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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Lance Armstrong is facing more doping allegations just a few months after he thought he had finally put them to rest.
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US Anti-Doping Agency charges Armstrong (Yahoo! Sports)
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I'm waiting for more details to come out on this but I knew this was coming. A friend of mine is a huge cycling fan and he's been talking about this for a few weeks. After the 2 year fed investigation was dropped people assumed that was it. What the friend says is this, in the cycling world the claim is they didn't drop it because they believe Lance didn't dope, they dropped it because their standard of proof is so high, they simply weren't sure they could PROVE Lance doped. They had several eye witnesses and something like a dozen people who told them under oath Lance was using EPO and other agents to mask it for years.
There are apparently 4-6 guys that are actually being charged by USADA but the media is just saying Lance because he's the big name. Their charge is that these guys were the ringleaders or a concentrated and intentional doping campaign that went on for years and involved both doping themselves, and instructing others how to dope and even distributing doping materials to other riders(on their team presumably).
What the friend said is essentially this is perceived to be by far the biggest challenge Lance has faced over doping because the standard of proof is different, they don't have to produce dirty needles with his DNA on it, they just have to produce enough evidence or testimony of cheating to raise the charges and then HE has the burden of proving it's not true.
We'll see he's been remarkably good at surviving these things. As always my stance is the same, it's almost inconceivable that in a sport like cycling at a time when we know now that virtually all the top athletes were cheating, that the guy who dominated was the only one who wasn't cheating. It's damn near impossible for me to not assume he cheated and just hasn't been caught.
There are apparently 4-6 guys that are actually being charged by USADA but the media is just saying Lance because he's the big name. Their charge is that these guys were the ringleaders or a concentrated and intentional doping campaign that went on for years and involved both doping themselves, and instructing others how to dope and even distributing doping materials to other riders(on their team presumably).
What the friend said is essentially this is perceived to be by far the biggest challenge Lance has faced over doping because the standard of proof is different, they don't have to produce dirty needles with his DNA on it, they just have to produce enough evidence or testimony of cheating to raise the charges and then HE has the burden of proving it's not true.
We'll see he's been remarkably good at surviving these things. As always my stance is the same, it's almost inconceivable that in a sport like cycling at a time when we know now that virtually all the top athletes were cheating, that the guy who dominated was the only one who wasn't cheating. It's damn near impossible for me to not assume he cheated and just hasn't been caught.
