Armstong cleared of doping charges

[Dback Jon]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/05/31/armstrong.doping.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Independent Dutch investigators cleared Lance Armstrong of doping in the 1999 Tour de France on Wednesday, and blamed anti-doping authorities for misconduct in dealing with the American cyclist.

A 132-page report recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possible legal and ethical violations by the World Anti-Doping Agency and to consider "appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations."

The French sports daily L'Equipe reported in August that six of Armstrong's urine samples from 1999, when he won the first of his record seven-straight Tour titles, came back positive for the endurance-boosting hormone EPO when they were retested in 2004.

Armstrong has repeatedly denied using banned substances.

The International Cycling Union appointed Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman last October to investigate the handling of urine tests from the 1999 Tour by the French national anti-doping laboratory, known by its French acronym LNDD.

Vrijman said Wednesday his report "exonerates Lance Armstrong completely with respect to alleged use of doping in the 1999 Tour de France."

The report also said the UCI had not damaged Armstrong by releasing doping control forms to the French newspaper.

The report said WADA and the LNDD may have "behaved in ways that are completely inconsistent with the rules and regulations of international anti-doping control testing," and may also have been against the law.

Vrijman, who headed the Dutch anti-doping agency for 10 years and later defended athletes accused of doping, worked on the report with Adriaan van der Veen, a scientist with the Dutch Metrology Laboratory.

EPO, or erythropoietin, is a synthetic hormone that boosts the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.

Testing for EPO only began in 2001.

 

[Russ Smith]

Nothing against Jon here but this is just the latest in a huge PR campaign for Lance. Barry Bonds really ought to talk to Lance to get advice on how to improve his image. It just amazes me that ESPN and SI etc report this stuff without even considering whether or not it's slanted?

The report didn't really "clear" Lance of anything. All the Dutch guy did was say that the samples weren't handled in the manner required by doping agencies, there was no chain of custody, samples weren't labelled correctly etc. We knew this all along, when they did the tests back in 2004 they weren't testing Lance's samples, they were testing anonymous samples, they had no expectation of it doing anything but testing their test process. It was only after a bunch of the samples came back positive for EPO that they went further. Only after they were given the list that had the names that corresponded to the numbers on the samples did they know who's samples they were, it's very clear that's true because Lance and his militia went after a bunch of people for releasing that list since they weren't really sure how the list came out.

This is just an attempt to cloud the real issue, which is was there EPO in the samples or not? The guy conducting the investigation is a lawyer, not a scientist, his qualifications were that he formerly worked for the Dutch anti doping organization, and then spent years DEFENDING people accused of doping. That's like hiring OJ's defense team to investigate whether he was really guilty or not.

Dick Pound(gotta love that name) of WADA has already panned the report, they didn't show the results to WADA in advance, and he said just as they feared, the "investigation" made no effort to determine if the samples contained EPO or not, they simply set out to prove that specific guidelines weren't followed, which was readily admitted up front. The entire premise of this report is since they can't prove an undeniable chain of custody, they can't prove the samples weren't spiked.


The 132-page report said no proper records were kept of the samples, there had been no "chain of custody" guaranteeing their integrity and there was no way of knowing whether the samples had been "spiked" with banned substances.

Pound said he hadn't received the report yet but, based on what he had read in news accounts, was critical of Vrijman's findings.

"It's clearly everything we feared. There was no interest in determining whether the samples Armstrong provided were positive or not," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Montreal.

"Whether the samples were positive or not, I don't know how a Dutch lawyer with no expertise came to a conclusion that one of the leading laboratories in the world messed up on the analysis. To say Armstrong is totally exonerated seems strange," Pound said.

I'm sorry it must appear that I just hate Lance or something but it's farces like this that bring it out in me. How can Lance call it a "comprehensive" study when they made zero effort to determine if the test results that showed him positive for EPO were accurate or not? the part that kills me here is 9 samples came back positive, and IIRC only 6 belonged to Lance Armstrong, we've never been told who the other ones belonged to. So are we to assume that someone spiked those samples to in order to throw us off, or they screwed up trying to spike Lance's samples and got someone else's, or that the other samples actually did have EPO in them? Why bring that up when all you have to do is raise the possibility the samples COULD have been spiked and then declare that exonerates you?

 

[Dback Jon]

But the problem is Russ, is with the WADA incompetency and Vendetta against Armstrong, we have no way of knowing the truth - WADA has been extremely sloppy and prejudical against Armstrong.

Did he dope in 1999? No one can safely say one way or the other.

 

[Russ Smith]

But the problem is Russ, is with the WADA incompetency and Vendetta against Armstrong, we have no way of knowing the truth - WADA has been extremely sloppy and prejudical against Armstrong.

Did he dope in 1999? No one can safely say one way or the other.

Well to me you only think Pound and WADA are out to get Lance, if you believe him. WADA didn't do this test, a french lab did, WADA simply commented on the results after seeing them. They didn't ask for the tests, they were testing the test itself, not looking for old EPO violations, it just so happened they found 9 positives and then it got pursued. I have no doubt that the reason they were able to get the list of names and it was pursued was they were hoping to catch Lance, I don't doubt that for a minute, but that still doesn't mean that lance wasn't in fact caught.

I guess my problem is the purpose of the investigation should have been were the test results accurate or not, were the samples really Lance's or was the list wrong etc. They didn't look at any of that, they just tried to create a scenario where they could have been tampered with and said see Lance was framed.

In a statement Wednesday, he said he was pleased that the investigation confirms "what I have been saying since this witch hunt began: Dick Pound, WADA, the French laboratory, the French Ministry of Sport, L'Equipe and the Tour de France organizers ... have been out to discredit and target me without any basis and falsely accused me of taking performance-enhancing drugs in 1999.

I mean come on, I realize we all hate the French and everything but do people really believe that many different people and groups conspired to team up to frame Lance Armstrong because he kept winning the TDF?

I'm just waiting for Cheryl Crow to come out and tell us what she knows.

If they had come back and said the tests were flawed, it doesn't work on frozen samples etc, EPO doesn't last in frozen samples that long etc(All things alleged by people defending LA), that would be one thing, but all they did is say they can't guarantee the samples weren't spiked, therefore, he's innocent.

 

[Russ Smith]

FYI there is a Belgian triathlete named Rutger Beke who successfully challenged a positive drug test using this exact same test process. Beke spent 10 months compiling a team to prove that despite 3 samples taken at different events testing positive for EPO, he had never used EPO. What Beke did was get scientists to say that his body naturally excretes proteins that yield positive tests for EPO using the existing urine tests at the time. The tests have since been refined to exclude that from happening. the irony is, Beke's team never proved his body actually DID excrete the proteins, they simply proved it was possible that a human body COULD excrete proteins that would lead to a positive test.

Within weeks of him being cleared several other athletes in endurance sports were challenging their own positive results claiming the same thing, even though Beke's team contended that his condition was "extremely rare." Beke was cleared in 2005, WADA and the French lab who invented the test both admitted that since they can't rule out that his body does excrete those proteins, they couldn't conclusively say he cheated. What was really interesting is how Beke's team was unable to produce any other positive results before or after those 3 positives in 2004. They were using the same tests since 2000, he never tested positive until 2004, and never tested positive again, yet his entire defense is his body naturally excretes something that caused the positive tests?

One of Lance's former teammates, Tyler hamilton, is still trying to prove his positive test was the result of a twin. Hamilton was accused of injecting himself with blood from someone else, not only was the blood not his, it was a woman's blood not a man's. His defense is that they had detected blood cells from his "vanishing twin". the claim is that like many other humans, Hamilton had a twin in the womb when he was a fetus, but only Hamilton was born. This is one of those neat theories that nobody has ever proven but Hamilton's defense team siezed upon it since if the twin was a female, it could explain the test results. In February of this year his appeal was finally thrown out but he's still challenging it even though his suspension will end in September.

I guess it's things like that which make me so skeptical of Lance, these sports the athletes go to such lengths to get ahead. FYI there's some new form of EPO called Dynepo awaiting FDA approval that is going to throw the cycling and endurance sports world on it's ear. Unlike synthetic EPO it's cultured in human cells so it will be indistinguishable from natural EPO, so the current urine tests will NOT detect it. The cycling world has been abuzz about it for awhile now because it's suspected that some of the better connected athletes are already using it.

 

[Nate]

Wada boss slams Armstrong 'farce'


Story from BBC SPORT

World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) chief Dick Pound has rejected the independent investigation which cleared Lance Armstrong of doping allegations.Pound said Wada is considering legal action over the verdict into L'Equipe's claims that Armstrong's samples on the 1999 Tour de France tested positive.

He said the investigation headed by lawyer Emile Vrijman and the Dutch law firm Scholten "bordered on farcical." Their report exonerated Armstrong and blamed anti-doping authorities. It accused the Wada agency of behaving in ways "completely inconsistent" with testing rules, and determined the testing procedures at the French national doping laboratory LNDD had been insufficient to label the American's sample positive. Vrijman also stated that Wada and the LNDD had effectively pronounced Armstrong guilty of a doping violation without sufficient basis.





In a harshly worded statement, Wada said it completely rejected the report, its preliminary conclusion that "the report was defamatory to the Agency, its officers and employees, as well as the accredited laboratory involved." The body has taken legal advice about its options against the investigator and any organisation, including the International Cycling Union (UCI), that may publicly adopt its conclusions.


"Wada is an independent agency, comprised of equal representatives from the sports movement and the governments, which is concerned with the integrity of sport and the health of the athletes who practise it," said Pound.Our only interest in this matter is to determine the facts in an objective manner, whatever they may be.The Vrijman report is so lacking in professionalism and objectivity that it borders on farcical. Were the matter not so serious and the allegations it contains so irresponsible, we would be inclined to give it the complete lack of attention it deserves."


The UCI and Wada have waged a long-running feud over several doping issues, which is likely to continue after Wada's statement. It also expressed "astonishment that the UCI would expect anyone to have the slightest confidence in the objectivity, methodology, analysis or conclusions of such a report, especially since UCI had had more than six weeks during which to review the draft report and to correct the many factual errors contained in it."


The UCI was unavailable for immediate comment.

 

[Yuma]

Geez, isn't this like the 500th time Lance has been cleared? Or NOT been cleared?

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

Armstrong calling for Pound's dismissal

http://tsn.ca/olympics/news_story/?ID=169175&hubname=

 

[Dback Jon]

Go Lance GO!!

 

[Russ Smith]

Armstrong calling for Pound's dismissal

http://tsn.ca/olympics/news_story/?ID=169175&hubname=

I have a feeling this one is going to get interesting because in this latest round, Lance openly accuses Pound of "intentional misconduct designed to attack anyone who challenges them, followed by a coverup to conceal their wrongdoing"

In other words Lance is now accusing Pound of faking tests that declared him guilty of doping, and then trying to cover it up. Since Pound wasn't involved initially(the people who did the EPO testing were not connected to Pound) I'd be pretty surprised if he doesn't go after Armstrong for libel. I know this, if I were either guy, Pound or Armstrong, and I KNEW for a fact I was telling the truth, I'd be filing a libel suit at this point.

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

What I dont get about the article is the part where Pound states that they are considering legal action against the Dutch guys that did the other investigation. Legal action for what? Why does Pound think he gets to decide who can and cant have an investigation?

 

[Russ Smith]

What I dont get about the article is the part where Pound states that they are considering legal action against the Dutch guys that did the other investigation. Legal action for what? Why does Pound think he gets to decide who can and cant have an investigation?

I assume he means libel, because they came out and essentially said the original stuff was bogus and that it was essentially fraud(they used the words witch hunt over and over in the Dutch stuff).

I will say this, if Pound does NOT sue for libel here I'm going to be a lot more skeptical of him. If he's legit there's no way he can let this latest allegation pass without a suit, if he does, it will begin to make me wonder.

 

[Russ Smith]

I was reading something today that LA has 10 lawyers working for him FULL TIME at the moment in various stages of cases he's filed all over the place.

It was in a fascinating interview with a guy who wrote a book about Lance that actually defended Lance as a modern day hero. When the interviewer asked him about the doping allegations he admitted that when he went into doing the book, he'd planned to not even mention doping because it wasn't part of what he was interested in. When the guy pushed him on the issue he admitted that he was also quite concerned about Lance's litigous nature saying that his bookdeal was quite clear on that situation, they simply could not afford legal problems, if it came up, they'd simply drop the book.

So he ultimately only wrote about incidents that came about during his research time which include Greg LeMond saying that he was shocked to find out LA was teaming with noted doping doctor Michele Ferrari, LeMond's wife claiming Lance issued threats against both her and her husband regarding his refusal to retract his comments about Ferrari, and then Lance's former assistant coming out with a litany of doping charges against Lance. The most damning one there was that the one time in Lance's career he DID test positive, for a steroid, he convinced officials to backdate a medical waiver form that cleared him on the grounds the steroid was contained in a cream he was using for saddle sores, even though Lance had NOT included that cream in the required list of things being used when he filled out his medical forms. The assistant is one of many currently being sued by Lance.

Of course when you make nearly 20 million a year in endorsements, it's not all that hard to retain that many lawyers.

 

[Nate]

http://http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/tour-de-france/2006/sport_sto912175.shtml

Lance Armstrong admitted he has taken the performance-enhancing drug erythropoietin (EPO) before treating his cancer, French daily Le Monde reported on Friday. "In front of [Motorola team-mate] Franckie Andreu and his wife, who have testified under oath in Dallas, Armstrong said he had taken 'EPO, testosterone, growth hormones and cortisone'," Le Monde added.

American Armstrong, who retired after his record seventh consecutive victory last July, has always denied taking banned substances.
On the stand, he denied any such admission, adding that if Betsy Andreu had testified against him on the stand, it's because she hated him and her husband Frankie backed her up to support her.

Without offering an opinion on whether or not the Texan took EPO, the Dallas court ultimately ruled in favour of Armstrong in the suit against insurance company SCA for refusing to pay him a 5-million dollar premium for winning the 2004 Tour de France.

The court ruled that the insurance company could not deny him the money based on suspicions when sporting institutions had not called into question his victory.

A third witness to the scene, Stephanie McIlvain stands by Armstrong. The friend and employee of Armstrong sponsor Oakley took the stand on Novembrer 14, 2005 and denied hearing that the seven-time Tour winner admit to taking banned substanced.

But a September 21, 2004 phone conversation with three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond is open to interpretation. LeMond recorded the conversation and submitted it as testimony. McIlvain says "if I'm asked to take the stand, I'll do it (...) Because I won't lie. You know I was in that room. I heard."

None of the three other witnesses present on October 28, 1996 were asked to testify. They are Armstrong's girlfriend at the time, Lisa Shiels, then trainer Chris Carmichael and his wife Paige. Neither of the doctors who operated on him were called to the stand either.

SECOND ROW CONTINUES
French sports daily L'Equipe reported last August that it had access to laboratory documents and that six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour showed "indisputable" traces of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin.

Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, a former director of the Netherlands' national anti-doping agency, was appointed by the UCI, cycling's governing body, last October to investigate the allegations.

Vrijman, who led the probe, said the World Anti-Doping Agency and the French national doping laboratory had effectively pronounced Armstrong guilty of a doping violation without sufficient basis.

WADA chairman Dick Pound rejected the Vrijman report as "bordering on the farcical."

On Friday, the UCI refused to comment on the Le Monde report when contacted by the Reuters news agency.

 

[Russ Smith]

http://http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/tour-de-france/2006/sport_sto912175.shtml


But a September 21, 2004 phone conversation with three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond is open to interpretation. LeMond recorded the conversation and submitted it as testimony. McIlvain says "if I'm asked to take the stand, I'll do it (...) Because I won't lie. You know I was in that room. I heard."

.

LeMond is kind of interesting. He came out a few years back and complained that Lance had Ferrari as a coach when Ferrari was so notoriously connected to doping. His wife claims Armstrong threatened both her and LeMond because he was upset that Greg refused to retract his comments.

But I'm surprised it's legal for him to record that conversation?

 

[Nate]

Whenever I have a look at this ongoing story I usually come to the following conclusion:

Lance Armstrong was one of most talented and most hard-working (and efficient) riders ever and additionally he had the right group of friends, scientists, etc around him in order to dope as well or better as all others. That in no ways diminishes his success since his rivals shurely are no saints themselves --> see Pantani, Marco; Ullrich, Jan; etc

 

[Russ Smith]

Whenever I have a look at this ongoing story I usually come to the following conclusion:

Lance Armstrong was one of most talented and most hard-working (and efficient) riders ever and additionally he had the right group of friends, scientists, etc around him in order to dope as well or better as all others. That in no ways diminishes his success since his rivals shurely are no saints themselves --> see Pantani, Marco; Ullrich, Jan; etc

That's why I don't understand why the general public seems so willing to believe Lance. You have a sport that is absolutely inundated with rampant doping and yet people readily believe that a clean rider dominated the sport for years? Not saying it's impossible, but it is somewhat implausible.

Basically all you have to do is look at Lance pre cancer, to post cancer and the improvement is remarkable. Then you look at all the charges over the years from former teammates, former employees, rivals etc. Lance grew up idolizing Greg LeMond, and LeMond is convinced Lance cheated.

I met a guy fishing one year that's friends with Lance, he was actually fishing instead of going to the TDF to root Lance on. He said the thing he could never understand is how anybody could believe Lance would risk his reputation and his endorsements(20 million a year now) to participate in doping, it just didn't make sense to him. I told him while I understood his point the answer is fairly obvious, it's that reputation and endorsement money that pushes most of the others in the sport to start doping in the first place.

 

[Russ Smith]

AUSTIN, Texas -- Lance Armstrong denied Monday that he threatened three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond, calling the allegation "ridiculous.''

"Greg is just not in check with reality,'' Armstrong said Monday from New York City. "It's ridiculous. Greg is obsessed with foiling my career.

"I'm apoplectic when I read stuff like that,'' Armstrong said.

LeMond was the first American to win the Tour de France with victories in 1986 and 1989-90. Armstrong came back from life-threatening testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain to win seven in a row from 1999-2005 before retiring last year.

LeMond told the French weekly edition of L'Equipe Dimanche that he had testified in a recent legal dispute involving Armstrong.

"He threatened my wife, my business, my livelihood,'' LeMond told the newspaper. "His biggest threat consisted of saying he would find 10 people to testify that I took EPO. Of course, he didn't find a single one.''

America's top cyclists have had a public feud since 2001 when LeMond said he was unhappy about Armstrong's association with Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who had been linked to doping accusations but later was cleared by an appeals court.

Armstrong cut ties with Ferrari before the 2005 Tour.

Armstrong was involved in a battle over a $5 million performance bonus owed to him after winning the Tour de France in 2004. Dallas-based SCA Promotions had withheld the money under allegations Armstrong was doping, which he denied.

After three weeks of testimony from dozens of witnesses, the three-member arbitration panel ruled in Armstrong's favor and ordered the company to pay him $7.5 million.

Betsy Andreu, the wife of Armstrong's former teammate, Frankie Andreu, claimed that Armstrong, days after he underwent brain surgery in 1996, told a doctor he had used the blood-boosting hormone EPO and other drugs. Frankie Andreu also gave similar testimony before the panel.

Armstrong denied those claims and his lawyer released an affidavit from the doctor who led his chemotherapy treatments saying there is no medical record of any such admission.

"I would have recorded such a confession as a matter of form, as indeed, would have my colleagues,'' Dr. Craig Nichols said. "None was recorded.''

Armstrong, who has shifted his career to promoting cancer research, said he would continue to aggressively fight allegations he used performance-enhancing drugs.

"We have won them all,'' Armstrong said. "I never run from anything. If you've got stuff to hide, you wouldn't do like I've done.''

 

[Nate]

Whenever I have a look at this ongoing story I usually come to the following conclusion:

Lance Armstrong was one of most talented and most hard-working (and efficient) riders ever and additionally he had the right group of friends, scientists, etc around him in order to dope as well or better as all others. That in no ways diminishes his success since his rivals shurely are no saints themselves --> see Pantani, Marco; Ullrich, Jan; etc

http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/tour-de-france/2006/sport_sto916732.shtml
Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich have been named in the judicial inquiry into Spanish doping, radio Cadena Ser reported on the eve of the Tour de France. The two Tour favourites were listed, among 54 others, as having contact with Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes after a judge lifted a gag order on evidence files.

Spaniards José Enrique Gutierrez, Roberto Heras, Francisco Mancebo, American Tyler Hamilton, and Colombian Santiago Botero were also included in Thursday's Spanish report.


http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/sport_sto917055.shtml
Perennial Tour de France contender Jan Ullrich was suspended by his T-Mobile team Friday morning, just 24 hours before the start of the race in Strasbourg. The 1997 Tour winner, team-mate Oscar Sevilla, and team manager Rudy Pevenage. All three have been named in Spain's widening blood doping probe.


"The documents forwarded to us by Spanish investigators justified doubts about the truth of the statements made by Ullrich and Sevilla," T-Mobile spokesman Luuc Eisenga told a press conference in Strasbourg Friday morning.

More shure to come...

 

[Nate]

Here is more: Among others, Tour-favourites Basso and Mancebo banned.


http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/tour-de-france/2006/sport_sto917170.shtml

Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo joined Jan Ullrich on the sidelines of the Tour de France after organisers dumped two of the race's top riders. Ullrich had already been suspended by his T-Mobile team Friday morning when Tour director Christian Prudhomme announced the exclusion of Giro victor Basso.


"The enemy is not cycling, the enemy is doping," Prudhomme declared less than 24 hours before the start of the sport's greatest race.

 

[BACH]

That's why I don't understand why the general public seems so willing to believe Lance. You have a sport that is absolutely inundated with rampant doping and yet people readily believe that a clean rider dominated the sport for years? Not saying it's impossible, but it is somewhat implausible.

Basically all you have to do is look at Lance pre cancer, to post cancer and the improvement is remarkable. Then you look at all the charges over the years from former teammates, former employees, rivals etc. Lance grew up idolizing Greg LeMond, and LeMond is convinced Lance cheated.

I met a guy fishing one year that's friends with Lance, he was actually fishing instead of going to the TDF to root Lance on. He said the thing he could never understand is how anybody could believe Lance would risk his reputation and his endorsements(20 million a year now) to participate in doping, it just didn't make sense to him. I told him while I understood his point the answer is fairly obvious, it's that reputation and endorsement money that pushes most of the others in the sport to start doping in the first place.

You have to look at the medicine that Lance got during his sickness and still gets. It's a tabu, because it helped him against the cancer, but at the same time it is in fact also doping. Because of his earlier battle with cancer Lance was able to take medicin, that other riders would get suspended if caught using it.

 

[Russ Smith]

Here is more: Among others, Tour-favourites Basso and Mancebo banned.


http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/tour-de-france/2006/sport_sto917170.shtml

This is huge, they're saying as many as 50 riders are going to be held out of the TDF because of this.

Good for Lance, at least it will take his name off tv for a few days while they talk about current riders and doping for a change.