silverrocket said:
2. You call for equal treatment and equal dislike of all dopers, and accuse the "rest of the clinic" as being biased against Lance. Your second problem, then, is your inability to see three things: that not all doping is the same, and that not all dopers are the same or are disliked simply because they are dopers. A thief that quietly steals a loaf of bread is not the same as a thief that steals millions and acts poorly towards everyone around him. The thieves aren't the same, nor is the theft. People will be more interested in the second thief and his crimes.
.
Whilst not all doping is the same or doping crimes - we clearly disagree (and incidentally so does the law, had this been a criminal conspiracy) on the relative significance of Armstrong and Hincapie (for example) in the same heist.
Realities are..
1/ You cannot win the tour on your own. The team who supports is a key part of the victory , without the conspiracy to cheat, the victories would not have been possible.
2/ The key supporters were just as heavily doped - and importantly - doped before Lance returned from cancer and after he retired. In short they were career dopers, not occasional deviants from good behaviour
3/ ALL of the key lieutenants stayed silent and continued to support lance as he persecuted such as Emma and Betsy. So they were all willing and knowing conspirators in that. If they had qualms about it , they could have talked or left.
4/ ONLY the key conspirators got the TDF Prize money assuming the team conformed to the norms that the victor shared the prize money amongst the key members of the team. So they were responsible for the heist of prize money, and in winning they were assured of big contracts so were clearly not acting for altruistic reasons or just to help lance. They did it to make money. They made $millions.
5/ In mitigation, none of them came forward at a time which could have halted the victories, and it can be reasonably assumed that it was only because of the gun to the head, being given immunity removing right to silence , and breathing the words "marion jones" that got them to talk. Once they had "come clean" to the feds, they could assume it would become public, so that "confessing" to USADA was more or less inevitable. So very little should be given in mitigation.
6/ In the UK there is a law called "joint enterprise" designed to ensure that key co conspirators just by being there at the time of criminal offenses committed are made equally guilty without pulling the trigger or taking the loot. All jurisdictions , make key conspirators similarly guilty.
The final point is..
7/ DOPING is the crime not winning. So who wins in your statement above or how much should be irrelevant (although in the cases of all the key support riders including hincapie that is $million plus so even on the basis of how much they won, they are still in by your definition). They were whole career dopers and should be treated accordingly.
On the basis of the above it is RIDICULOUS giving such as hincapie 6 months. Life commuted to 6 years for a full confession makes more sense - provided he returns 1/5 share of all the sum TdF prizes, since he not lance will have been the beneficiary.
It really is time for the cycling community to ask for proper justice - against such as hincapie and the other key lieutenants. For too long cycling has found another scapegoat, treated them harshly and then swept the rest under the table to surface again at a later time.
The message radiated by these sentience to all riders is "have a great life. be a superdomestique, do not be a team leader with all those stresses, and you can earn millions and still be let off with a derisory ban and fine even if you dope your entire life - let the leader be the fall guy!"
I would like to wager that at least one of the ones who said "we stopped doping in 2006 after lance went" ( yeah right, as if...) - will be caught and charged for doping. The problem has been allowed to fester.