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Digging Up Old Dirt, All Signs Point to Armstrong

Friday, May 21st, 2010 @ 5:34 PM - rants

In light of the recent allegations from Floyd Landis, I think it's time to drag two very pertinent pieces of evidence back out from the Unproven Doping Myths archive.

The first piece is a phone conversation between Greg Lemond and Stephanie Mcilvain. Greg Lemond is, well, the Greg Lemond. Stephanie Mcilvain was Lance Armstrong's liason to the Oakley sunglasses company. This is a 30 minute piece and well worth the listen for those familiar with some of the famous American names in the sport of cycling.

The second piece of evidence is the sworn testimony of Frankie Andreu, his wife Betsy Andreu and once again Stephanie Mcilvain. It's summarized quite well in this NPR article, and even includes an audio link for those who hate to read.

Much like the Landis emails, these two pieces of evidence offer direct allegations against Armstrong from his colleagues and friends. But unlike many journalists who are after Armstrong in order to profit from book or newspaper sales, the Andreus and Floyd Landis don't have anything to gain from Armstrong's downfall. When you combine the Lemond phone call, the Andreu testimony and the Landis emails you have some unproven yet circumstantial evidence towards a real truth.

But, I should mention that Floyd Landis and Greg Lemond have possibly gone insane. With Landis writing revealing emails to UCI officials at 3am, and Lemond phoning up old friends to gossip about people behind their back (all while being recorded). It's bizarre behavior motivated by anger, revenge, or depression, on both accounts. Regardless of the motivation, it doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to it.

The final point I'll bring up is my own Unproven Doping Myth.

All Signs Point to Armstrong

Lance Armstrong has stood atop the podium of the Tour de France, winning over confirmed dopers from 2000-2005 (Basso, Ulrich, Rumsas, Vinkourov). Then we have Landis winning the year after Armstrong left, and now admitting to doping. Going backwards to just before Armstrong's streak you have Pantani winning in 1998 via dope. Ulrich in 1997 via dope. Riis in 1996, doped. Can we assume that we can just keep going back down in the years? Indurain, Lemond, Delgado, Roche, Hinault, Fignon, etc?

And these are the just the winners of the Tour de France, there are dozens of other confirmed dopers who have finished high on the general classification, or won stages, or suffered as Armstrong stormed to victory.

Take the 10 best cyclists in the world, the ones who are the most genetically gifted, who train the hardest, ride the smartest, have the best equipment, have a supportive team and can suffer the most. The margin of performance difference between these 10 cyclists will be less than 1%. Now give them all the best performance enhancing drugs money can buy and they will all become 8-10% stronger, yet will all still exist within the same slim performance margin. These 10 cyclists represent some of the actual top 10 finishers in the 1999 - 2005 editions of the Tour de France, who have since gotten busted for drug use. All of whom Lance Armstrong beat, clean. Clean?

Are we expected to believe that Armstrong is so superior in his abilities, and training methods that he was 8-10% stronger at base level than all other competitors from 1999 to 2005?

Armstrong is at the very top of the professional cycling performance pyramid (PCPP) while dozens of athletes underneath him crumble away from positive doping test. He sits there hovering over the remains of tainted riders, holding hands with Eddy Merckx and Alberto Contador. The bricks supporting his peak of the PCPP no longer exist, they've all been suspended. We should either worship him a some sort of superhuman god, or see that all signs point to doping.

Comments

Josh says
Friday, May 21st, 2010 @ 10:52 PM

Yeah man, I tend to agree. The question is where do we go from here? Check out the tail end of my last update.

http://squadraprofessore.com/2010/05/21/teflon-branding-lance-armstrong-and-jaccuse/

Your analysis is pretty close too. Its troubling to think that almost every podium around LA had someone doping and he was just crushing EVERYONE clean? Really?

Dunno, as someone said on the Velonews.com comments,

Procycling: come for the theater, stay for the racing.

Steven says
Monday, May 24th, 2010 @ 6:29 PM

In 2009 from January to July - Lance was tested approxiamately 30 time without a positive result. Three years out of retirement and a third place finish at the tour - I wish people can learn to accept that he's a "Great" athlete.

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