Bye Lance

[Gus]

Did Fignon fail a test? I can't remember. Pedro Delgado pretty much failed a test, although he managed to wriggle out of that one.

Fignon failed tests twice...

[David Martin]

I don't think I knew about Rob Hayles failing a test either. Anyone wanna summarise?

He didn't fail a test. He did however return a high haemocrit reading and was suspended from racing for the statutory two weeks.

[rogerzilla]

Lance Armstrong has flown into New York to defend himself against the doping allegations.

It would have been more convincing if he'd used a plane.

[Auntie Helen]

Nicked from CycleChat:

[Mrs Pingu]

Heh

[spesh]

It would be even better if it said "Tourspotting" at the bottom.

[simonp]

Hmm

Cheatspotting?

[Hot Flatus]

Cheatspotting? In pro cycling?

Might as well start handing out speeding tickets at Formula 1 races 

[Pingu]

Transfusing

[David Martin]

And it looks like Team Sky may be having a clear out too.. A certain DS (who failed a drugs test as a rider) is reported to have been an active doper during his career by eye witnesses. 

It looks like the Augean stables may be up for a bit of a clear out.

[Feline]

And it looks like Team Sky may be having a clear out too.. A certain DS (who failed a drugs test as a rider) is reported to have been an active doper during his career by eye witnesses. 

It looks like the Augean stables may be up for a bit of a clear out.

Sean Yates has tested positive hasn't he?

[Rhys W]

But he says he never saw anything! Interested to know who these eyewitnesses are though...

It's also spread to Orica-Green Edge.

[David Martin]

From a former British pro..

Do you mean did I see a certain someone inject just about an hour before a criterium when he knew there was no medical control , then pass the needle to another rider who injected the remainder into his backside direct through his shorts ( I'm not making this up!)...or later in the same year the same guy use a managers urine in a drinks can to pour in to the sample jar to avoid giving his own sample ...and that guy now works as DS for a well known TV broadcasting sponsored team ?.....or that bit of dodgyness was then sussed by the race organisation who,s response was to settle for said rider to pull out of the race and say no more about it.
I really couldn't possibly say ..

[Hot Flatus]

Ahh the amazingly bitter Mr Webster

I think Brailsford must be shitting it a bit. His decision to declare that Sky would only use squeaky clean people was setting himself up for failure. I'm not sure such a thing exists. Besides I really struggle to believe that Brailsford is that naive.

[Adrian]

Ahh the amazingly bitter Mr Webster

I think Brailsford must be shitting it a bit. His decision to declare that Sky would only use squeaky clean people was setting himself up for failure. I'm not sure such a thing exists. Besides I really struggle to believe that Brailsford is that naive.

The only thing to be said of that is that at least he set standards to fail by.

[Justin(e)]

I think that one thing that has been over looked in the discussion so far is that this is far from a victimless crime.

First there are those who have been cheated out of their dues - fellow cyclists who did not get the credit (or money) they deserved.
Of course we (the supporters) have also been cheated.
And perhaps most importantly - there are many families who have lost young men in their prime to "unexplained" deaths due to their cycling careers.  When Epo first hit the scene, riders would have to wake up in the middle of the night to exercise to ensure that the coagulation factors in their blood did not kill them.  This was not always successful with the results being many 'unexplained' deaths.

Over their corpses, the UCI twiddled their thumbs.  And the likes of Armstrong and Bruyneel produced more pressure for each young rider to experiment with pharmaceutical enhancements.  Shame on them all.

[Hot Flatus]

Ahh the amazingly bitter Mr Webster

I think Brailsford must be shitting it a bit. His decision to declare that Sky would only use squeaky clean people was setting himself up for failure. I'm not sure such a thing exists. Besides I really struggle to believe that Brailsford is that naive.

The only thing to be said of that is that at least he set standards to fail by.

Yes, that would be how I'd prefer to view it.

However I struggle to believe he could be that naive, and if what is going on gathers momentum he could face more embarrassing moments to add to Barry, Rogers, Yates and Leinders. I don't believe for one second that any revelations will come as a surprise to him.

[Hot Flatus]

Armstrong repeatedly said, "I have never failed a drugs test," and Merkx said, "You can't win the tour on bread and water." Both implied they used drugs without admitting it.

I don't those two statements are at all comparable. Armstrong talked about never failing a test because it was (partially) true, and he was playing upon the common misconception that dope tests are infallible. Besides, he has said 'I never doped'.

Many of the people named in the USADA document concerning USPS are still movers and shakers in the pro cycling world. Its about a general clear out.

[fuzzy]

Ahh the amazingly bitter Mr Webster

I think Brailsford must be shitting it a bit. His decision to declare that Sky would only use squeaky clean people was setting himself up for failure. I'm not sure such a thing exists. Besides I really struggle to believe that Brailsford is that naive.

The only thing to be said of that is that at least he set standards to fail by.

Yes, that would be how I'd prefer to view it.

However I struggle to believe he could be that naive, and if what is going on gathers momentum he could face more embarrassing moments to add to Barry, Rogers, Yates and Leinders. I don't believe for one second that any revelations will come as a surprise to him.

I think we need to wait and see how Brailsford deals with the revelations.

Declaring that the team will not use riders or staff with doping in their history isn't a problem if the perpertrators historical doping practices were unknown.

Now they are known, we need to see what he does. If he gets rid then the team Sky undertaking is still sound in my book.

[David Martin]

And Simon Lillistone (former husband of Emma O'Reilly and organiser of the cycling at the olympics) is also implicated.

[Rhys W]

How is he implicated? A few years ago I used to wonder what happened to Emma O'Reilly - she appeared in a few magazine articles about the role of a soigneur, seemed an interesting behind-the-scenes character. Then she seemed to disappear off the radar, now we know it was probably because she was leant on by Lance's heavies.

[David Martin]

He was in the car when they did some of the drug runs for Lance

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Is this just an Armstrong hate campaign or will Merkcx and Anquetil be stripped of their wins?

That would leave us with only two five time TdF winners: Hinault and Induráin.

Merckx got pipped for doping at least twice. I wouldn't put any money on Indurain being clean and Guimard tended to pump cortisone into his riders.

Armstrong doped more (and doped his team more) than anybody ever has in cycling and was heavily involved with UCI corruption. Get the biggest offender with the most evidence (Armstrong) before hooking the next biggest fish.

[spesh]

Indurain had a positive for salbutamol, but managed to get away with it, c/o of the UCI and IOC:

In May 1994, Indurain tested positive for salbutamol following the Tour de L'Oise in France. Though the β2-adrenergic agonist, found in nasal inhalers, was on the banned substance list of both the IOC and UCI, both organization's permitted sportsmen with asthma to use it. However in France there was an outright ban on its use.^[21] The IOC agreed with the UCI that Indurain would not be punished for using a drug banned outright in France because they accepted the salbutamol was contained in a nasal inhaler he had been using legitimately to aid his respiration. In Spain, the incident was interpreted as another case of the French attempting to hinder Indurain's domination of the sport.^[22]

Given Indurain was riding in the early part of the Gen EPO years, and was apparently working with Dr. Conconi from 1987 onwards, you'd have to assume that he may well have been using some form of oxygen-vector doping, but it's interesting how he's not copped as much, if any, heat in the way that many of his contemporaries have.

An article in Procycling UK, February 2008 said:

[His] humility seems to have spared him from some embarrassing questions that others of his generation haven't been so lucky to avoid. While the likes of Bjarne Riis have been forced to confess to using EPO and other banned drugs, Indurain remains protected by Spain's jealous media. His five straight Tour crowns paralleled Spain's coming of age following decades of repression under the dictatorship of General Franco and his face became a symbol of a new, more assertive Spain stepping confidently on to the European stage.

[21] http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/drugs-in-sport-indurain-allowed-to-use-banned-drug-1379584.html
[22] http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/a-giant-in-the-saddle-profile-miguel-indurain-1588209.html

[Hedgebanger]

On a lighter note
A friend of mine's girlfriend has put her LA books in the bin ('lost all respect for the cheater' ). If anyone is thinking of doing the same with their Trek bikes let me know. Can't have you  clogging up our rubbish tips with old carbon fibre frames.