Armstrong Drops Fight Against Doping Charges

[NJC]

Originally Posted By: JOD
His highest tested vo2 prior to 1995 was 81 ml/kg/min. That's certainly good, at the bottom end of world-class athletes. It's no where near someone like LeMond, who was >90 ml/kg/min.

He was a great athlete without drugs, no question. But we'll never really know how good he would have been without them. But he certainly didn't have the physical capabilities of a grand tour winner.

Well there are of course other considerations. A NYT article quoted Dr Coyle and said this:

Quote:
Mr. Armstrong, for example, can maintain a power output of about 6.8 watts per kilogram of body weight for 20 minutes. "I would say there are probably no more than 20 people on earth with that ability, and probably at least 10 of them rode or are riding in the Tour de France," Dr. Coyle said.


BTW, that NYT article posted numbers of 85 ml/kg/min for Lance, which are higher than the 81 ml/kg/min number posted in Dr Coyle's research paper. (Linked above)

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: NJC
Gentlemen - a friendly reminder to keep things civil ... it would be helpful to keep the free flow of discussion ongoing.

This fellow, Edward F. Coyle, Ph.D.; Professor Director, Human Performance Laboratory, did a lot of research on Lance. Here's his report from 2005:

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/coyle/content/armstrong article JAP.pdf


If you're familiar with the Coyle paper, you're probably familiar with some of the issues with it, and why it didn't pass peer review. Here one article on it, but there are a ton out there: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/sports/othersports/11cycling.html?pagewanted=all

I know some of the guys involved with the published paper, and I don't believe there was an intentional smokescreen as some have suggested; I just thing it's bad science, for several reasons.

People can call me a scum bag if they want. I don't take it personally. I understand, better than most, that a several million dollar, decades long PR campaign has been waged to get people to think the way they do, and it's been effective. There's been so much ignored by the major media WRT Armstrong that I understand why the casual sports fan is so emotionally tied to the myth.

 

[dave1251]

I told you every single PED I have used and use none are illegal. Just because there not banned or illegal does not mean that they are good or bad. I do not have to justify my use and freely admit that I have used them to help me preform better if I did not use them. So there is professional athletes that has never taken ibuprofen, acetaminophen, taken medication to recover from injury or surgery and consumed caffeine? If this mystical being exists please let me know where he or she lives so I can drink their sweat and become a hero because I am tired of being a mere mortal.

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: NJC


BTW, that NYT article posted numbers of 85 ml/kg/min for Lance, which are higher than the 81 ml/kg/min number posted in Dr Coyle's research paper. (Linked above)


You can look at the raw data in Ed Coyle's paper. Prior to 1995 (when he started working with Ferrari), he was @ 81 ml/kg/min. Of course, it increased after he started working with Ferrari. That's the whole point of blood doping, and an increase in vo2 is one of the parameters affected by RBC.

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: dave1251
I told you every single PED I have used and use none are illegal.


If that's the case (I don't know if they're on the banned list for your specific sport), then you weren't doping.

Sure, all athletes use "drugs", ibuprofen etc. That's not doping. There's really no ambiguity. If it's on the banned list, it's doping.

 

[dailydriver]

I did not read all 5 pages of this, so I'm sorry if it was already brought up; but wasn't Mr. Armstrong given synthetic EPO as intensive healing therapy after all of his cancer surgeries/treatments, BEFORE any of his TdF wins?

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Shannow

what bothers me is the same thing that bothered me w/ barry bonds and the rest- I don't see why the gov't has the right to get involved in SPORTS. seriously?


Because kids play sport and in as low as high school we've once in a while seen kids doping and get into medical problem.

It is not something to encourage and to becomes a "must do" to stay competitive.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: chiks
The next control would be on hard working school kids.
Kids who work more than 4 hrs a day on their work @ home after school would be deemed unhealthy and risky, and not something our society should tolerate or encourage.

Where will this control stop?


Will they get killed doing homework for 4 hours a day? and would you just blame the kid if the coach and the rest of the team "encourage" your kid to dope, and if he refuse and lose the game he was "punished"?

 

[morepwr]

Really? Its bicycle racing. No engines, no oil, no care!

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: Shannow

what bothers me is the same thing that bothered me w/ barry bonds and the rest- I don't see why the gov't has the right to get involved in SPORTS. seriously?


Because kids play sport and in as low as high school we've once in a while seen kids doping and get into medical problem.

It is not something to encourage and to becomes a "must do" to stay competitive.


You may not like this. But said teenagers are idiots. Have you seen Barry Bonds and his watermelon head? That image alone will keep me from trying HGH or the cream and clear. Not to mention I bet his joints are screaming in pain.

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: dave1251

You may not like this. But said teenagers are idiots. Have you seen Barry Bonds and his watermelon head? That image alone will keep me from trying HGH or the cream and clear. Not to mention I bet his joints are screaming in pain.


irony of all ironies, guess what sport he's taken up now:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-le...32336--mlb.html

I grew up in PGH and remember BB from his 40/40 days. Man, what a difference.

As far as the govt. involvement thing, yeah--I'd rather USADA were funded in full from the IOC. They can certainly afford it. That said, the US govt. contribution is 9 million a year, and unlike most countries we don't fund our Olympic sports federations w/govt dollars. This is pretty much the only money the US govt spends on Olympic sport.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
I mostly agree with Jocephus, except that once you tolerate and relax doping rule, then athletes and future athletes (i.e. students who play sports) would try to keep up by doping. That can cause serious problem to their health and safety, and is not something that our society should encourage or tolerate.

I'm not saying Lance is doping or the approach the governing body use to "prove" him guilty is good, or the other way around. I'm just stressing the importance of keeping doping away from sport.


There have been some junior level cyclists found dead in their beds in the morning with very high levels of synthetic EPO in their systems.

It raised their hematocrit levels so high, and thickened their blood so much, that they died of heart failure despite being highly conditioned endurojocks.

You are CORRECT in your attitude on this topic.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: morepwr
Really? Its bicycle racing. No engines, no oil, no care!

Really?

(U.S. popular 'stick and ball' sports); No sustained speed, no real endurance, MUST be freakishly large/heavy, NO CARE!

 

[3311]

Interesting article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/usa...41_story_1.html

I really thought the following was of note:
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks threw out Armstrong’s case but noted that the USADA’s “conduct raises serious questions about whether its real interest in charging Armstrong is to combat doping, or if it is acting according to less noble motives.”

I don't blame Armstrong for moving on. As a cancer survivor and someone who probably knows the value of time better than most why would he want to waste another second of his life or millions of dollars fighting a corrupt and ultimately insignificant organization when the outcome is predetermined. I have already forgotten the governing body and the rest of the haters but I will remember Lance Armstrong as being a champion on and off the bike.

I think the USwhatever organization should be forced to give back any additional revenue they received in relation to Armstrongs popularity.

Now back to your regularly scheduled and much deserved obscurity cycling world.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
He's saying "technically" he passed them all. The doping agencies claimed no. What we know is the he dropped the fight shortly before his team mates were set to testify against him. One could conclude there was something definitive coming. Roger Clemens never gave up and he was eventually cleared so when somebody quits shortly before trial there's always a reason


"technically passed" means "passed". And "doping" sounds ridiculously vague. What drug or drugs is it contended he used improperly, and how?

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
Another issue is better testing of the old samples. Uh oh..That was scheduled to be admitted as well. So tests he passed years ago may be a fail now.


I could not care less about bicycling, but if you have it in for somebody, it wouldn't be too hard to adulterate an old sample. That kind of evidence wouldn't impress me much, if at all.

Is it the governing body that is in possession of the samples? Sure, they wouldn't alter evidence to make themselves look right.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: JOD

-He had 4 adverse findings for testosterone in 1994.


What does that even mean?

Originally Posted By: JOD
-positive for corticosteriods in 1999. The UCI (sports governing body) accepted a backdated prescription (the rules have since been changed to stop this sort of nonsense).


So that was legal at the time.

Originally Posted By: JOD
-6 of his 1999 TDF samples came back positive for EPO when they were tested retrospectively (there was no test for EPO in 1999)


0.3% if my arithmetic is correct. Sounds insignificant to me. edit: is 1999 a year or number of tests?


Originally Posted By: JOD
-there was an alleged positive in 2001 at the TDSuisse, which was supposedly covered up by the lab and the UCI. The details would have come out during arbitration, but LA didn't show up to that...


alleged? Can it be proven or not?

Originally Posted By: JOD
-his 2007-2009 samples are indicative of blood doping. This part is trickier, since it's not a "yes or no" thing. There's no direct test for doping your own blood. There are indirect methods through the test (it's a long-winded thing, and I could give you a link to read if you really cared). But, riders have been sanctioned using these methods.


Well if it's not yes or no, then it sounds pretty much useless as evidence to me.

 

[LeakySeals]

Originally Posted By: Win
Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
He's saying "technically" he passed them all. The doping agencies claimed no. What we know is the he dropped the fight shortly before his team mates were set to testify against him. One could conclude there was something definitive coming. Roger Clemens never gave up and he was eventually cleared so when somebody quits shortly before trial there's always a reason


"technically passed" means "passed". And "doping" sounds ridiculously vague. What drug or drugs is it contended he used improperly, and how?

What it means to you means something else to those in the know. Why don't you attack the source for facts rather than people voicing opinions.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted By: JOD
Originally Posted By: dave1251

You may not like this. But said teenagers are idiots. Have you seen Barry Bonds and his watermelon head? That image alone will keep me from trying HGH or the cream and clear. Not to mention I bet his joints are screaming in pain.


irony of all ironies, guess what sport he's taken up now:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-le...32336--mlb.html

I grew up in PGH and remember BB from his 40/40 days. Man, what a difference.

As far as the govt. involvement thing, yeah--I'd rather USADA were funded in full from the IOC. They can certainly afford it. That said, the US govt. contribution is 9 million a year, and unlike most countries we don't fund our Olympic sports federations w/govt dollars. This is pretty much the only money the US govt spends on Olympic sport.


I am a Cubs fan and I remember him when I went to a couple of games at Wrigley and he would of been HOF player then he decided to throw that opportunity down the drain to bulk up. What a waste of talent.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Quote:
Mr. Armstrong, for example, can maintain a power output of about 6.8 watts per kilogram of body weight for 20 minutes. "I would say there are probably no more than 20 people on earth with that ability, and probably at least 10 of them rode or are riding in the Tour de France," Dr. Coyle said.


I believe I know of another one of these people. I have to carry her purse and try to keep up with her at the mall.