• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

When is the smackdown on Chris Horner?

Page 109 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

EnacheV

BANNED
Jul 7, 2013
1,441
0
0
Visit site
when vuelta winner makes fun of you (the site) there is a clear sign that something is wrong

maybe there should be a limit to worthless personal opinions presented as facts without any evidence
 
Dear god, the rhetorical questions. Yes Chris, we're definitely happy to have you end the conversation with rhetorical questions. 'How would I have gotten it if I didn't speak French?" Seriously, either he's really dumb and didn't realize how easy it was to get, or he's really, really dumb to think people will believe that.

Answer: "hmm, I dunno, maybe the same way as EVERY OTHER FOREIGN CYCLIST GOT DRUGS"?

It's funny, until a couple of years ago I did suspect that it was possible that Horner raced clean in the heyday of doping, and even thought that his results getting better in his mid-30s could possibly be explained by that narrative. But then he opened his mouth about Lance, etc, and simultaneously became a world-beater at age 40, that's a bridge too far to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that is the case, and he really didn't get drugs because he was too stupid to realize how easy they were to get or too stubborn to 'learn French' or whatever, and now that he's been on real teams he has found how to get the real goods. That seems consistent with his total confirmation that he has no moral problem with doping.

Either way, 'I didn't even speak French' and 'there was no internet back then' are up there with 'me and my teammates have slept on volcanos' as the best doping deflections of the year.
 
red_flanders said:
On the other hand, he flatly denies being rider 15. Something regarded as near fact by many here.

I would be surprised if he would flatly deny such a thing, is it's going to come out eventually. Not impossible, but that flat denial is interesting.

I wonder if he could quite easily be rider 15 though. He said he wasn't contacted by USADA, but maybe they just decided not to contact him, or not do so yet, or anything like that. His 'hasn't been contacted by USADA so it can't be me' sounds like a 'haven't tested positive' denial.

Or maybe someone contacted him and it was in French so he doesn't realize it's happened. "Coureur quinze? What does that mean? Sorry, I've gotta go. I'm on a 9-hour time difference and I've gotta leave the grocery store to have breakfast" *click*
 
Feb 19, 2013
431
0
0
Visit site
skidmark said:
I wonder if he could quite easily be rider 15 though. He said he wasn't contacted by USADA, but maybe they just decided not to contact him, or not do so yet, or anything like that.

You surely would think they would have gotten around to him by now, though... What's the hold-up?
 
mattghg said:
You surely would think they would have gotten around to him by now, though... What's the hold-up?

Well, I dunno. I suppose they've been pretty meticulous thus far, and so we should probably assume they'd follow up whatever leads have been given by previous testimonies, so even if he's mentioned relatively peripherally, he'd probably have been contacted. And I would doubt he could flat out lie if he had, in fact, been contacted by USADA, because that would be incredibly easy to expose. So I don't think he's lying, and in the abstract I'm inclined to think that you're probably right that if he was named they would have contacted him.

But it just doesn't make sense - the only mention of rider 15 is one sentence where Levi says in 2008 rider 15 mentioned that he used EPO in 2005 to recover from an injury before the tour du suisse. Horner was on Astana in 2008, and had an injury before the 2005 TdS (where, hilariously enough, he won a stage after dropping his young attacking companion on the final climb, Vincenzo Nibali). There is pretty much no one else that Levi could be talking about - I could be wrong, but I think last year after the reasoned decision there was some hard searching here on the forum and people dissected the Astana team of 2008 and who Levi could have been talking to, and Horner was the only one that made sense.

It makes more sense to me to believe, for whatever reason, that USADA just chose not to follow up on that tiny nugget of info.
 
Clearly I wasn’t involved, you can go all the way back to when I first started in 1998. Also, you can look at my results. It’s always been boggling to me. You see my results get better and better. And you see the drug testing get better and better. And so, as a rider, I always find it funny. Why didn’t you guys see it? Why don’t you guys see how difficult it was in '97, '98, '99?

I had a difficult time in Europe. It’s difficult to say whether the drug problem was there or it wasn’t there, and that was the reason. I was 10 pounds overweight; that was one of the reasons. Maybe 2002, when the EPO test started coming out, then they started perfecting it, then they started doing at-home out-of-competition testing, then the biological passport. All that has helped my career. As the testing has gotten better, my results have gotten better.



And that is. Not more. What a lot of people thinks now he say very clear.
 
I can't believe we haven't heard anything about the Saturn days.

Stage 5, Sunset Road Race – 142 km

Average speed of winner 41.97 kmph

Individual Stage Placings:

1. Tom Danielson, Saturn, 3:23:00; 2. Nathan O’Neill, Saturn, s.t.; 3. Chris Horner, Saturn, s.t.; 4. Miguel Meza, Schroeder Iron, at 12:09; 5. Brice Jones, 7Up-Maxxis, s.t.; 6. Derek Wilkerson, Jelly Belly-Carlsbad Clothing, s.t.; 7. Phil Dixon, Great Britain National, s.t.; 8. Peter Mazur, LeMond Fitness, s.t.; 9. Danny Pate, Prime Alliance, s.t.; 10. Jacob Erker, Schroeder Iron, s.t.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2003/04/news/road/jeanson-horner-ride-away-with-gc-at-redlands_3709
 
skidmark said:
I wonder if he could quite easily be rider 15 though. He said he wasn't contacted by USADA, but maybe they just decided not to contact him, or not do so yet, or anything like that. His 'hasn't been contacted by USADA so it can't be me' sounds like a 'haven't tested positive' denial.

Or maybe someone contacted him and it was in French so he doesn't realize it's happened. "Coureur quinze? What does that mean? Sorry, I've gotta go. I'm on a 9-hour time difference and I've gotta leave the grocery store to have breakfast" *click*

perhaps USADA didn't contact him and they just got the info directly from Novitzky n Co?
splitting hairs, I know, but is this a case of Novitzky contacted him but Tygart didn't?
(I am basing that on the assumption that there was direct transfer of information between the two departments, so could be way off)
 
roundabout said:
He can enjoy not being rider 15 while unemployed

I read the interview as the guy has been busted down to pro-continental or it's 5-figure wages for hauling water.

This is one of those times when you wonder about all the ridiculous doping in cycling and yet somehow, this one ridiculous doper gets demoted. Maybe he really was a fool about the wages he was demanding?

Bad interview. Crazy stuff.
 
Mar 12, 2010
545
0
0
Visit site
skidmark said:
But it just doesn't make sense - the only mention of rider 15 is one sentence where Levi says in 2008 rider 15 mentioned that he used EPO in 2005 to recover from an injury before the tour du suisse. Horner was on Astana in 2008, and had an injury before the 2005 TdS (where, hilariously enough, he won a stage after dropping his young attacking companion on the final climb, Vincenzo Nibali). There is pretty much no one else that Levi could be talking about - I could be wrong, but I think last year after the reasoned decision there was some hard searching here on the forum and people dissected the Astana team of 2008 and who Levi could have been talking to, and Horner was the only one that made sense.

It makes more sense to me to believe, for whatever reason, that USADA just chose not to follow up on that tiny nugget of info.

Bit large I'm afraid, but not readable otherwise.

The 2005 Tour de Suisse Startlist
1zehz7c.jpg
 
In case it wasn't previously posted, worth listening to…Michael Creed interviews Levi and they talk about Horner, US Postal, life in Europe etc. At about 29 minutes, what about Horner - he's older than me? "I think I'll bite my tongue on that one."

At one point Levi says, "This is just business…it's this or we go home." Around 54-55 minutes in. Many more gems and worthy of your time. At 1 hr 8 minutes…"Dr. Dave the Belgian rider." 1 hr 17 minutes, "how many units of stimulation?"

http://cyclismas.podomatic.com/entry/2013-10-24T20_58_25-07_00
 
TheGame said:
Bit large I'm afraid, but not readable otherwise.

http://bikeraceinfo.com/stageraces/Switzerland/2005-swiss-tour.html

Lastras solos a stage win.
Horner has a stage win... and 5th place overall in a rather ridiculous podium.
Loosli is somewhere in the middle in the TdS and looks like a domestique?
Colli, Cooke, Boonen, and Rast all sprinting well.
Julich does top-10 in the ITT.

Of those, if my fact checking is right, Horner is mentioned as having knee issues.
Cooke is "plagued by injuries" http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=10082
 

TRENDING THREADS