Lance Armstrong stripped of all 7 Tour titles

Hellbent said:

BTW, Ulrich and Pantani, among the best riders at the time of the above clip, both were users.

zulle, ulrich, pantani. basso, vinokourov, beloki. hamilton, landis, rumsas. contador, franck schleck, rasmussen. after this season's rather remarkable results i wouldn't be surprised to see the wonder boys from sky joining the crowd. froome is in the 2nd again in vuelta after tour and the olympics, even doped up contador couldn't get near that.

A pro boxer for instance could conceivably get on the order of 30 concussions in his career, which will affect his health deeply, perhaps decrease his lifespan even. Increase the amount of Hormone X/Y/Z in your body though, which also damages health/lifespan is different and not clean for some reason.

I can see where you're coming from, but I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not about sticking to an unattainable moral absolute*, but finding the best balance between competition and health.

Beyond some point, you will end up with weak knees, or a bad back, or as you mentioned concussions. Some level of risk is inevitable. We tend to try to minimize this risk as much as possible, but there's only so much you can do while retaining the essence of certain sports, played at a high level.

On the other hand, harmful performance enhancing drugs are an unnecessary risk, and their usage forces everyone who wants to compete to do the same.

It's not about bad/good or fair/unfair as much as it is about having to pick a point at which you can conceivably draw a line. You can't make boxers throw punches soft enough for the risk of concussion to be minimal and have the sport be anything but a joke. You can't control what they're going to eat either; but you can and should forbid doping, defined as certain substances, and still keep things interesting.

*It can helpful to play the moral angle, though, if only because it's an useful shortcut to protect amateurs who don't understand the long-term implications of using such drugs - which might seem patronizing, but keep in mind we're talking about teenage kids and young adults for the most part.

Hellbent said:

I think, but I am not really certain, that Lance was merely leveling the playing field. . . From what I understand most of the elite guys were doping.

"Leveling the playing field" is still cheating.

Phml said:

You can't make boxers throw punches soft enough for the risk of concussion to be minimal and have the sport be anything but a joke.

There's a surprisingly simple solution to that problem - ban boxing gloves and go back to bare knuckles. The occasional broken finger will prompt boxers to be a little more selective about where they hit and how hard.

I think they do that in some circles, only it's illegal. A case study on the health of underground barenuckle brawlers would be interesting. I could see it going either way: They would probably suffer more cuts and concussions, but perhaps the increased wear of the sport on the participants might lead to shorter careers, which might even lead to less serious brain damage. (Though I would not be surprised if the injuries sustained were greater than those in 'legitimate' boxing.)

As it stands, I believe modern boxing is mostly about positioning and stamina. Not 'knocking out' your opponent. I'm not stating this as fact, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

schwerpunk said:

I think they do that in some circles, only it's illegal. A case study on the health of underground barenuckle brawlers would be interesting. I could see it going either way: They would probably suffer more cuts and concussions, but perhaps the increased wear of the sport on the participants might lead to shorter careers, which might even lead to less serious brain damage. (Though I would not be surprised if the injuries sustained were greater than those in 'legitimate' boxing.)

As it stands, I believe modern boxing is mostly about positioning and stamina. Not 'knocking out' your opponent. I'm not stating this as fact, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, I more or less found what I wanted in two different videos. There's some overlap but you should watch both in their entirety. So my argument here, if I have one, is that whether Lance is doping or not, it takes a special person to attack the way he does here and leave everyone behind. If he is on the juice in these videos, it's not like he is the only one who is. So why can't the others stage as an impressive of an attack?

Hellbent said:

So why can't the others stage as an impressive of an attack?

the armstrong/ulrich/beloki years were insane. those guys were better than the rest of the peloton AND doped hard, so they just left everyone in the dust and only fought among each other. i think doping got less prominent/advantageous after the big sweeps around 2006, so team strategy is king nowadays - you won't escape your nemesis rider, because his bloodhounds will sacrifice themselves for him and chase you down while he rides on their tail comfortably.

btw, eddy merckx was even more dominant than lance in the 70's, but let's say there's even less doubt about him doping.

Its easy to feel sorry for Armstrong, even if he did cheat, since it seems as if everyone else was doing it and he didn't want to have no chance of winning. However that doesn't necessarily make cheating in those circumstances right. It seems to me that the whole "everyone else cheats so I have to cheat too" philosophy could be extended to problems like reducing carbon emissions and nuclear disarmament - no country wants to get rid of all its nuclear weapons without all other countries doing so as well, its a tricky situation.

Vendetta said:

You know doomguy's trainer been hitting him up with plently of beserker packs and stimpacks lately....

Best first post ever.

Thanks for the link Dew. It was interesting/sad reading up on Merckx and Pantani. I wish there were more unedited videos of these guys on youtube with English commentary. :-/

As for why doping should be banned, here's a tidbit from wikipedia:

The primary reason athletes may use ESAs is to improve oxygen delivery to muscles, which directly improves their endurance capacity. With the advent of recombinant erythropoietin in the 1990s, the practice of autologous and homologous blood transfusion has been partially replaced by injecting erythropoietin such that the body naturally produces its own red cells. ESAs increase hematocrit (% of blood volume that is red cell mass) and total red cell mass in the body, providing an unfair advantage in sports where such practice is banned. In addition to ethical considerations in sports, providing an increased red cell mass beyond the natural levels reduces blood flow due to increased viscosity, and increases the likelihood of thrombosis and stroke. Due to dangers associated with using ESAs, their use should be limited to the clinic where anemic patients are boosted back to normal hemoglobin levels (as opposed to going above the normal levels for performance advantage, leading to an increased risk of death). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythropoietin#Blood_doping

Pantani and EPO:

In 1999 the Italian newspaper la Repubblica published information that linked Marco Pantani to an investigation on the use of performance-enhancing substances in Italian sports. According to the information released by the newspaper, Francesco Conconi administered EPO to Italian athletes from 1993 to 1998, including Pantani and other cyclists of Carrera.[67][68] It was revealed that Pantani's name appeared on a file marked "Dblab", seized from Conconi's Biomedical Research Institute at Ferrara, which detailed athlete's hematocrit levels between 1993 and 1995. In 1994 his haematocrit values fluctuated from 40.7% on 16 March, early in the season, to 54.55% on 23 May, during the first stages of the Giro d'Italia. His values reached 58% on 8 June, after winning two stages of the race, and were 57.4% on 27 July, after the Tour de France. In March 1995 his hematocrit values had dropped to 45% but they reached 56% in July during the Tour de France, where he won two stages, and over 60% in October, after the accident in the Milano-Torino.[69][70][71] In 2004 Conconi and his two assistants were acquitted by judge Franca Oliva because the crimes were not deemed illegal at the time although they were deemed "morally guilty" of promoting doping.[72][73] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Pantani#Alleged_drug_use

Lance shows what it means to attack. Watch for two minutes (until 20:35).

also: http://rawthoughts1.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/in-defense-of-lance-armstrong/

excerpt:

Sadly, this whole situation is about to get even more absurd. Now that Lance has been stripped of his record 7 Tour De France titles, three of them will go to German Cyclist Jan Ullrich. Ullrich was a dominant rider in his own right but was often overshadowed by Lance. In addition to 3 runner up finishes to Lance, Ullrich won the Tour De France in 1997 and was second in 1998. According to the twisted logic of the USADA he epitomizes the victims in the Armstrong saga. A talented but clean cyclist who couldn’t compete with a doped up Lance. The head of the USADA mentions this briefly in an interview with the Washington Post, stating that, “This is a heartbreaking example of how the win-at-all-costs culture of sport, if left unchecked, will overtake fair, safe and honest competition.” The problem with this narrative is that it is total horseshit. Jan Ullrich, and many of Armstrong’s other contemporaries are already convicted dopers. Ulrich himself was suspended from the Tour of Italy and kicked off his team for blood doping in 2006. He also was suspended for 6 months in 2002 for testing positive for amphetamines. Ullrich still denies that this was meant as performance enhancing drug, claiming instead that he took amphetamine laced ecstasy. Awesome USADA. Take down Lance in the interest of competitive balance, and then give his titles to a man who excuses his failed drug tests by saying, “Its cool bro. I wasn’t cheating. It was just the ecstasy.” That makes almost as much sense as Pinterest.

From a timeline of Armstrong's life:

•1988
Becomes a national rookie of the year in sprint triathlons. Cooper Clinic in Dallas measures Armstrong's VO2max — the greatest amount of oxygen an athlete uses to produce energy — and declares it the highest they've seen.

•1992
Remains an amateur competitor through the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, where he finishes 14th. Finishes last in his first pro race, the 1992 Clasica de San Sebastian. Crushed, he considers leaving cycling but his mother talks him out of it.

Eddy Merckx leaves everyone behind including the motorcycle camera. You have to watch very closely. Keep your eye on the guy in the yellow jersey:

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/tyler-hamilton-book-lance-armstrong-doping_n_1845982.html?utm_hp_ref=sports


AUSTIN, Texas -- Tyler Hamilton says Lance Armstrong gave him an illegal blood booster before the 1999 Tour de France and that the teammates took blood transfusions together during the cycling race the following year.

Hamilton makes the allegations in his book, "The Secret Race. Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France, Doping, Cover-ups and Winning at All Costs," set to be published Sept. 5. The Associated Press purchased a copy Thursday.

The books covers much of what Hamilton said in a 2011 interview with "60 Minutes" and what he said he told federal criminal investigators looking into doping allegations on the Postal team. Officials closed that investigation in February without bringing any charges against Armstrong.

Hamilton also provides sharper, personal details of what he says was an alleged doping program encouraged by Armstrong and other team leaders. He describes in detail how he and other cyclists doped and how they avoided getting caught.

"Lance worked the system ... Lance was the system," Hamilton wrote.

Hamilton also renewed his claims that Armstrong told him he tested positive for EPO at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland but was able to get the International Cycling Union to cover it up. The UCI, cycling's governing body, has denied Hamilton's claim.

In the video (linked) it says Armstrong donated $125,000 to UCI. Nevertheless, the timing of the release of the book is conspicuously convenient to USADA's stripping of Lance's titles.

The Secret Race, or, How I Sold Out Lance to Sell More Books

Like this guy has any room to be talking, at the least. Are we supposed to think he's some kind of saint and Lance is the devil, all because he's capitalizing on his own involvement in illegal or, at the least, immmoral activities?

The Tour is a big joke anyway. Hey, how do you tell if a cyclist in the race is using performance drugs? Answer: he is in the race.

This is true of all except (maybe) a couple weirdos who are trailing like three hours behind the autobus.

Here's a pretty good, candid interview with David Millar regarding the culture of doping: Jump to 4:05 for the relevant part.