I wanted it to be said from the start: Lance Armstrong is an American hero. The man beat cancer. He rode his bike like Barry Bonds hits fastballs, although other than that, he has nothing at all in common with Bonds. We should all continue snapping up those snazzy yellow wristbands and not think there’s anything suspicious about America’s Livestrong Athlete.
In fact, Lance is nothing at all like so many of those guys he beat in winning the Tour de France every year from 1999-2005. For instance:
- Ivan Basso: Finished 2nd in 2005, 3rd in 2004. Along with eleven other riders is banned from the 2006 Tour. Admits to “attempted doping” in May 2007 but denies ever successfully doping, not even in his dominant win in the 2006 Giro d’Italia, after which one competitor calls his performance “extra-terrestial”. More.
- Jan Ullrich: Finished 3rd in 2005, 4th in 2004, and 2nd in 2003, 2001, 2000, and 1998. Just before the 2006 Tour Ullrich was banned (along with Basso) from the race on suspicion of blood doping The 1997 champion of the event denies any involvement with Dr. Eufamiano Fuentes, allegedly a heavy player in the blood doping game, but then retires in 2007 just before DNA tests are released that link Ullrich to the doctor. See for more.
- Alexandre Vinokourov: 3rd in 2003. The pre-race favorite in 2007, Vinokourov is kicked out mid-Tour after evidence of blood doping surfaces following his demolition of the field in Stage 13. More.
- Raimondas Rumsas: 3rd in 2002. In January of last year both Rumsas and his wife were convicted by a French court of illegally smuggling illegal substances (growth hormone and EPO) in 2002. Rumsas had denied the accusations but had been suspended in 2003 when he failed a blood test. See for more.
- Alex Zulle: 2nd in 1999. Banned from the 1998 race when he was caught up in the huge Festina scandal that year. Zulle confessed to authorities he had used illegal performance-enhancing drugs (EPO). See for more.
Of course, this list just covers those riders who finished second or third to Armstrong during his run. It doesn’t cover people like Laurent Dufaux, the Swiss cyclist banned in 1998 and who finished fourth in 1999, Fransisco Mancebo, fourth in 2005 and caught up in the Operacion Puerto mess in 2006, fellow American Tyler Hamilton, fourth in 2003 and banned in 2005 for two years by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, and that jackass 2006 champion Floyd Landis.
But by all means, we should all continue to unquestionably worship Lance Armstrong without a hint of irony, because he beat all these cheaters with vitamins, prayers, and hard work. (Just like Hulk Hogan! Er, maybe that’s a bad example…)
I’ve read this through three times already, and I’m frustrated and frightened for my own intelligence because I can’t decide if it’s meant to be ironic or not.
I don’t think he is trying to be ironic. After all, the poster can’t possibly have overlooked the basic facts: Armstrong was subjected to all the same tests at all the same times, probably even more often given his stature (and the French dislike for him), and he always came up negative.
Either Armstrong had some serious help up and down the organization to hide his doping, or he was clean, ridiculously fit (“thanks” to having cancer and getting the chance to rebuild his body), and just that much better than his peers.
Stop being all confusing and tell me what my opinion should be already!
One could say that since those guys couldn’t beat him without drugs, they turned to drugs to get an edge.
What else was common amongst them? They all were older guys when they got busted. Maybe the older guys do it to keep the money flowing.
you guys are idiots. its incredibly sarcastic. lance armstrong is barry bonds in europe.
I’ll call Lance Armstrong the Barry Bonds of Europe right after he admits, under oath, to a grand jury that he used performance enhancing drugs.
Barry never broke the rules of his sport. Whatever PED he took were not banned by baseball if/when he took them.
If Lance took PEDs (no evidence that he did), he’s much worse than Barry, having violated the rules of cycling.
this repeats a common misconception that the use of ped were not aganst mlb rules.since the early 70’s it was against mlb rules to take any prescription drug without a valid drs. script.know your rules.
Lance can’t be Barry Bonds. He’s white.
Um, Lance Armstrong did test positive for EPO use before EPO was tested for; it’s just the leak of that positive test was illegal (which Lance rightly won). Also, many former teammates have spoken of witnessing many suspicious things. Lance worked with many of the shady trainers and disgraced doctors (this is why most Europeans think it is obvious he cheated as it is the best circumstantial measure). Today, Lance continues to take millions of dollars from the makers of EPO (obviously, he is on great terms with AmGen).
I have no idea what Lance did and did not do but there is far more circumstantial (obvious no legal proof) evidence against Lance than most of other American athletes in other sports who get pilloried by fans.
Following SC’s (above) comment I have no doubt that Lance cheated in the sense he violated the strict rules of cycling. However, Lance was always well aware of how the rules were being applied (testing) and used his sophisticated and well-paid medical staff to help him avoid detection. Lance stayed away from any sort of “risky” cheating, i.e., he only did things (like use EPO in the era before they tested for) which had a very neglible risk of being caught (he could handle the “witnesses” with his legal team and strict non-disclosure agreements that he made everyone around him sign).
The problem with Lance is that most of his fans are not very knowledgable about the sport of cycling and they do not know about how Lance’s era was really about cheating and not getting caught. So in that sense Lance was the greatest cyclist of his time, not only winning races but also cheating in a much smarter way.
i think we will know soon enough.if you put the little fish close enough to the frying pan they will scream.he also has an ex and did not treat sheryl crow right.if someone knows with enough heat they’ll talk.
[…] over on the blog Vandermint Auditorium there’s a snarky piece that makes the argument that because Lance Armstrong consistently beat […]
Q: Why do so many cyclists still cheat when so many of their predecessors have been caught and publicly ruined?
A: Because the vast majority of cheaters still get away with it.
Most guys can juggle the intake of PED so that their testing levels don’t register and they ‘pass’ tests. Only in the very rare times when people screw up, do they get caught.
Therefore, just b/c a guy hasn’t been caught doesn’t make him innocent … it just means he is either (a) innocent or (b) careful re his cheating.
Ulrich needed to dope just to get his fat arse through the race.
Floormaster Squeeze needs to get the facts straight – Lance has never had any relationship w/ the makers of epo or accepted money from them (Amgen). He has done a lot of work as a spokesperson for Bristol Myers Squibb, the makers of the chemo agents he took when he had cancer.
Clearly there are problems in pro cycling, some of them outlined here, but before you start spreading untruths you should check the facts.
Do any of you watch cycling? What made Lance a winner was his preparation for the tour and his team. He trained for one race and one race only the entire year. He trained to peak during the Tour. His team carried him through 6 of the 7 wins with the exception of 99 when he beat a pretty dismal field. What other team is as diedicated to their GC man than his? They pulled him through the mountain stages every time, letting him go at the end with a fresher pair of legs than anyone else.
The 1999 case with the EPO was also investigated by an independent party and their results were that the samples had been intentionally spiked by the French lab.
When he was 16 he was competing in and winning triathlons, was he doping then? I really wish someone would take the time to look at all the facts before accusing someone of something. The author is just another sports writer with a limited knowledge of cycling and no desire to take the time to investigate for him/herself. Another useless blogger.
K Frank writes:
“The 1999 case with the EPO was also investigated by an independent party and their results were that the samples had been intentionally spiked by the French lab.”
Actually, the UCI report you’re referring to doesn’t say anything of the sort. It’s conclusion, which Armstrong misleadingly tried to spin as an “exoneration”, was that the presence of EPO in his urine didn’t count as a doping positive for purposes of cycling regulations, becuase the post-hoc test in question followed academic-research procedures, instead of UCI and WADA anti-doping protocols. In other words, he won in 1999 with EPO in his body, but he didn’t “test positive”. That’s hardly an exoneration.
Lance was proven NOT clean when his 1999 urine sample showed EPO. They couldn’t test it in 1999 (the test didn’t exist), but they did in 2006. Now the French lab that did the testing wasn’t supposed to release the secret numbers of the samples they tested so the racers could be identified. It was meant to be investigative. But the hot news was too great and it was leaked to l’Équippe. The lab did NOT spike the sample to frame Armstrong, but because iron-clad WADA procedures were not followed Lance was “exonerated”. I think Lance’s defenses over time will look weaker and weaker.
p.s. to all those who think this article supports Armstrong…it is rather unsubtle sarcasm.
This is a minor point and there are definitely some knowledgeable people here but Amgen IS a sponsor/partner of Discovery Channel cycling team (you know the team Lance was on and IS CURRENTLY PART OWNER OF). It is not secret knowledge. SO, anytime you feel like apologizing, that will be great Big George “EPO” Hincapie still does charity events for Amgen. Could you imagine if Bonds did BALCO for Kids charities. The hypocrisy is staggering sometimes.
I do not know nor do I pretend to know what Lance did and did not do but the testimony of his former teammates, the EPO positive test, the corrupt doctors on his personal payroll, etc. are fairly strong evidence.
BTW, I love the tangential logic that because Lance once competed without PED (at 16!) he NEVER took them. The mind boggles at the complete lack of even the most basic logic in that one. I guess Lance fan’s have more loyalty than brains. Anyone that says that labs “spike” tests have spent way too much time listening to expensive lawyers and completely ignorant of the facts(Occam’s razor, look it up).
Anyway, Lance was and is a great great athlete without any PED. However, that does not make him squeaky clean. For what its worth, he probably cheated a lot less than the other elite athletes in cycling in his time.
For the record, I was for a long time a huge Landis fan and no I am not going to claim he is innocent.
I found the great Lance quote about Amgen (yeah, you can tell there is no financial relationship!):
“Epogen [EPO], Aranesp and all of the things that [Amgen] produce are great drugs. They are fantastic, they are lifesavers. Amgen doesn’t make its living off of unethical athletes; it makes its living producing life-saving drugs. I have been a consumer of Amgen products as a cancer patient and I can tell you they work.” Lance Armstrong to VeloNews, Feb 2006.
IMAGINE if Bonds has said the same about steroid makers. The hypocrisy is staggering! Just remember kids, do as Lance does, LiveStrong (spaces between words are for losers) and take your EPO.
K. Frank you are an idiot. Just because you watch the Tour on tv or follow it doesn’t necessarily make you an authority. We all have our own opinions biased or unbiased, I respect that. But Listen to yourself, were you actually following Lance 24/7 on his training rides to become this expert on cycling that you try to portray yourself to be? Unless you were there watching his every move I don’t think gluing yourself to the tv watching “Chasing Lance” on the Discovery Channel makes you more knowledgable than anyone else that picks up the morning paper. Shut up and go ride your Trek Madone. Don’t forget that Discovery or USPS jersey with the yellow bracelet.
Your drivel about the French “spiking” the urine samples with EPO is just as inconclusive (very absurd I might add) as anti-Armstrong fans like myself are about him cheating.
Yes, Lance was a very talented athlete when he was 16. But that doesn’t mean he is a future Tour champion by default that everyone likes to argue. There were many talented ahtletes that through less fortunate circumstances never achieved what Lance achieved (Jeff Evanshine ring a bell since you are so knowledgable about cycling which the rest of us aren’t). My take on Armstrong is that prior to cancer he NEVER had the talent to win the Tour de France. He was a solid rider that can win many races like a Laurent Jalabert, Sean Kelly, and Gianni Bugno to name a few, just not the Tour. I believe they along with Lance were ranked #1 at some point in their careers. I don’t know, you’re the expert am I right about that?
Finally, to add to speculation, he could be better than anyone, but if everyone is doping there is no way you can reasonably say that he beat them clean. No matter how talented the cyclist, this is the top level. The way he beat them was almost the difference between a Pro and Cat 1 National level rider. Now you’re saying that he did this clean while everyone else doped? Don’t give me this cancer made him rebuild his body or made him mentally tough. He never tested positive and was the most tested athlete in the world. Heard that one before as well. We’ve all seen how doping has slipped through the cracks (and still is). Next excuse?
That’s all I have to say. You guys can argue the rest. Just wanted to get this out in light of the stupid comment K. Frank just leveled.
ps: Great blog entry by the way! Pro sports is a farce! Bonds, Armstrong, Vick et al…they all need to just go away!
couldn’t agree more with everything, pro sports are a farce especially the nfl.if people belief in honesty and fair play how can anyone watch the nfl,what a joke.at least in cycling they seem to be trying to clean it up.the nfl just turns it head a rakes in the bucks.this is the fall of the usa empire,football players are our gladiators
I don’t know Lance personally or have knowledge of what happened in the lab…no one does, really. But I can’t deny that the man did a lot for cycling when he rode in the TDFs and is still doing a whole hell of a lot to help people with cancer. Leave the poor man alone, he’s retired and doing something constructive with his life.
[…] Lance Armstong Could Not Possibly Have Cheated I wanted it to be said from the start: Lance Armstrong is an American hero. The man beat cancer. He rode his bike like […] […]
Don’t you know that most people who have life threatening diseases and are given a 2% chance to survive come back (naturally of course) to be better than ever? It’s almost as if Lance’s competition took 2 years off with him so he wouldn’t lose a beat.
What’s that you say? They kept themselves in world class athletic form while Lance was unfortunately fighting cancer? Well that just shows you Lance is awesome, duh.
In 1927, Babe Ruth’s home run total surpassed that of any other TEAM, and doubled the output of the guy in 2nd place. He totally and utterly dominated the competition.
Nobody has ever suggested that Ruth benefitted from performance enhancing drugs.
I don’t know whether Lance is a cheater or not, but we have seen that every once in a while, there CAN be an athlete who is simply head and shoulders above his peers.
Great read. I spent some time in Austin a fewn years ago. Icon. Greatn read. Why does this get an automatic pass?
Bottom line…Lance rocks. The french have saved his urine for years in case they come up with a better test. The only problem Lance has is with the French and the media.
We all know how WONDERFUL those assholes can be.
Lance is a douche for cheating on his wife, then cheating on Sheryl Crow as well. All the Tour de France wins don’t mean shit, because he will always be a douchebag.
That said, notice how nobody really cares this year? Much less media coverage. Lane is not an American hero, he’s a cheating douche on a bike. And the fact he survived cancer isn’t even impressive, because nowadays most people do.
la is such a douche maybe sherly crow can use him for his intended pupose.
meant purpose but i assume everyone could figure that out.
awesome and I totally agree with you…I worked at a cancer institute that he would come to so people would make donations (not for his care)…and everyone was so pumped up that he would be coming…I was sick to my stomach because he’s just another athlete who gets idolized and no one wants to think about what he did to his family…he’s a douche, not doubt about it…
this is not a debate, its a shouting competition.
jingoistic americans seem to ride to lance’s defense without really understanding the sport of cycling or the law of averages.
so, we will just have more ‘lance is great / lance is a cheater’ kinds of threads. i suspect that even if or when his violations come to light, these same strident believers will remain in denial.
As they always have. He cheated on his wife. Lance = douchebag
I have never laughed so much about cycling before. Especially since the recent Tours with all the drug-cheats being caught.
I never doubted Lance (that much) until I saw this article in Outside magazine about Don Catlin. (http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200507/drugs-in-sports-1.html)
The labs are so far behind the cheaters, it is no wonder no one is being caught. I think it is the tip of the iceberg, the will keep cheating until the drug tests are more advanced, or until they know their urine and blood samples will be frozen for further testing in the future.
How come no one was shocked when we found out Chris Benoit was on steroids? Cause everyone knows that is a farce. Cycling has lost its credibility.
I remember in the Lemond era, people would finish a mountain top climb and be exhauted and collapse. The Tour was always a struggle–people suffered mightily. Now it is easy, the toughest climbs are summited with the fastest times in history.
Armstrong beat all the others quite easily, I don’t think it is possible–it is beyond belief. Seven in a row! What if Barroid Bonds was beaten by someone who hit 800 or 900 home runs? At what point would you say that is unbelievable.
Bjarne Riis, Frankie Andreu, Kevin Livingston, Ivan Basso, Marco Pantani, Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton all have used drugs and cheated. We need to open our eyes and close our wallets to cycling until the sport is cleaned up.
One more thing: Please folks, can we be nice to people we disagree with?
Sure, I think it’s possible he wasn’t part of the 1% of the peleton that didn’t cheat in the 90’s… but I’ve never seen a rider interviewed that, when asked, didn’t acknowledge that Lance worked several magnitudes harder in preparation for the TDF than pretty much anyone else in his class. The fact that he surrounded himself with some of the baddest workhorses in the business didn’t hurt either. So while circumstantial evidence is there (as is evidence to the contrary,) I think it’s possible for him to have carried out his winning streak drug free. And if he did so, it wasn’t necessarily because he’s such a wonderful human being – it was because it wasn’t necessary, in part because he made it unnecessary.
My .02.
There is still no test for HGH. Endurance athletes have hemtocrit levels below normal due to increased plasma volume. UCI will ban a rider if his level is above 50%. Blood boosting with your own blood is virtually undetectable. So an endurance athlete with in the low to mid 40s could boost to 50%. Also, the T:E ratio used to bust athletes is again based on a normal population. Endurance training has been shown to actually drop testosterone levels, which makes sense when you look at the lack of muscle on most endurance athletes. So again, an athlete could take steroids to raise their testosterone level to the 6:1 ratio, increasing their ability to train harder more often.
I remember reading an article a few years ago that analyzed Armstrong from a biological/physiological perspective. It said he was basically a super-man, even compared to other athletes…his lung capacity was greater, his resting heart rate slower, everything about him was more efficient.
I don’t know anything about how the use of the forbidden substances affect the body, so my question to the experts here is this: is it possible for these substances to increase your lung capacity, slow your resting heart rate, make your entire physiology more effective?
“All I want to do is have some fun” is a great song.
It is clear to me that all of the testing techniques utilized by the WADA and its affiliates are derived from medical advances. We needed better tests for transplant candidates, that assists in testing for RBCs that aren’t yours (red blood cells). EPO was developed as a synthetic of the hormone your body needs to make more RBCs, for people undergoing chemo or who have chronic kidney failure.
Essentially, what that means is that they do not possess the funds to develop newer, better tests on their own. They have to wait for the technology to be invented for an alternative purpose, and then retrofit it for doping tests.
Most athletes dope on the razor, taking just enough to keep their levels up but within acceptable limits. Some athletes get greedy and take more than was needed, and they get caught. There is a reason why 3 missed tests is considered a positive test. Lack of a positive test is not proof of innocence, anymore than lack of a body is proof no murder occurred.
However, what more can a clean athlete do than to provide blood and urine? Is it now the responsibility of athletes to seek out more advanced tests ahead of the WADA?
It is because of this paradox that I have chosen to abide the following rule; innocent until proven guilty. It is not my fault, or that of the athletes who I watch compete that the WADA chooses to remain in the stone age.
One last note, look at the Olympic anti doping committee. What percentage of the entire Olympic budget is theirs? 2%? less? If the world was genuinely serious about making an impact on doping in sport, there would be greater funding to do so. They are (unfortunately) only serious about looking serious about it.
I think the love and hate for Lance Armstrong made the TDF more popular than it was to-date.
I wouldn’t have cared about the TDF if it hadn’t been for Lance. I was equally interested if he’d lose or win, because it would have partly been a relief to see that someone else was just as good or better, and partly a grin if he won.
Now that he’s retired, I don’t give the TDF or any cycling event my attention. There’s no one who makes a better story or grabs my interest.
Then again, I really don’t pay attention to many sports at all – even college football is rather dull to me nowadays.
The thing is, now American news just doesn’t care. It received the most coverage when the dog crashed into the rider. Then it was gone again, all in the blink of an eye. Sad too, but I do think current doping investigations are tarnishing the image as well.
One point I haven’t seen mentioned much – even assuming that Lance is clean, there’s no disputing that the “blue train” he rode with contained a bunch of riders now connected with doping scandals. Landis rode in support of Lance when he won the tour. So did Basso. So did Tyler Hamilton. So did Ekimov, and I’m probably forgetting others. The Discovery team was widely (and rightly) credited for helping Lance control the peloton and pull him through rough spots to set him up for the big battles. Without their help? Quite probably he doesn’t win all those tours.
But beyond that, it’s pretty hard to believe that Lance consistently beat dopers without doping himself.
The Babe Ruth comparison above isn’t on target. First, both Babe and the others he played against were clean. (They couldn’t help it; they didn’t know how to cheat. If they did, they would’ve.) To find an analogy that fits, you have to find a clean athlete who routinely beats athletes who cheat, and who cheat using the very best modern technology. So, for example, find a baseball player during the 1990s who didn’t use steroids or the clear or andro but who led the league in home runs for six or seven years – beating the Cansecos, McGuires, Sosas and Bondses. It didn’t happen – for a reason.
The comparison to Ruth also isn’t on target because endurance is so central to what cyclists do – the drugs help more in this sport than in baseball or most other sports. A better comparison would be to marathoning or powerlifting or bodybuilding – sports that depend precisely on the abilities enhanced by the drug. Could a bodybuilder win Mr. World six or seven times against competitors who juiced – while not taking anything himself. Could a marathoner beat a blood-doping field six or seven times? To ask the question is to answer it.
Money talks, and sh*t walks. Think of how many organizations, sponsors, foundations have a stake in this. Imagine the humiliation and the scandal it would create if it were made public the Lance was doping.
There are a lot of stakeholders involved in this, that would try really hard to squash anything that would question Lance’s integrity, and hence their own. Don’t underestimate the power of power.
Even if Lance used drugs or was guilty of blood doping (neither of which I believe actually happened), he still managed to win 7 times in a row against a bunch of proven cheaters.
That guy is definitely in a league of his own, and if he managed to pull it off with no performance-enhancers then good for him, screw the french anyways.
WAKE UP EVERYBODY! Lance Armstrong’s urine, from 1999, tested positive for EPO. Pure and simple. Just because the lab didn’t run the sample according to strict “in competition” (UCI and WADA) protocols, but simply as a research test, does not “exonerate” Lance, as he claims.
you all have it wrong about Lance.
Let me see if I have this right. Lance wins 7 tdf’s racing clean against some opponents that doped and dominated while winning. The year he retires all the guys who were on the podium with him now take drugs to win the Tour – hello the guy who beat you last year (basso / ullrich) is now retired. Odd logic in my book. I suspect they doped in the past and there is now way Lance clean can not just beat but dominate elie bike riders who are taking performance enhancing drugs. Wake up people Lance is a fraud!
lance is a fool, and so is floyd landis mister “my testosterone levels were 12 times the normal levels because i drank whiskey” – yeah right dude, and that must be some warm yellow rain splashing on my leg.
this inspired me to create a bumper sticker so i can piss off all my cycling buddies – but be warned, it might get your car keyed 😉
click my name to check it out
I would like to see a continuation of the topic
Lance is a cheater. I followed him from the start of his career. He eneter 3 olympics & never won a medal. The testing is more accurate in olympics. He never finished his first tour de france. He said “for these guys to even finish the race, the must be superman” He returned from cancer & voila fisrt place, out of no where from last to first. The Americans reason: Lance trained harder, oxygen/tent/high altutude training blah blah blah – guess what, all the tour riders do that. Are you telling me the rest just drink bear & watch tv to train, give me a break. He visits Dr. dope Ferari just to chat.
It maybe true that Lance did not use drugs but now i certainly believe he was doing blood injection – not drugs – but still cheating. The man is greedy. I bet he took a lot of money way more than the fair share of his team mates.
Here’s a link to give people a wider perspective of things:
http://www.slate.com/id/2260464/pagenum/2
We need to encourage our politicians to dope it up good.* If they could rise to half the honesty and capacity of the worst cyclist dopers, the world would truly be a better place.
—
* and businessmen other “leaders,
and especially preachers and attorneys…
Good afternoon!!!!!
Best to see an endocrinologist first…discount generic!!
Pa!!
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