What if Armstrong

[Charlyghoul]

..didn’t have his tours taken away? Most of us accept that tours aren’t won on bread and water.
Would it be ‘better’ for cycling to look back and for example compare Armstrong with Pogacar a bit more ? But Ullrich was also banned, yet Riis wasn’t? What we have is almost a decade of the tour that is kind of missing.
We know for certain that Anquetil and Coppi doped, if we say that they all did, would it better if the Armstrong was was just left as it was, it’s all a bit of a mess now.
Thoughts ?

 

[pastronef]

..didn’t have his tours taken away? Most of us accept that tours aren’t won on bread and water.
Would it be ‘better’ for cycling to look back and for example compare Armstrong with Pogacar a bit more ? But Ullrich was also banned, yet Riis wasn’t? What we have is almost a decade of the tour that is kind of missing.
We know for certain that Anquetil and Coppi doped, if we say that they all did, would it better if the Armstrong was was just left as it was, it’s all a bit of a mess now.
Thoughts ?

it's not a mess. who cares. he did it on himself, he shouldn't have made the comeback in 2009 and things woulda been normal

 

[Charlyghoul]

it's not a mess. who cares. he did it on himself, he shouldn't have made the comeback in 2009 and things woulda been normal

Fair enough on who cares
Don’t know how it can be not called a mess though? In 2005 1st and 3rd are disqualified, basso in 2nd wasn’t , yet there’s no overall winner ?

 

[Charlyghoul]

Basso was banned for doping, so was Rasmussen. As far as I’m aware Rasmussen still holds that years mountains classification
It’s a huge mess

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Armstrong had his titles stripped cause he was a jerk and pissed off a lot of people. Obviously his competition was doped as well and sporting wise his penalty makes sense only if he had been protected and allowed more than others by the UCI (which is actually quite possible).

 

[Charlyghoul]

Armstrong had his titles stripped cause he was a jerk and pissed off a lot of people. Obviously his competition was doped as well and sporting wise his penalty makes sense only if he had been protected and allowed more than others by the UCI (which is actually quite possible).

I agree that’s why he was stripped.
It’s just a farce and a mess for cycling that somebody wasn’t declared a winner though in those tours, it basically the uci saying, we know that everyone dopes.
That is what makes it a mess, not declaring a winner. As much of a jerk as he was, those tours don’t have a winner due to Armstrong being a jerk, not a doper.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I think it's fine to leave there being no victor, but it should be Armstrong crossed out, rather than "not awarded". By the time they removed his results, at least some of them had exceeded statute of limitations and probably the samples they had for other riders wouldn't be fit for retest, but both doping and anti-doping had moved on so much between 1999 and 2012 that redistributing those Tours to the first clean rider would be absolutely farcical, because there's always the chance of having to re-reallocate them over and over again what with the sole rider who scored a Tour podium during those seven years not to have been involved in a doping scandal being Fernando Escartín - and he has some prescriptions for banned substances in his back pocket that flew under the radar. I get the feeling that rather than set a precedent and potentially have to face multiple credibility-damaging historical scandals, they decided to just remove Lance and be done with it and I can respect that. Pretending that "nobody" won the Tour is just silly, though.

The other thing is that all around him you have scandal-ridden Tours as well. Indurain has non-admission admitted ("otra pregunta"), while Riis has confessed once outside of the statute of limitations so his win can't be taken away, and Ullrich and Pantani are, well, Ullrich and Pantani. Then in 2006 you have Landis being DQed very publicly and Pereiro winning despite also testing positive at the race with a suspect TUE exonerating him, and then 2007 you have Rasmussen obviously being removed from the race from the lead, and then Contador winning, who would later have a Tour taken from him in 2010.

When reallocation can be done in the immediate aftermath (by which I mean within the timeframe where it is a fresh memory) you can get away with that, but when it's going back 13 years, memories get fuzzy, stuff happens in the interim that can damage the esteem with which an event is held (for example, look at the GC of the 2008 Giro, which looks like an absolute rogues' gallery, a last hurrah of CERA before it would go out of fashion thanks to being testable and having a very long half-life). Passing Lance's Tour wins over to others from that era would have worked had he been DQed at the time, because Zülle, or Ulle, or Beloki, could then be Tour winners who came under scrutiny (like, for example, Lejarreta winning the 1982 Vuelta because of being the first rider not tested on the Navacerrada stage), but once such time has passed that has cast shadow on the whole field of the time, declaring one of them a replacement winner is fraught with issues, but leaving Lance as the winner in the face of the Reasoned Decision was also untenable.

 

[Charlyghoul]

I think it's fine to leave there being no victor, but it should be Armstrong crossed out, rather than "not awarded". By the time they removed his results, at least some of them had exceeded statute of limitations and probably the samples they had for other riders wouldn't be fit for retest, but both doping and anti-doping had moved on so much between 1999 and 2012 that redistributing those Tours to the first clean rider would be absolutely farcical, because there's always the chance of having to re-reallocate them over and over again what with the sole rider who scored a Tour podium during those seven years not to have been involved in a doping scandal being Fernando Escartín - and he has some prescriptions for banned substances in his back pocket that flew under the radar. I get the feeling that rather than set a precedent and potentially have to face multiple credibility-damaging historical scandals, they decided to just remove Lance and be done with it and I can respect that. Pretending that "nobody" won the Tour is just silly, though.

The other thing is that all around him you have scandal-ridden Tours as well. Indurain has non-admission admitted ("otra pregunta"), while Riis has confessed once outside of the statute of limitations so his win can't be taken away, and Ullrich and Pantani are, well, Ullrich and Pantani. Then in 2006 you have Landis being DQed very publicly and Pereiro winning despite also testing positive at the race with a suspect TUE exonerating him, and then 2007 you have Rasmussen obviously being removed from the race from the lead, and then Contador winning, who would later have a Tour taken from him in 2010.

When reallocation can be done in the immediate aftermath (by which I mean within the timeframe where it is a fresh memory) you can get away with that, but when it's going back 13 years, memories get fuzzy, stuff happens in the interim that can damage the esteem with which an event is held (for example, look at the GC of the 2008 Giro, which looks like an absolute rogues' gallery, a last hurrah of CERA before it would go out of fashion thanks to being testable and having a very long half-life). Passing Lance's Tour wins over to others from that era would have worked had he been DQed at the time, because Zülle, or Ulle, or Beloki, could then be Tour winners who came under scrutiny (like, for example, Lejarreta winning the 1982 Vuelta because of being the first rider not tested on the Navacerrada stage), but once such time has passed that has cast shadow on the whole field of the time, declaring one of them a replacement winner is fraught with issues, but leaving Lance as the winner in the face of the Reasoned Decision was also untenable.

Thanks for such a thought out comment.

I somewhat agree with being unable to assign the tour to other riders after so long, but partly still think it would have been better just to leave Armstrong as the winner. There are still mountains classification winners from those tours even though Rasmussen admitted to doping. Virenque was banned for doping, Zabel won the points and admitted to doping.
A shame Armstrong had to be such a jerk.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Thanks for such a thought out comment.

I somewhat agree with being unable to assign the tour to other riders after so long, but partly still think it would have been better just to leave Armstrong as the winner. There are still mountains classification winners from those tours even though Rasmussen admitted to doping. Virenque was banned for doping, Zabel won the points and admitted to doping.
A shame Armstrong had to be such a jerk.

The problem is, unless they were specifically outed as doping at those specific races, it's a very dangerous precedent to remove them as winners. Yes, there are some odd exceptions where a rider has been active under appeal (Contador's 2011 Giro, for example), but with those, the ban going back to the point of the positive test made it clear that those results could be taken away. There are a couple of exceptions in that era - most notably Valverde's anomalous situation with his being banned in Italy only and the wrangling over his ban to avoid over- or under-punishing that led to his 2010 results being wipe meant that there was no positive test to backdate to, and so it was unclear as to whether any of those results were in jeopardy during the case; but also Davide Rebellin is still officially the winner of 2009's Flèche Wallonne despite having tested positive at the 2008 Olympics - this is as his ban was not backdated to the positive test but instead forward dated only.

We cannot take away results from riders prior to when they were found to be doping, because those results cannot be proven to have been the product of doping. I do find the Rebellin situation strange and would have thought that results taken between a positive test and suspension ought to be taken away; the situation at the time was complicated by the number of incidents around things like Operación Puerto where there were no positive tests to go from. The question then comes into it as to "what constitutes a positive test worthy of removal of results", too. I mean, would you advocate for removing Simon Yates or Nairo Quintana's results over their positives for terbutaline and in-competition tramadol? How about Fränk Schleck? He was involved in Operación Puerto, and tested positive for xipamide in 2012. But if we're leaving Lance there because other people were doping too, then logically you'd also agree that we should let Riccardo Riccò and Stefan Schumacher keep their stage wins in the 2008 Tour, and give Rebellin his Olympic silver medal back?

I can't get on board with leaving Lance as the winner simply because it looks aesthetically bad to have no winner and other people cheated too. That goes too far down the apologism route. You also have to factor in that time heals the wounds; in 2012, having only just had his second retirement and with a lot of fresh news about his behaviour and the people he'd trampled over in defence of his mythology, and many of those people still in positions of prominence in the sport, let's just say that "bygones are bygones, other people cheated too, let Lance have his glory and just put an asterisk on it" never realistically even entered the discussion.

Doping and its effects were still a major talking point at the time in a way that they just aren't today. Valverde and Contador had just returned from their bans, Sky had just rode everybody into dust for six months and ignited some of the most fervent and divisive discussions on the subject since Lance had been around the first time. Pat McQuaid had just had to hang the Olympic gold medal - perceived to be a borderline coronation for Mark Cavendish to cap the British cycling season of glory - around the neck of Aleksandr Vinokourov in front of the whole world. Fränk Schleck tested positive at the Tour that year, and Rémy di Gregorio was arrested and taken away by the gendarmerie mid-race. We were only a couple of years removed from a number of dopers who had talked when caught - Sinkewitz, Sella, Kohl, Frei - as well as high profile confessions from Landis and Rasmussen, the former of which indirectly led to the Reasoned Decision.

Arguing time may have passed and we should reinstate Lance as the on-paper winner I think is a hard sell, but putting him back in as an asterisked or struck through winner rather than putting in "not assigned" or whatever terminology they choose would be a sufficient compromise I feel. It acknowledges he was there and he won the race, but also that he was disqualified. That's something you can argue in 2025. I don't think it was really viable to argue in 2012 when the decision first hit.

 

[Unchained]

Armstrong had his titles stripped cause he was a jerk and pissed off a lot of people. Obviously his competition was doped as well and sporting wise his penalty makes sense only if he had been protected and allowed more than others by the UCI (which is actually quite possible).

All of this is absolutely ridiculous from the UCI on down.. Trek, Nike, Coca-Cola, Subaru, Nissan, USPS, half dozen other companies!! UCI helped Armstrong cheat, full stop!! Everyone involved knew about doping. Everyone involved couldn't be bothered because everyone, Armstrong included were too busy patting each other of the back!! The real term is mutual asz kissing society.. Everyone was too busy cashing checks.
If Armstrong lost, someone else won and UCI is too cowardice, corrupt, criminal to do the work to award the rightful winners in all categories!!
UCI is afraid to reopen Pandora's box!!
Absolutely ridiculous that Armstrong is the end all for the sake of cleanliness and convenience!!
Anyone who says who cares or it doesn't matter just is not thinking it through!! Riders that trained a lifetime, put themselves through hell for the sacrifices for Tour greatness, someone doped and stole their victory from cheating and it doesn't matter!!!?

 

[Charlyghoul]

The problem is, unless they were specifically outed as doping at those specific races, it's a very dangerous precedent to remove them as winners. Yes, there are some odd exceptions where a rider has been active under appeal (Contador's 2011 Giro, for example), but with those, the ban going back to the point of the positive test made it clear that those results could be taken away. There are a couple of exceptions in that era - most notably Valverde's anomalous situation with his being banned in Italy only and the wrangling over his ban to avoid over- or under-punishing that led to his 2010 results being wipe meant that there was no positive test to backdate to, and so it was unclear as to whether any of those results were in jeopardy during the case; but also Davide Rebellin is still officially the winner of 2009's Flèche Wallonne despite having tested positive at the 2008 Olympics - this is as his ban was not backdated to the positive test but instead forward dated only.

We cannot take away results from riders prior to when they were found to be doping, because those results cannot be proven to have been the product of doping. I do find the Rebellin situation strange and would have thought that results taken between a positive test and suspension ought to be taken away; the situation at the time was complicated by the number of incidents around things like Operación Puerto where there were no positive tests to go from. The question then comes into it as to "what constitutes a positive test worthy of removal of results", too. I mean, would you advocate for removing Simon Yates or Nairo Quintana's results over their positives for terbutaline and in-competition tramadol? How about Fränk Schleck? He was involved in Operación Puerto, and tested positive for xipamide in 2012. But if we're leaving Lance there because other people were doping too, then logically you'd also agree that we should let Riccardo Riccò and Stefan Schumacher keep their stage wins in the 2008 Tour, and give Rebellin his Olympic silver medal back?

I can't get on board with leaving Lance as the winner simply because it looks aesthetically bad to have no winner and other people cheated too. That goes too far down the apologism route. You also have to factor in that time heals the wounds; in 2012, having only just had his second retirement and with a lot of fresh news about his behaviour and the people he'd trampled over in defence of his mythology, and many of those people still in positions of prominence in the sport, let's just say that "bygones are bygones, other people cheated too, let Lance have his glory and just put an asterisk on it" never realistically even entered the discussion.

Doping and its effects were still a major talking point at the time in a way that they just aren't today. Valverde and Contador had just returned from their bans, Sky had just rode everybody into dust for six months and ignited some of the most fervent and divisive discussions on the subject since Lance had been around the first time. Pat McQuaid had just had to hang the Olympic gold medal - perceived to be a borderline coronation for Mark Cavendish to cap the British cycling season of glory - around the neck of Aleksandr Vinokourov in front of the whole world. Fränk Schleck tested positive at the Tour that year, and Rémy di Gregorio was arrested and taken away by the gendarmerie mid-race. We were only a couple of years removed from a number of dopers who had talked when caught - Sinkewitz, Sella, Kohl, Frei - as well as high profile confessions from Landis and Rasmussen, the former of which indirectly led to the Reasoned Decision.

Arguing time may have passed and we should reinstate Lance as the on-paper winner I think is a hard sell, but putting him back in as an asterisked or struck through winner rather than putting in "not assigned" or whatever terminology they choose would be a sufficient compromise I feel. It acknowledges he was there and he won the race, but also that he was disqualified. That's something you can argue in 2025. I don't think it was really viable to argue in 2012 when the decision first hit.

Thanks again for the comment, a lot of good points.
I’m not too familiar with the doping or alleged doping of some of the riders you mentioned.
Maybe an ideal scenario is not possible.
Rasmussen and Zabel still have their accolades from those tours , despite both admitted doping through that time period. I know they are less important results than the winner of the tour, but it is inconsistent and makes no sense.

To me the only thing that makes sense is, if we can’t assign another rider who was not proven to have doped as the winner, then Armstrong won those tours.
If we can’t do either of those things, all of the results in those tours including stage wins should be cancelled.

Sounds drastic maybe but think of it this way, how can Basso be second in the 2005 tour if there is no winner? How can Mancebo be 4th if only Basso is above him?…

Imagine a stage winner, watching the tour on tv in 50 years with his friend.
‘I won a stage in 2005 you know’
Wow, who won that tour again?
‘Well, Armstrong did, but he was disqualified for Drugs’
Oh, I remember, so who won instead?
‘Well, no one did’
What do you mean ?
‘Well, Basso came second, he wasn’t disqualified, but he didn’t win either’
Oh, that’s strange
‘Yeah’
So Basso came second?
‘Yeah’
But nobody won?
‘Yeah’
Is that possible?
‘Not really, only in cycling’
Right, so who came third?
‘It was Ullrich, but he was disqualified for Drugs’
I don’t care anymore, where did you finish anyway?
‘I…I don’t know’

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Thanks again for the comment, a lot of good points.
I’m not too familiar with the doping or alleged doping of some of the riders you mentioned.
Maybe an ideal scenario is not possible.
Rasmussen and Zabel still have their accolades from those tours , despite both admitted doping through that time period. I know they are less important results than the winner of the tour, but it is inconsistent and makes no sense.

To me the only thing that makes sense is, if we can’t assign another rider who was not proven to have doped as the winner, then Armstrong won those tours.
If we can’t do either of those things, all of the results in those tours including stage wins should be cancelled.

Sounds drastic maybe but think of it this way, how can Basso be second in the 2005 tour if there is no winner? How can Mancebo be 4th if only Basso is above him?…

Imagine a stage winner, watching the tour on tv in 50 years with his friend.
‘I won a stage in 2005 you know’
Wow, who won that tour again?
‘Well, Armstrong did, but he was disqualified for Drugs’
Oh, I remember, so who won instead?
‘Well, no one did’
What do you mean ?
‘Well, Basso came second, he wasn’t disqualified, but he didn’t win either’
Oh, that’s strange
‘Yeah’
So Basso came second?
‘Yeah’
But nobody won?
‘Yeah’
Is that possible?
‘Not really, only in cycling’
Right, so who came third?
‘It was Ullrich, but he was disqualified for Drugs’
I don’t care anymore, where did you finish anyway?
‘I…I don’t know’

Apologies, but this just seems like a really naïve take. If they take away the results of riders who voluntarily admit, it takes away any incentive toward honesty. And again - at the time we had a few dopers whose confessions and cooperation had been very helpful towards combating doping. Admittedly, these were largely riders who had either called time on their careers or who had been ostracised, but nevertheless, surely it is plain to see why the sport may want to show a greater degree of leniency than towards the guy who had destroyed peoples' lives, smeared people's names, ruined peoples' careers and bullied others into silence to protect his own doping. If they give Armstrong a sweetheart deal and let him keep all his titles, he gets no punishment, then they incentivise that behaviour.

Your comments on not being familiar with the doping or alleged doping of a number of the riders I brought up from the immediate post-Armstrong era suggests that you may have come to the sport later than that era - and that's no problem at all, but the outcome you have outlined, of essentially protecting Armstrong's results in the name of being able to compare potential future feats, would simply not have been possible with the Reasoned Decision coming in the environment of 2012, and if I'm right and you've come to the sport later than that, then you may simply not understand the anti-doping environment as it was back then.

Today, it's been a long time since we had a huge blow-the-lid-off scandal, but back then there were plenty. Enough that, for example, German TV had basically thrown the Tour off major stations due to continual scandals, and wildcard teams could put together a pretty strong roster built largely out of riders competing under the informal "quarantine" of two years where a returning doper would not be signed by any ProTour (WT precursor) teams. There was a very conscious attempt to clean the sport up in the post-Armstrong era in order to restore its reputation, with a number of major operations affecting numerous teams and riders, and his return was a significant factor in that progress stalling, and this was very fresh in the memories of many at the time. There wasn't a "no news is good news" environment at the time, the sport was having to catch the most egregious cheats like Riccò and Schumacher because they weren't subtle enough and with the constant scandals rocking the sport, superhuman feats were not greeted with awe and admiration but with scepticism and derision. Armstrong's actions had done such damage for so long that they absolutely had to set an example of him.

 

[Charlyghoul]

Apologies, but this just seems like a really naïve take. If they take away the results of riders who voluntarily admit, it takes away any incentive toward honesty. And again - at the time we had a few dopers whose confessions and cooperation had been very helpful towards combating doping. Admittedly, these were largely riders who had either called time on their careers or who had been ostracised, but nevertheless, surely it is plain to see why the sport may want to show a greater degree of leniency than towards the guy who had destroyed peoples' lives, smeared people's names, ruined peoples' careers and bullied others into silence to protect his own doping. If they give Armstrong a sweetheart deal and let him keep all his titles, he gets no punishment, then they incentivise that behaviour.

Your comments on not being familiar with the doping or alleged doping of a number of the riders I brought up from the immediate post-Armstrong era suggests that you may have come to the sport later than that era - and that's no problem at all, but the outcome you have outlined, of essentially protecting Armstrong's results in the name of being able to compare potential future feats, would simply not have been possible with the Reasoned Decision coming in the environment of 2012, and if I'm right and you've come to the sport later than that, then you may simply not understand the anti-doping environment as it was back then.

Today, it's been a long time since we had a huge blow-the-lid-off scandal, but back then there were plenty. Enough that, for example, German TV had basically thrown the Tour off major stations due to continual scandals, and wildcard teams could put together a pretty strong roster built largely out of riders competing under the informal "quarantine" of two years where a returning doper would not be signed by any ProTour (WT precursor) teams. There was a very conscious attempt to clean the sport up in the post-Armstrong era in order to restore its reputation, with a number of major operations affecting numerous teams and riders, and his return was a significant factor in that progress stalling, and this was very fresh in the memories of many at the time. There wasn't a "no news is good news" environment at the time, the sport was having to catch the most egregious cheats like Riccò and Schumacher because they weren't subtle enough and with the constant scandals rocking the sport, superhuman feats were not greeted with awe and admiration but with scepticism and derision. Armstrong's actions had done such damage for so long that they absolutely had to set an example of him.

I started watching cycling in the middle of the Armstrong era around 2002.
The riders whose doping I’m not so familiar with are Yates and Quintana.

There’s something in your point about honest riders confessing and incentives, but I don’t think my view is naive.
If it’s naive then it’s ridiculous and hypocritical to have some proven dopers, in those tours, allowed to keep their results, but not others.
It’s even more ridiculous to award a second place with no winner.

Either leave Armstrong, award a winner that hasn’t been proven to have doped in those specific races, or just write off the results in all those races.

The results of people like Schumacher not being subtle enough is a bit silly if we look at the performances of the last couple of years.

The whole idea of crossing out a winner who was proven to have cheated but not declaring a winner who was not proven to have cheated because they all cheated is nonsensical.
It doesn’t say don’t take drugs, it says we know cycling is filthy so take your drugs but try to be nice, which is worse.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I started watching cycling in the middle of the Armstrong era around 2002.
The riders whose doping I’m not so familiar with are Yates and Quintana.

The fact that you aren't familiar with the doping cases of two of the biggest names to have been caught in recent years probably speaks volumes of the way anti-doping has been successfully wing-clipped in recent years, to be honest.

There’s something in your point about honest riders confessing and incentives, but I don’t think my view is naive.
If it’s naive then it’s ridiculous and hypocritical to have some proven dopers, in those tours, allowed to keep their results, but not others.
It’s even more ridiculous to award a second place with no winner.

Either leave Armstrong, award a winner that hasn’t been proven to have doped in those specific races, or just write off the results in all those races.

If not the product of naïveté then this becomes, essentially, Armstrong apologism, or a desire through nostalgic memory of that time to erase the fact that those victories are tainted.

The results of people like Schumacher not being subtle enough is a bit silly if we look at the performances of the last couple of years.

Cycling has become faster again and anti-doping has seen its power eroded, but let's not then pretend that the previous era didn't happen just because the speeds have gone up to that level again. You're free to use Lance's times as a metric for judging people against. Schumacher and Riccò might not stand out today, but in 2008 they stood out a mile as guys who had not got the memo.

The whole idea of crossing out a winner who was proven to have cheated but not declaring a winner who was not proven to have cheated because they all cheated is nonsensical.
It doesn’t say don’t take drugs, it says we know cycling is filthy so take your drugs but try to be nice, which is worse.

People like Chris Froome, Roman Kreuziger and Daryl Impey have had cases which have poked massive holes in the efficacy of anti-doping, and that's part of what's enabled the current era. If Lance's lawyers could have found those holes, they might have salvaged some of his reputation. But they couldn't and didn't.

Cycling has, however, a reputation that it has to manage in order to secure races, participants and sponsors. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, that entailed cleaning the sport up. In the mid 2020s, that entails not rocking the boat because major scandals are both rare and suppressed. Armstrong was a large part of why that late 2000s/early 2010s drive was to clean the sport up, and he paid the price. Wanting to celebrate his performances again won't make that go away.

 

[Charlyghoul]

The fact that you aren't familiar with the doping cases of two of the biggest names to have been caught in recent years probably speaks volumes of the way anti-doping has been successfully wing-clipped in recent years, to be honest.

If not the product of naïveté then this becomes, essentially, Armstrong apologism, or a desire through nostalgic memory of that time to erase the fact that those victories are tainted.

Cycling has become faster again and anti-doping has seen its power eroded, but let's not then pretend that the previous era didn't happen just because the speeds have gone up to that level again. You're free to use Lance's times as a metric for judging people against. Schumacher and Riccò might not stand out today, but in 2008 they stood out a mile as guys who had not got the memo.

People like Chris Froome, Roman Kreuziger and Daryl Impey have had cases which have poked massive holes in the efficacy of anti-doping, and that's part of what's enabled the current era. If Lance's lawyers could have found those holes, they might have salvaged some of his reputation. But they couldn't and didn't.

Cycling has, however, a reputation that it has to manage in order to secure races, participants and sponsors. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, that entailed cleaning the sport up. In the mid 2020s, that entails not rocking the boat because major scandals are both rare and suppressed. Armstrong was a large part of why that late 2000s/early 2010s drive was to clean the sport up, and he paid the price. Wanting to celebrate his performances again won't make that go away.

You’re probably right about Quintana and such, I hadn’t followed cycling very closely again until recently either.

I think that to have second places still awarded , but to have no winner is laziness. It’s worse than leaving Armstrong as the winner.
Worse than that, as another poster said it’s extremely unfair on anyone who was potentially clean ,insults the intelligence of cycling fans while making a mockery of cycling.

Quite possible now the faster times and ‘aliens’ are due to cycling not being able to afford another scandal and as a result the peloton is the filthiest it’s ever been.

Comparing someone like Kreziger or even Froome with Armstrong is a bit more than apples and oranges.
Didn’t really matter what loopholes his lawyers could dig up, he was basically forced to confess, again not even due to the fact he doped, but because he wasn’t a very nice guy.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Look, no other top cyclist (Ullrich, Basso, Beloki) stepped up and said "Those Tours should be mine". None said it was unjust. They knew the reality of that time and thought Armstrong deserved them (if he had been favoured by UCI things change OFC)

As for now, cycling has the best image for a few decades. No big bust is expected. Guys are doing wonders while apparently clean. Hardly any questions arise. Good job is being done to make it more popular.

 

[Charlyghoul]

Look, no other top cyclist (Ullrich, Basso, Beloki) stepped up and said "Those Tours should be mine". None said it was unjust. They knew the reality of that time and thought Armstrong deserved them (if he had been favoured by UCI things change OFC)

As for now, cycling has the best image for a few decades. No big bust is expected. Guys are doing wonders while apparently clean. Hardly any questions arise. Good job is being done to make it more popular.

If we say for arguments sake that everyone was doped, then he did deserve them , if they weren’t there should be an overall winner.
It’s just lazy officialdom taking away an overall winner but leaving stage winners, other classification winners, second places etc.
What about the other tours, Ullrich has admitted he doped throughout his career including when he won, but he’s still a tdf winner and Armstrong isn’t ?

‘Guys are doing wonders while apparently clean’ indeed, Current riders can basically do what they want, as long as they’re pleasant about it, because the tour can’t afford another high profile doper. The contenders now are laughing all the way to Paris.

 

[BubbaChuck]

everbody from that era knows those tours are armstrongs.there was no unfair advantage,thats nonsense and toady we know,that guys like pantani,indurain and ullrich were even more doped during their wins.there was no super talents pantani and ullrich and great responder lance,tahts nonsense.all results from 91-96 are utter joke.

 

[topcat]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/09/lance-armstrong-uci-colluded-circ-report-cycling

 

[Libertine Seguros]

If we say for arguments sake that everyone was doped, then he did deserve them , if they weren’t there should be an overall winner.
It’s just lazy officialdom taking away an overall winner but leaving stage winners, other classification winners, second places etc.
What about the other tours, Ullrich has admitted he doped throughout his career including when he won, but he’s still a tdf winner and Armstrong isn’t ?

‘Guys are doing wonders while apparently clean’ indeed, Current riders can basically do what they want, as long as they’re pleasant about it, because the tour can’t afford another high profile doper. The contenders now are laughing all the way to Paris.

We shouldn't strip away victories from cheats if other people in the race also cheated because if other people also cheat then all cheating is winning fair and square?

 

[Charlyghoul]

We shouldn't strip away victories from cheats if other people in the race also cheated because if other people also cheat then all cheating is winning fair and square?

I don’t know who that is ?

No, we should strip them and make the winner the next best placed rider who was not proven to have cheated…
What else can you do but remove the proven cheats and alter results based on that ? What else is there ?

The problem here is the timeframe, if they’re not caught during the actual race, it just becomes politics, who was nice about it, who can worm their way out with exemptions, whatever.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I don’t know who that is ?

No, we should strip them and make the winner the next best placed rider who was not proven to have cheated…
What else can you do but remove the proven cheats and alter results based on that ? What else is there ?

The problem here is the timeframe, if they’re not caught during the actual race, it just becomes politics, who was nice about it, who can worm their way out with exemptions, whatever.

Ben Johnson, Seoul 1988 100m.

His medal was given to Carl Lewis. Who still has it.

Linford Christie was upgraded from bronze to silver. And he still has that.

Lewis tested positive for three different banned substances at the Olympic trials and was allowed to run with it covered up by the US Olympic Committee. Christie tested positive at the Olympics themselves, after a heat, but was cleared to compete in the final.

Only Calvin Smith, who finished 4th (later upgraded to bronze) and Robson da Silva, who finished 7th (later upgraded to 6th) have not got confirmed doping history in that final.

So based on how you have presented it with cycling, we should give Ben Johnson his gold medal back, right? After all, if he cheated and beat cheaters he's still the best, right?

 

[Charlyghoul]

Ben Johnson, Seoul 1988 100m.

His medal was given to Carl Lewis. Who still has it.

The problem is all sports at the highest level, the majority will be on something banned.

What else can you do but to disqualify the proven cheaters? If the second place guy is not proven to have cheated within whatever the criteria is for that then it’s just becomes a farce.
If it’s been too long to elevate the second place guy then it’s been too long to disqualify the winner

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The problem is all sports at the highest level, the majority will be on something banned.

What else can you do but to disqualify the proven cheaters? If the second place guy is not proven to have cheated within whatever the criteria is for that then it’s just becomes a farce.
If it’s been too long to elevate the second place guy then it’s been too long to disqualify the winner

Which is what they did when they disqualified Armstrong, so there's no need to astroturf.

 

[topcat]

There's a proven formula: Dope, collude with the governing body, silence the rats. Call it talent and training.
Lance was the UCI's boy. Once he got exposed, the UCI had a tantrum and said if our boy can't have the wins, then no one can.
Lewis was the golden boy, so it was convenient that half man/ half horse Johnson got disqualified.
Pog is the current golden boy. Talent and training.