Landis' last gasp

Wayne666

My understanding is that is not how it works. As long as they followed the basic rules as laid out in the WADA protocol, it is incumbent on Landis to show that their mistakes led to false positives or at a minimum made the results extremely unreliable so that the validity is in doubt, not merely that they may have made some mistakes in their analysis.

I believe in the USADA case, they in effect threw out the T/E ratio test but found no reason to doubt the veracity of the isotope test(s).

He could get lucky and CAS could throw it out because they rule that the lab violated WADA rules. Landaluze got off because he was able to show the same lab tech performed the A & B analysis.

italiano

Folty procedure? Landis justified?

No, no. You crazy.

t/e test was Oke. Tribunal not liked confirmation on t/e.It mean not bad t/e test.

Italiano predicting Tas rule 3:0 doped.

__________________
For inches and centimetres, let fools contend."
-- Damian Grammaticus

Crankyfeet

You have some experienced views and what seems to be quite extensive knowledge on cycling, italiano. So why do you have to continue the BS charade of inserting spelling errors into every second word when we know you can speak fluent English? Do you think this is some important game of espionage and identity masking? Who cares if you have another handle here or on DPF that you are trying to cloud the connection to? Who cares if you are someone important in Pro cycling? All you do is just give yourself less credibility by playing this silly game of obfuscation that is obvious.

Crankyfeet

Okay...I'm starting to have compassion for these guys. I think they have been hung by the system. At every step of the way, their incremental decision making was understandable. Hell the guy watched LA become a hero and was just copying the his MO (not so well as it turned out). And in the US... it's not like France. You pony up that you cheated and lied for 10 years and there is no mercy... unlike in Europe where most fans are aware you were probably doping in any case and there is a little more sympathy it seems.

For these guys cycling was their life, and doping was part of the rules of play as a Pro. It just wasn't the rules that were displayed to the public for obvious reasons. It was a problem that developed over decades... and got to the point where the governing bodies tried to hide it, knowing that to eradicate it, they would have to almost destroy the sport in the public's perception. Well...it's getting destroyed now anyway... because the sport is being forced to cut their losses (Festina, Op Puerto)... but the Landis' and the Hamiltons' are the victims and scapegoats. What chance have we got of Heiny-V admitting corruption, or fraud, or that they protected doping cyclists once upon a time?

I know everyone is going to say they chose to cheat and they chose to lie. But they probably started doing that as Cat 1's like most of the other Cat 1's. It's just when the prize get's bigger, we expect them to be exemplary moral specimens worthy of our adoration.

I know a lot of guys in the US condemned Bill Clinton knowing they would have probably taken Monica's offer if they were in the same position. There is mob stoning mentality in this country when celebrities fail morally... almost as a way of shedding their own guilt and making themselves feel better that if they condemn it, then they are not like them. Look at these preachers here that turn out to use gay prostitutes and take meth. Same phenomena. Look at the mob stoning mentality here in this forum... juxtaposed against the poll results that most of the GT forum would dope themselves if they were pros.

If the argument is that they should have ponied up when the positive test came in... I say human nature... they will try to cling onto the lie as long as there is a slight chance that they can retain their fake dignity. To admit guilt in the US possibly could have meant estrangement from their family and close friends whom they had lied to for 10 plus years... as well as ending their cycling career instantaneously and making them social pariahs like Nixon.

To not dope meant they had no cycling career when the whole peloton were doing it. If the governing bodies had been tougher and created a mostly clean peloton (within their limits), these guys wouldn't have had to cheat. They might have won clean and been heroes. But they either doped... or gave their performance away relative to their doped competitors and road at the back of the peloton or cat 1 back at home off the tour.

Okay... had my weekly sound off... resume stoning.

earth_dweller

Oh I felt sorry for Landis when he got popped as he was just doing what came naturally and what he'd probably seen all his professional life. Seeing him grasping at any sorry excuse (beer, jack daniels,...) made me wince for him.

Then he used the American xenophobic attitude versus the French - yep borrowed from the champ himself Armstrong - which was expected but disappointing.

However, I lost all sympathy where the FFF thing came live. He took money from fans, and that is a new low.

Crankyfeet

Yes yes. I've heard the argument from others. "I'm not so much against him for doping... but I don't approve of him not coming clean when the positive test came in". Or the "I'm not so much against him doping... cause they all do that... and even denying it when your caught is maybe understandable... but setting up a fund and using fans' money to fight for a lie... that's unethical".

The whole sport, at anything above Cat 3 probably, is unethical. If you create a sport where lying and cheating are not only possible... they are a neccessity to make it past U23 level... then you are going to end up with a bunch of liars and cheats winning the big races. The reason Floyd feels unjustly treated IMO... is that he probably did the same thing he's done 400 times before... but this time... after winning the race of his life... he gets done in. He probably knows he's a cheat... but wonders how he passed 400 tests before and only now he gets detected. The guy is a liar and a cheat almost certainly. Big whoop. They nearly all are. If they weren't, they'd either be stupidly ignorant, or riding local crits in cat 1 as moral heroes that nobody even knows about.

If Floyd had have passed his test like he has done hundreds of times before, he would probably be an American cyling hero. Maybe we in cyclingforums would all cynically know that he was probably a doping cheat... but they'd/we'd have less to go on in asserting he was a doper than we have on LA... if he hadn't flunked his pee test in 2006 TdF.

The paradox is that we all know that most everyone on the pro circuit is a cheat... yet we all love watching the races...and eagerly await another pawn pro to get done in so we can heap vitriol and exercise our stoning arms.

IMO... the Hein Verbruggens and others who used doping as a means of controlling the peloton... knowing full well that it existed... and condoning and doing little to eradicate it because it cost a lot of money to act, or it reduced their power over cyclists... those guys should be in jail. If they'd done their job, a lot of cyclists could ride clean knowing that the guy next to them wasn't going to trounce them on some juice.

Crankyfeet

Tell me at what stage in Floyd's career that you would have said "no" to the temptation to dope, Edie... assuming you were in his situation?

TheDarkLord

But really what do you expect? To deny, threaten lawsuits (and even slap them), etc. for several years, and then finally accept that you were a lying scumbag all the time, and expect sympathy from the public? If they didn't lie outright when caught, and they just served their sentence and came back, I would think that they wouldn't be viewed as outcasts (by the public that is).

Well, I disagree there. There is always a temptation to cheat to get glory. Yes, I agree with you that if there were a strict testing regimen, there might be a disincentive to dope. But keep in mind that dopers are always one (or two?) step(s) ahead of the testers. There will always be doctors who will offer miracle drugs that cannot be tested for, which will guarantee a performance boost, and there will be athletes who take that gamble. It is just "human tendency". After all, wasn't there that study where a significant fraction of the athletes said that they were willing to sacrifice things such as long life if they were guaranteed a gold medal at the Olympics?

And coming to FL, I have ZERO sympathy for him after what Edie said, and after the Lemond incident.

earth_dweller

I never said that I would not have doped. However I would NOT have accepted fan money once popped. Simple enough?

Crankyfeet

The thing that I find funny is that we follow this sport that is created for those with little integrity. Those that have integrity to the extent that they wouldn't dope at all, probably don't even have the luxury that Lemond had (making a big assumption that he was squeaky clean which I highly doubt) of winning for a while before the EPO hit the fan. The moral righteous cyclist today (esp. a couple of years ago) probably doesn't even make it onto a pro team. So we have a bunch of shifty-eyed morally flexible cyclists as pros, cause they have to be, and then when they get caught, we expect them to be moral upright citizens and repent.

I only feel sorry for Floyd to the extent that if it was a clean sport... he maybe wouldn't have had to dope to succeed. I know he is a lying, cheating, snivelling personality... because he has to be, to be where he is.

The guys I feel sorry for are the clean moral guys who could have been Eddy Merckx if everyone was clean... but instead are on the periphery as a pro, or riding Cat 1 at home for $200 a race maybe if they win.

TheDarkLord

The cunningness of these dudes is that they can probably never be convicted...unless several riders offer clear evidence that they were aware of the extent of doping, and chose to keep silent.

Crankyfeet

Okay so you would cheat clean cyclists out of a career.. but you would draw the line at cheating fans out of their money...

TheDarkLord

We don't expect them to repent. We (or at least I) just expect them to own up. Sure, this may not happen immediately; there may be a period of disbelief, etc., but accept your offense by the time the tests are confirmed. It is when they start the big-time BSing that I lose sympathy for them.

I disagree. Not all cheaters will act the way FL did - creating a fund for financing his campaign of lies, shoot of threatening calls to Lemond, etc.

Crankyfeet

Cunningness... Funningness. Doping to these guys is like us ploughing through a stop sign in a local fun ride. It's like everyone ploughs through the stop sign... but after you win they look at the video (of just you) and see that you didn't stop at the stop sign. So the winner (maybe if he hasn't taken the appropriate action to mask his video image) gets labelled a cheat and gets hurled with stones, and his life is taken away from him... a life built up on lies and deception that he and no one else ever ploughed through a stop sign... Meanwhile everyone keeps ploughing through stop signs and hoping that their video masking works and they don't get caught.

We need better video cameras.