Federal investigators close Lance Armstrong probe with no charges brought... but USADA enquiry continues

russyparkin wrote:

ah bad luck! devons the place to be, if theres a catastrophic world wide ice age, it would merely rain in plymouth

Possibly - but oh, HOW hard it would rain!

russyparkin wrote:

woah this post has gone a bit 'bike radar' everyone chill out, its the weekend and it isnt snowing so lets all calm down and not call each other or sportsmen we have never met dicks.

Looking out my window and the snow is belting down, no ride for me tomorrow.

bauchlebastart wrote:

On the doping side........he was (and still is) a great bike rider. But I can't believe he dominated the 'EPO years' riding clean,

This.

Simple fact is that for decades the dominant forces in cycling partook in some sort of artificial and illegal enhancement - be it EPO, amphetamines, or whatever. Lance isn't the only great to be tarnished... check out this list, it's insane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling

Thing is, there will have been a lot of riders who didn't want to cheat, who could never have the chance to compete fairly against those that did.

A level playing field (or as much as is possible) is needed for us to enjoy sport properly. Its why things like F1 are so boring, or rich foreign owners buying footy clubs ruin the game.

My point is that it's not a personal charity fund like the Gates Foundation where all the money comes from 1 person. Lance Armstrong is not handing out 25 mln $ of his own money to other people every year. Someone else runs the charity and does that with other people's money. So the statement that Lance is 'donating millions of dollars to cancer charities' is simply not supported by facts. Perhaps he is, but until there is proof, it's just speculation and not an fact that one can use to argue that Lance is a good guy.

As for me having a beef with Armstrong, I have formed an opinion based on many years of following cycling. I believe that he was a driving force behind the continued use of doping in the peleton, even as the public opinion was changing and some people were making an honest effort to clean it up. I do feel strongly about that.

stumps wrote:

However I think you are bang out of order making comments about Veseunr, its not what the forum is about and not needed or wanted.

I saw it as him claiming the moral high ground for a silly reason, but in hindsight, I might have read the worst in the comment. For that, I apologize, although I don't think my comments were particularly mean towards him. Ultimately we all dislike cancer, so we can all agree that working to fight cancer is a moral thing to do.

However, I think we should be aware that not all charity work is actually effective and some people abuse charity for selfish reasons.

veseunr wrote:

Aapje .... "huge dick"??

Yes, as been proven time and again by how he behaved on and off the bike. I'm not the only one who feels this way:

http://www.billgifford.com/2009/07/yes-i-called-lance-armstrong-jerk.html

Quote:

If only there were more "huge dicks" in the world donating millions of dollars to cancer charities, we might be a better world.

Are you talking about Livestrong? If so, I hope you realize that the money is donated by others, not by Lance personally. I have no idea if he personally donated anything and I don't think you do either.

Quote:

Although, as a cancer patient myself, I might just have a different perspective to you?

Cancer is one of the most common diseases and pretty much anyone has lost relatives to it. So claiming moral high ground because you are a cancer patient is rather silly.

Livestrong is a cancer 'awareness' charity, which means that almost no money from the charity goes to actually fighting the disease. Just like a lot of the breast cancer charity racket, it does very little to actually fighting cancer, but is mostly succesful in making people feel good about themselves. It's also good at drawing money away from actual research, doing more harm than good IMO.

Lance was really smart to start up this charity, because it's great PR for him, despite not costing him much (donations are by others and those also pay for running the charity, so it only costs him a bit of his time). A while back, he started a for profit company: Livestrong.com, not to be confused with the non-profit: Livestrong.org. So now he can actually make money off people who think they are dealing with the charity. Great business model.

But hey, he is associated with a cancer charity, so he MUST be a good guy, right? That is how PR works and how you were duped.

stumps wrote:

There is no smoke without fire in my opinion. Perhaps the US didn't want one of it's most famous sportsmen turned into a joke

I don't think that's how the Feds roll - they're about law enforcement, not PR. After all, Novitsky was the chap who nailed the Balco lab cheats and they were as big as Lance.

USADA are still on the case and their remit is strictly anti-doping, not law enforcement.

It seems accepted that he is guilty of something, despite there being no evidence to prove such guilt. Until I see inscrutable evidence to the contrary I'd like to believe he, and all others faced with accusations, is innocent.

Unfortunately there only has to be the whiff of a rumour of something suspicious and lots of cycling fans will write you off as being a doper forever more. I don't see Mercx, Hinault and Anquetil faced with the kind of vitriol that is reserved for Armstrong and Contador.

It can never be proved that either didn't dope, because you can never prove a negative. So we must presume that they are innocent, lest we live in a society where the Sun newspaper and internet forums are judge and jury.

italiafirenze wrote:

It seems accepted that he is guilty of something, despite there being no evidence to prove such guilt. Until I see inscrutable evidence to the contrary I'd like to believe he, and all others faced with accusations, is innocent.

Hmmm, the failed test in 99, EPO in the re-tests from 99, the confessions and accusations from key members of his team, anecdotal evidence from ex-employees, his hostility to anyone speaking up against doping, the failed tests by so many of his ex-teammates after they left the USP mothership, the dodgy 'donation' to the UCI, every single one of his rivals being busted for doping. Etc...

You're right, it seems very unreasonable to think that he did anything wrong.

italiafirenze wrote:

I don't see Merckx, Hinault and Anquetil faced with the kind of vitriol that is reserved for Armstrong and Contador.

There are reasons for that:
- Doping at that time made much less of a difference. Only in the EPO-era could mediocre riders suddenly beat natural champions. So EPO-era dopers commit a worse offense.
- Doping was accepted at that time. We (partially) judge cyclists with the morals from the era they rode in.
- Armstrong is a huge dick.

Finally, presumed innocent is a concept from the courts, which has got nothing to do with the opinions of random people. 'We' can freely make up our own mind and judge for ourselves. 'Presumed innocent' only comes into play when we want the government to punish someone.

Aapje wrote:

- Armstrong is a huge dick.

You're new here, aren't you Aapej?

matt merritt wrote:

rob simmons your a massive Dick.

You're new here aren't you, Matt?

Obviously new! It's 'you're' not 'your' and I'm not sure 'Dick' needs a capital unless Rob is actually Richard?

That said, swearing has no place on this site. Youtube's the place for name calling.

rob simmons your a massive Dick.

m.merritt

Took all this time to sign up to leave a first comment like that (bad spelling aside- and couldn't even get Rob's surname correct)...way to go....it's a forum about cycling/bikes....time for kiddywinkles to go to bed methinks....