Armstrong has been tinkered with!!

tarczan

Who was the rider who was asked about doping and said "You don't ride the TDF on water!" ?


Well maybe LA is on something, but our chemists are apparently better than yours!

OLMO

Being shoulder to shoulder with the triathlon greats after the bike at the age of 16 says it all to me. Dropping 20 lbs DOES radically improve your climbing abilities. And he does train harder now than when he was 23.

But physiology and technical points aside, people seem to miss the most important thing when it comes to Armstrong. How many of you have faced death? Not many, I would expect, not personally. It changes everything. I can believe that it brought a whole new level of intensity and focus to Armstrong's regimen.

History will vindicate him.

meb

The Don’s overt act toward Ferrari’s whistleblowing snitch last summer in the TDF seems like the strongest telltale marker. Intimidating a witness to your competitive detriment-before that I was inclined to give the benefit of the doubt.


BTW: Hyperbaric chambers? Did you mean hypobaric to simulate high altitude or is there some benefit to hyperbaric chambers?

hombredesubaru

Lance has said many times that Simeoni doesnt deserve a platform for his views and I agree. Let's be realistic, Simeoni is a confessed doper. Cheated. Took perfromance enhancing drugs!!! Was convicted and served a ban. Why should we beieve HIM of all people? He has everything to gain by making it look like everyone does it, he's no different--all transparently self-serving rationalizations for his behavior.

As a wise old person told me once, is someone tells you he has been a liar or a cheat, you can count on them behaving that way again.

So yes, the likelihood is that Simeoni is full of crap, or cut a deal with prosecutors in an effort to bring down th big fish, Michele Ferarri, and by implication the biggest fish, Lance. In other words, he has everything to gain by pedalling his crap instead of his bike.

The facts: a London judge found strongly in Lance's favour--that the Times article and by implication the book LA Confidentiel is full of crap. I sent the complete ruling to a good friend who is a very senior barrister who said the Times is completely screwed if they try to go to trial against Lance.

The facts: Simeoni is a proven doper.

The facts: Lance has always been a superior athlete.

And BTW, Lance's concern, as he has stated many times, is that the more press coverage that doping and dopers like Simeoni get, the worse it is for the riders and the sport, it perpetuates the "bad news" aspect which really until very recently no other sport has received, while all sports have been just as dirty or moreso all along.

Lance is right, it is a distortion, the same way the idiotic Italian courts have now screwed up a chance for one of the greatest cyclists in history--LA-- to come to their premier cycling event, the Giro, and restore some of its former glory and prestige to the race.

So they will now not have Lance at the Giro which he clearly was planning to do with reconnaissance rides up the Mortirolo last spring. They will lose millions of dollars from tourists like me not coming to watch Lance in the Giro--which would have been one of the coolest things ever. All because some sh*t weasel like Simeoni is a whining crybaby.

limerickman

Indeed, we had to listen to LA waffling about this.
LA also lectured us about Bassons and called him unprofessional too, didn't
he ?
LA shouts the odds when anyone raises the spectre of drug taking in cycling.
For an allegedly innocent man, he's a mite too defensive.



Rubbish.

Revisionism.

1992-1996 doesn't denote a superior athlete - or anything for that matter.
1992-1996 shows a man who was nowhere close to being a superior athlete,
cancer or no cancer (and he didn't have cancer between 1992-1995 because
his medicals surely would have shown his illness).




The Giro.

LA has never shown any interest in the Giro.
There was no guarantee that he would take part at any future date.

LA interferred with a prosecution witness.

The Court accepted testimony and found Ferrari guilty.
LA, because of his own stupidity, has by his own actions, excluded himself from racing in Italy.

bspeedy00

So, being defensive about the slander of the sport he loves, the people he knows, and all the effort it takes him to be a great cyclist shows what? It certainly does not show that he is guilty. Just that he cares about cycling, his friends, and his career.

Second, Lance was a superior athlete pre-cancer. He won the pro world championships in 1993 (youngest winner ever), 1993 won tour de france stage, won tour du pont and another tour de france stage win in 1995, as well as a number of smaller wins. All of this with developing cancer, unbeknownst to him. From 1992-1996 he was young and inexperienced. I think he performed at a superior level considering the physical handicap (cancer) and the steep learning curve of a newer cyclist who has never raced the caliber cyclist as found in Europe.

Cancer is quite capable of growing undetected for a large amount of time, and the fact that he found it in a late stage (3) indicates that he had it for a good portion of that period from 92-96.

larryb

its got to be true... he must have been tinkered with.

he's about 5ft7 and rides a 58cm frame... they put lady's legs on him... much stronger and more endurance.

why else would trek be so interested in making woman specific frames.

i'm a believer, he has been tinkered with.

limerickman

Depends how you define - super athlete, eh ?
Compare himself and Ullrich - they both started at the same age.
Ullrich was equally inexperienced - as you call it.
I think you'll find that Ullrich's palmares is more consistent and better from day one.

A win in a world road race and a stage of the TDF shows a rider who was good but this hardly defines super athletic.

As regards LA's supposed love of cycling - well that's just more waffle.

bspeedy00

Who said super athlete? I said superior athlete. Super implys better than all, superior implies better than most. Which he was during that time.

The point is that from 1992-1996 he showed that he had the potential to be as good as he is now. Riding in the pro circuit is difficult enough with the flu, so the fact that he accomplished what he did in the early stages of cancer is an indicator of high potential. Physiologically, he has the genetics (vo2 max, anaerobic threshold, etc) of a superior cyclist. And of cource Jan is more consistant, he didnt have cancer in the middle of his career. I think Jan is a great cyclist too, and dont want to cast suspicion around him either, but if I was to choose which cyclist is more likely to be on drugs, I would pick Jan. Why? because of the off season. Lance trains extremely hard during this time, while Jan rests for much longer, getting quite out of shape, then miraculously he is back in shape for the season. Your premise that lance's improvement is only possible with doping is simply not very strong. There are a whole list of differences in lances training, health, mental state, etc that could account for the improvement from pre-cancer lance to post-cancer lance that do not include doping.

Olasnah

Carmichael speaks volumes about how sloppy Lance's cycling was during those years, despite his victories and aerobic 'engine'. Years of focused training and smarter training has produced what,,,a smarter athlete. It's enough. Jan Ullrich has been the closest competitor, and he is widely accused of not being focused enough on training and having a slopply climbing position, riding stupid (in 2004 for sure!) etc. Yet the faults of Lance's competitors have 'nothing' to do with his winning ways? For god's sake, watch the Tour! From stage 1 to 20 I could see Lance was doing more thinking than riding, a lot of watching and waiting. He struck at the right times and won when he planned to or had the opportunity to. It had almost nothing to do with his physical abilities, yet he is probably the best trained cyclist in the world at the current time, so when he needed that ability, it was there, waiting. 2004 was a master stroke. It's simply impossible to win the way he did by doping. Basso, Ullrich, Kloden, they are all his physical equals in many ways, yet he beat them with superior strategy and teamwork. I don't even see how doping factors into it.

meb

Intimidating a witness in the Ferrari criminal trial does not look like the act of an innocent man. That one act does more to cast doubt than any dominance.

Ferrari has been convicted, the courts found portions of Simeoni’s story corroborated credible, others not hence the split verdict.

micron

Simeoni may be a doper, but who was he working with when he doped? Our old friend Dr Ferrari.

bspeedy00

First off, excellent point olasnah.

Second, Are you kidding me meb? If I had a friend being accused of something. I would defend that friend too, and if possible, I would make it my job to ensure that some punk didnt get a stage win. I think most people would. Lance feels Simeoni is that punk, trying to make himself look better by claiming that "everyone does it" [doping that is]. If lance was guilty, why would he make such a public risk/move to chase him down? It seems more dangerous if he was guilty because it attracts unnecessary attention. So, chasing down Simeoni could support Lance's innocence as well.

hombredesubaru

If you belive that chasing down an attack is a form of witness intimidation, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

REAL witness intimidation, and I know something about this, is secretive, clandestine, subtle, and done in ways that can be plausibly denied. It is not generally done on international live TV, in front of hundreds of spectators etc.

Should Lance have chased Simeoni down? No it was reckless.

Is it illegal? Hardly. In every race, some team or racer etc gets flicked from the long memories riders have if someone screwed them over in the past.

But here is where the naivete of the posters here is galling.
Understand, if the prosecution has got Simeoni red-handed, (and they did) it is in his nature-as a proven and confessed cheat--, to lie to save his skin, by picking up the subtle clues an interrogation may provide:
"Did you ever get supplied dope by a notable figure in cycling, because such information could be looked upon favorably by the judge." There is huge pressue on the Italian police to come up with a law enforcement solution to sport doping, extremely unlikely IMHO if you look at the US war on Drugs etc.

This is how Feraari got implicated and this is why Lance is furious with Simeoni. The extent of Lance's anger to me is more an indication of Lance's honesty. If Lance were really working with Ferrari with illegal methods or thought Ferrari were doping athletes, dont you think he would stay a million miles away? The LA Enterprise Inc. is worth far more than one person's friendship or work to him.

Now I have no idea who is telling the truth, but I have seen enough episodes of NYPDBlue to know how this works. And by the way, if you had to pick any country's legal system to be reliable and just, would you pick Italy? or maybe you don't follow the Euro legal scene as some of us do. Bribe and corruption are the mainstay and routine dealings there. Remember, a lot of them liked and missed Mr. Mussolini. What a f#ckd up place, despite its many attractions like great opera, music, wine, countrysides, the Giro, Italian women, oh crap, the place is just great!!