill set. This was the skill set that LA demonstrated pre-cancer, and he didn't do that without doping because everyone else was as well. Something changed him, we have a variety of ideas to pick from as to what that was, but without whatever it was he would never have become the winningest TDF rider of all time.

 

[Hugh Januss]

This is a good post and sums up Lance's renewed focus when he came back as opposed to his lost ways before. Thank you for your summary of Lance's path to superstardom in your last sentence. People can change and on top of that he is soo cute.

Maybe TFF/ChewbaccaD is wrong. You just might be a Wonderlance sockpuppet.

 

[WinterRider]

Well some people are saying that EPO isn't the only thing, and other people are saying EPO enhances recovery without really understanding much if anything about the physiology of recovery.

No, everyone else is fixated on the domestique quote which is a trivial insignificant point, the true meaning of which is that genetics, training and determination plays a far greater role on RELATIVE performances in a GT than PEDs do if you have a level playing field, ie: if everyone IS doping or nobody is doping.

Of course he showed no ability at stage racing at that point, for starters he had much less experience, and secondly everyone else was doping. I am creating a hypothetical situation here in which nobody is doping, therefore you cannot use that as evidence to support your opinion that LA could never have made the leap from good classics rider to GT contender.

You seem to be suggesting that it isn't possible for a good classics rider to become a GT winner. I disagree. Nearly all of the great cycling champions prior to 1980 were both classics and GT winners. Cadel Evans began as a mtb biker and he showed zero ability as a stage racer until his mid-20s. Bradley Wiggins was a track rider who raced in events lasting 4min and now he has become a TdF favorite. Cadel Evans holds the lab record for VO2max at the Australian Institute of Sport. Bradley Wiggins I have heard also has a similarly high VO2max. The point is that, you simply do not become a GT contender without being physiologically superior to begin with.

Anyway, you said that LA probably would have been top 10. That is actually what I have been suggesting all along. He would not have ended up being a domestique only in GTs.

The bold part is where you are running into trouble with Lance. Lance has an inerior VO2max compared to other notable GT winners (such as LeMond, Indurain or Evans). In fact Lemond called him out on this.

 

[WinterRider]

Maybe TFF/ChewbaccaD is wrong. You just might be a Wonderlance sockpuppet.

No chance, Wonderlance had some very entertaining posts. Krebs doesn't seem to understand that in cycling there are other types of physiologies besides GT winner and water boy.

 

[Hugh Januss]

No chance, Wonderlance had some very entertaining posts. Krebs doesn't seem to understand that in cycling there are other types of physiologies besides GT winner and water boy.

That is true, he doesn't seem to. I was talking about Katy In The Keys, one of our newest sockpuppets, however.

 

[Katy in the Keys]

That is true, he doesn't seem to. I was talking about Katy In The Keys, one of our newest sockpuppets, however.

I do not understand why you attack me. I only read this forum and see all of the attacks on Lance and I come in here to defend him and hope that justice prevails in the kangaroo court. You and others attack me for my support. I feel sorry for you. I do like your username and it shows some creativity that hopefully you can use in a positive manner in your everyday life. Some people need an outlet for their alternate ego and this forum hopefully is providing that for you so you are not mean in person.

 

[Krebs cycle]

Who cares what LA could have achieved in a clean era. That is something for another thread. The fact is that he doped.

Go back and read my post which started this little discussion. I think the whole saga is akin to a Shakespearean tragedy. IMO Lance Armstrong is like a tragic hero, because like it or not, he is a hero to millions of people, but the tragedy is that he became a lying cheating juicemonkey in order to become that hero. He has cheated those people who look to him as an inspiration, and he has cheated all athletes, not just cyclists, by creating the greatest sporting fraud in history and turning the concept of fair play into a complete mockery.

What I suggested, that was met with much aggressive resistance, is that if we somehow lived in a clean world free of doping, is that he might have become a TdF winner anyway, since as a junior he was a national champion just like many other TdF winners. But you are right, we will never know because we don't live in a doping free world and that is the other reason the whole story is a tragedy to me. I care about this because I believe in clean sport.

 

[ultimobici]

I do not understand why you attack me. I only read this forum and see all of the attacks on Lance and I come in here to defend him and hope that justice prevails in the kangaroo court. You and others attack me for my support. I feel sorry for you. I do like your username and it shows some creativity that hopefully you can use in a positive manner in your everyday life. Some people need an outlet for their alternate ego and this forum hopefully is providing that for you so you are not mean in person.

Aside from the fact that you seem a little naive and delicate to wander around the clinic on your own, what are you referring to as a kangaroo court? The USADA action is far from this and the clinic is just a discussion board.

 

[Krebs cycle]

No chance, Wonderlance had some very entertaining posts. Krebs doesn't seem to understand that in cycling there are other types of physiologies besides GT winner and water boy.

No need to troll dude. I have a PhD in altitude training physiology, and I have been working with elite endurance athletes for over 12yrs. I spent 4yrs working in the AIS physiology lab with one of the world's leading cycling physiologists (Dave Martin), a year of which I shared an office with Inigo Mujika. I also worked with Michael Ashenden and numerous other world renowned sports scientists. I was a subject and assistant researcher in two EPO studies. I'm not a cycling physiology expert like those esteemed gentlemen, but I reckon I know a ****load more about the physiology of professional cycling than you.

 

[fatsprintking]

Thank you. This has been my point all along. People seem to forget that Armstrong was a junior national champion in both triathlon and cycling. He had the genetics.

Dont thank me champ - you said Cadel Evans showed zero stage race potential which is garbage. Yeah Lance had potential - just not to be a grand tour rider. Talk to anyone who worked with Evans as a junior and they will all say that he had the potential to win the tour. Everyone thought lance had the potential to be a great classics rider - maybe not as good as Phil Gilbert but pretty good. Grand tours? Not much.

 

[Spider1964]

Go back and read my post which started this little discussion. I think the whole saga is akin to a Shakespearean tragedy. IMO Lance Armstrong is like a tragic hero, because like it or not, he is a hero to millions of people, but the tragedy is that he became a lying cheating juicemonkey in order to become that hero. He has cheated those people who look to him as an inspiration, and he has cheated all athletes, not just cyclists, by creating the greatest sporting fraud in history and turning the concept of fair play into a complete mockery.

What I suggested, that was met with much aggressive resistance, is that if we somehow lived in a clean world free of doping, is that he might have become a TdF winner anyway, since as a junior he was a national champion just like many other TdF winners. But you are right, we will never know because we don't live in a doping free world and that is the other reason the whole story is a tragedy to me. I care about this because I believe in clean sport.

I understood this to be your point 5 pages ago and right or wrong you are entitled to your opinion. I personally think it is an interesting question, but one we will never know the answer to.

IMO your troubles began the minute you gave some quasi credit (see bolded part) to Lance. You will never win support with some of the clinic regulars on this sort of praise for a figure they despise. They will misinterpret, bicker, bold (the wrong parts), pick up on any minor point they see as relevant to the point of derailing a thread... now who would do that?

As you were.... I'll get back to reading.

 

[rata de sentina]

I'm going to defend Kerbs here because in reality krebs is is probably 99% in agreement with the prevailing LA viewpoint on this board and should not be lumped in with other recipients of the "nice story bro" award. However, krebs is a scientist and being one myself I can see exactly where this argument comes from. Krebs expects something a little more concrete by way of argument for the hypothesis that LA was never going to better his rather hopeless TdF results pre cancer without the benefits of Dr Fs magical program. It's a fair point and basically it comes down to opinion.

The problem is that the krebs viewpoint rather unfortunately lines up with one of the typical fanboy arguments that since they all doped then LA would have won 7 in a clean peleton. Which as we all know is a crock for numerous good reasons which I won't go into because it's been done to death.

Now I don't think that krebs is suggesting this (although feel free to correct me on that krebs) but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that if LA applied his "laser-like focus" even in the absence of chemical assistance he could have done a tad better than 36th.

 

[Krebs cycle]

My estimation is he came up with something better than the rest. Either something completly novel and therefore completely uncontrolled human experimentation, or some cocktail that worked crazy well, AKA limited uncontrolled human experimentation. Remember, the whole team was dragging the peloton along those cols too, so everyone got it.

I think this calls for greater speculation than looking at actual performances as a junior. The best predictor of future performance as a senior is performance as an U23 or U19. It is exceedingly rare that an 18yr old emerges from being 5th or 6th at national level, to becoming GT winning material.

I don't believe that Armstrong had access to some magical doping regime that most of his peers did not. Superior probably in terms of consistency, and that is what lead to his and his team's dominance, but not wholesale different in terms of substance and dosages.

 

[fatsprintking]

I don't believe that Armstrong had access to some magical doping regime that most of his peers did not. Superior probably in terms of consistency, and that is what lead to his and his team's dominance, but not wholesale different in terms of substance and dosages.

I'm OK with this - I think the reality is that Armstrong is the first rider to essentially build a team around himself and take total control of a whole range of aspects which up to that point riders had little involvement in. It stands to reason that this applied to their chemical program as well. It stands to reason that Lance applied his lazer like focus to working out the best way to deal with the chemicals, got the best people to help him and then got the best results from the program.

This is one of the main reasons that he deserves to go down harder than your garden variety cheater. The team and everything that happened in it was under the control of Lance.

 

[MarkvW]

If Lance hadn't doped he never would have won the TdF, ever. Some other doper would have won it.

So much angry argument--not over whether or not Lance could have ever won the Tour had he ridden clean--but over whether or not Lance could have ever won the Tour had everybody in the whole peloton ridden clean along with Lance. What a dreamy, never-never-land alternative universe!

It's darn near certain that a clean Lance could never have won a TdF against the fully charged peloton of his era. Nobody could. If you wanted to win, you had to dope.

 

[Krebs cycle]

Dont thank me champ - you said Cadel Evans showed zero stage race potential which is garbage. Yeah Lance had potential - just not to be a grand tour rider. Talk to anyone who worked with Evans as a junior and they will all say that he had the potential to win the tour. Everyone thought lance had the potential to be a great classics rider - maybe not as good as Phil Gilbert but pretty good. Grand tours? Not much.

I conducted VO2max tests on Cadel Evans when he was in his early 20s. I was privy to all of his VO2max tests since he was 15yrs old. I was a mtb rider in those days and I closely followed his rise through the mtb ranks from junior to senior, through his conversion to road rider. I was aware of his performances in training camps when he trained with the Australian national road team. So I know exactly what his potential was and after watching him casually step off the ergo at 450watts once without breaking a sweat, I said to myself "damn, this guy could be Australia's first TdF winner". That was 10yrs ago. At that time he had never raced in a pro-level stage race.

The point here is that he had never competed in a professional road cycling stage race until his late 20s, which means you don't need to demonstrate that you are an amazing stage racer early in your career to become a GT contender in your early 30s. You do however, need to be winning junior national championships and single day classics etc early in your career to be considered GT material. Lance is not out of the ordinary on this fact.

 

[Krebs cycle]

So much angry argument--not over whether or not Lance could have ever won the Tour had he ridden clean--but over whether or not Lance could have ever won the Tour had everybody in the whole peloton ridden clean along with Lance. What a dreamy, never-never-land alternative universe!
.

wtf is the point of this forum and the entire anti-doping movement then if not to aspire to clean sport?

Of course Lance never could have won the tour clean. So much angry argument because nobody cared to read what I actually wrote and instead wanted to create a fight with someone they very badly mistakenly thought was a lance fanboy.

 

[fatsprintking]

I conducted VO2max tests on Cadel Evans when he was in his early 20s. I was privy to all of his VO2max tests since he was 15yrs old. I was a mtb rider in those days and I closely followed his rise through the mtb ranks from junior to senior, through his conversion to road rider. I was aware of his performances in training camps when he trained with the Australian national road team. So I know exactly what his potential was and after watching him casually step off the ergo at 450watts once without breaking a sweat, I said to myself "damn, this guy could be Australia's first TdF winner". That was 10yrs ago. At that time he had never raced in a pro-level stage race.

The point here is that he had never competed in a professional road cycling stage race until his late 20s, which means you don't need to demonstrate that you are an amazing stage racer early in your career to become a GT contender in your early 30s. You do however, need to be winning junior national championships and single day classics etc early in your career to be considered GT material. Lance is not out of the ordinary on this fact.

But Krebs old mate, he won the tour of Austria in 2001 and led the Giro in 2002. Thats 11 and 10 years ago. He signed with Seaco at the end of 2000. Given that he was born in 1977, by my reckoning he only fell on stage short of winning a grand tour in his mid 20's. You said he showed zero stage race potential - are you still sticking to that? You saw his VO2 max tests at 15, are you telling me that combined with his height and weight you did not think that demonstrated stage race potential? Really?

Over 10 years from 2001 he steadily improved to the point where he was able to actually win a gt after 10 years of progression. Lance changed overnight from a classics rider to a gt winner. Potential is one thing, but rate of change is another.

I dont disagree with much of your contention, but Cadel is not a good example. Wiggan's is a much better case in point.

 

[Elagabalus]

I conducted VO2max tests on Cadel Evans when he was in his early 20s. I was privy to all of his VO2max tests since he was 15yrs old. I was a mtb rider in those days and I closely followed his rise through the mtb ranks from junior to senior, through his conversion to road rider. I was aware of his performances in training camps when he trained with the Australian national road team. So I know exactly what his potential was and after watching him casually step off the ergo at 450watts once without breaking a sweat, I said to myself "damn, this guy could be Australia's first TdF winner". That was 10yrs ago. At that time he had never raced in a pro-level stage race.

The point here is that he had never competed in a professional road cycling stage race until his late 20s, which means you don't need to demonstrate that you are an amazing stage racer early in your career to become a GT contender in your early 30s. You do however, need to be winning junior national championships and single day classics etc early in your career to be considered GT material. Lance is not out of the ordinary on this fact.

I've mentioned this before but I remember reading a "Cycle Sport" article about Lance right before he was diagnosed with cancer*. They quoted, I believe either Jim Osch or perhaps Wetzel as saying (and I am paraphrasing) that when Armstrong wasn't into it (racing) he road at 70%. So I believe that having cancer had some "focusing" properties to it.

Perhaps his inconsistent performance was due to a lack of focus on his part (Betsy always did say that she thought he had ADD) and when he came back he was more determined to out "Euro" than the Euros-which, of course, would have included a more detailed doping regimen amongst other things. So I'm also in agreement with Fatsprintking.


*This would have been late 1995 or early 1996. Does anybody know which CS it's from? I've wanted to dig it up but my attic is vast and I kinda want to know where to look!

 

[fatsprintking]

I've mentioned this before but I remember reading a "Cycle Sport" article about Lance right before he was diagnosed with cancer*. They quoted, I believe either Jim Osch or perhaps Wetzel as saying (and I am paraphrasing) that when Armstrong wasn't into it (racing) he road at 70%. So I believe that having cancer had some "focusing" properties to it.

Perhaps his inconsistent performance was due to a lack of focus on his part (Betsy always did say that she thought he had ADD) and when he came back he was more determined to out "Euro" than the Euros-which, of course, would have included a more detailed doping regimen amongst other things. So I'm also in agreement with Fatsprintking.


*This would have been late 1995 or early 1996. Does anybody know which CS it's from? I've wanted to dig it up but my attic is vast and I kinda want to know where to look!

I remember the article and off course now wish that I had kept the shed full of magazines I had from the past 30 years....

 

[airstream]

There was mentioned Garcia del Moral and the fact that he stopped working with US Postal before 2003. Possibly it might be a partial explanation why LA was relatively weak exactly in the 2003 Tour. Remembering Vuelta of that era and its records (Heras' TT, Pajares, Sierra Nevada TT), I'm wondering why Saiz couldn't juice his riders up in the Tour as he did in the Vuelta? Apparently, there was a backroom conspiracy, so to speak "Tour is not your territory, scat to the Vuelta". Then it looks like a real mafia. It's pity it's impossible to solve LA case really in law because in this instance Mcquaid and many others would have to be put in jail too.

 

[Krebs cycle]

But Krebs old mate, he won the tour of Austria in 2001 and led the Giro in 2002. Thats 11 and 10 years ago. He signed with Seaco at the end of 2000. Given that he was born in 1977, by my reckoning he only fell on stage short of winning a grand tour in his mid 20's. You said he showed zero stage race potential - are you still sticking to that? You saw his VO2 max tests at 15, are you telling me that combined with his height and weight you did not think that demonstrated stage race potential? Really?

Over 10 years from 2001 he steadily improved to the point where he was able to actually win a gt after 10 years of progression. Lance changed overnight from a classics rider to a gt winner. Potential is one thing, but rate of change is another.

I dont disagree with much of your contention, but Cadel is not a good example. Wiggan's is a much better case in point.

Sorry my bad, got mixed up with dates. Hey it was a long time ago, and I'm going from memory only.

What I am sticking to is the underlying concept that performance in endurance sport is largely a function of three variables 1) VO2max 2) lactate threshold and 3) efficiency. Lets say as a function of those 3 variables you have a functional threshold power off 350 watts. You go on Dr Ferrari's super special doping regime and that increases your FTP up to 380 watts. Another physiologically superior rider with the same bodyweight comes along and has an undoped FTP of 370 watts and goes on some other doctors economy doping program and gets 2/3 that level of improvement. Well his FTP is now 390 watts and he wins the race in this very very raw and simplistic scenario.

Now, stage racing and especially GTs are a different ball game because as previously mentioned, the recovery aspect is important, as are tactics and a whole lot of other stuff. Fuel utilization and recovery is particularly important, but get this.... if those 2 riders above average 250 watts over 5hrs the guy with the higher FTP is going to use LESS glycogen. There are many studies which prove this concept. Now lets repeat that by 20 days of racing. The guy with the poorer physiology is going to gradually perform more poorly over 3 weeks despite the fact he is on the better doping regime.

Yes, this is all very simplistic and yes I am not even bothering to discuss (because that would take up way too much time and I've wasted enough today already) are all the other factors that contribute to performance in a GT such as training volume and intensity, nutrition, sleep, aerodynamics, dehydration, emotional stress, race tactics etc etc but what you and everyone else should recognize very clearly is that LA did in fact use his "lazer like focus" to plan ALL of those other factors down to the very last detail with one singular goal in mind, win the TdF.

 

[fatsprintking]

So is Evans juiced up?

 

[Krebs cycle]

Now I don't think that krebs is suggesting this (although feel free to correct me on that krebs) but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that if LA applied his "laser-like focus" even in the absence of chemical assistance he could have done a tad better than 36th.

Yes. Even in a doping peloton he probably could have done better than that after 5 or 6 yrs of GT experience. In a clean peloton, after 5 or 6 yrs he likely would have been top 10, and maybe even a winner. Super quick comeback following cancer? No way. 7 times consecutive winner? No way.

We will never know though. It's all hypothetical. I acknowledge that, but for people to come along and be certain that it is beyond the realms of possibility to become a true GT contender at age 30 because he didn't shine in stage racing at 22-25yrs of age is an ignorant approach which lacks scientific foundation. We must use results from a time when we are much more confident he was not systematically doping, and we must use our knowledge of the physiological demands of GT cycling races and the physiological characteristics of GT riders as a guide.

 

[Krebs cycle]

So is Evans juiced up?

If he was, then barring injury, he would have won every tour since 2007