USADA strips Lance Armstrong of all TdF titles; banned for life

I think the USADA wanted to run Armstrong's name through the mud. I don't think they had the evidence needed (other than a bunch of former dopers saying he did it) and I do believe had Armstrong continued the fight, there was a realistic chance of his name being cleared. But since he decided to give it up, the USADA put the hammer down.

As far as passing tests go, I think technology exists that would allow dopers to be able to pass these tests. I mean, was Onterrio Smith ever suspended for a drug violation before they caught him at an airport with the Whizzinator? Some dopers are always able to stay a step ahead. Either way, most people have their mind made up about this Armstrong situation. Either he's guilty or he's not. I just think they're making him the fall guy on this, instead of addressing the larger problem itself.I agree with you. Except at least I don't think the investigations would have ever stopped. No matter how many times his name was "cleared", another investigation would pop up.

sick of Lance, sick of such a crappy sport where in the last 20 years half the past winners of Tour de Prance been like stripped now.

People keep talking about evidence. Unfortunately, dopers are typically two steps ahead of those trying to regulate it. It seems as if most of what he's accused of is HGH (no reliable tests), Cortisone (That's illegal?), and Steroids. Many of his tests were suspicious with EPO, blood transfusions, etc.

When it comes down to it, you'll rarely have a smoking gun in a case like this. When it comes to evidence I feel like 10+ eye witness accounts and suspicious activity is plenty to convict someone of a crime. If 10 criminals watch another criminal shoot an innocent person, but the police can't find the gun and the accused shooter has no real alibi -- should the testimony of those ten be ignored and charges dropped? I don't think they should be. The only reason to stop fighting, in my opinion, is when they finally have you.

When it comes down to it, you'll rarely have a smoking gun in a case like this. When it comes to evidence I feel like 10+ eye witness accounts and suspicious activity is plenty to convict someone of a crime. If 10 criminals watch another criminal shoot an innocent person, but the police can't find the gun and the accused shooter has no real alibi -- should the testimony of those ten be ignored and charges dropped? I don't think they should be. The only reason to stop fighting, in my opinion, is when they finally have you.In your hypothetical case, if the police couldn't even find a body afterwards, or anybody missing, they'd have to drop charges against the suspect, right?

Saw this thread, googled a little, and apparently the International Cycling Union, UCI hasn't decided whether or not to actually strip Armstong's titles. There's this poster's opinion about USDA and Armstrong:

Im_No_Expert_but___ comments on USADA to ban Lance Armstrong for life, strip Tour de France titles? (http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/yqer4/usada_to_ban_lance_armstrong_for_life_strip_tour/c5xzfwx)

From the link:

"And yes, "franchise" is correct because this operation was run not by some officer of the law, but the CEO of USADA. Travis Tygart has had it in for Lance for a long time; when Floyd Landis was busted, Tygart offered him a sweet deal if he would dish dirt on Lance.

The Department of Justice actually ran a Grand Jury investigation for 2 years before dropping the case in February -- apparently, someone eventually realized that winning the first 6 tours in a row for the US Postal Service wasn't "defrauding" them of their sponsorship dollars. Some of the people called to testify are still active riders in the pro peloton, which are presumably in the "10+ witnesses" Tygart would call on, which means he didn't care about ACTIVE riders who were part of the same alleged doping ring; he just cared about trying to destroy public opinion about Lance, who was retired from cycling and last won in 2005.

(snip)

Besides the two expected witnesses who perjured themselves so badly that they would be completely unusable in an actual courtroom (Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton), another of the pieces of so-called "evidence" that Tygart wanted to use was 6 urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France, a case which had already been investigated by the UCI's own appointee, and it EXONERATED Lance. The investigator was the director of the Netherlands national anti-doping organization, and wrote in his exhaustive, 132-page report:

the failure of the underlying research to comply with any applicable standard and the deficiencies in the report render it completely irresponsible for anyone involved in doping control testing to even suggest that the analyses results that were reported constitute evidence of anything.

(p. 17) PDF link: http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news/2006/jun06/vrijmanreport.pdf

It was an epic beatdown. WADA screamed bloody murder, even though under their own regulations, they had stored the samples under the agreement they would never be used for sanctions of any kind!

Since the samples were EXPLICITLY not to be used for sanctions, they didn't follow the chain-of-custody regulations, were NOT anonymous, and sat in a freezer for 6 years that was accessible like any other research materials to any number of people.

Chain of custody is ESSENTIAL to handling samples, and it is already established in every context that a broken chain of custody equals completely worthless non-evidence.

This would be like if the cops impounded your car, then sold it at auction, and then 6 years later whoever is driving it gets pulled over, cops search the car, find drugs, and then want to charge YOU. It was obviously out of their "secure" impound facility the entire time, and the drugs could have come from anywhere -- including being forgotten by the cops after using the vehicle in an undercover sting operation (which I seem to recall actually happening in a story covered by Reddit).

Moreover, the French national anti-doping lab in question regularly leaks its findings to the French paper L'Equipe, which has a notorious anti-Lance POV (they really didn't like him winning their tour every single year).

This would be something like if you went for a drug test for your job, and before anyone else got the official results, your worst enemy on Facebook posted the "results" given to him from his buddy at the lab that coincidentally showed you used certain substances that were also sitting in the lab research supplies. Let's see, people with a motive and a grudge who have access to your samples with no chain of custody and know exactly which samples are yours and suddenly find a "positive" years after the fact?

As a cyclist, Lance's Tour de France years were under the auspices of the UCI, which claimed sole jurisdiction over this case, which USADA ignored because they could use their WADA connection as a loophole. The UCI also has an 8-year statute of limitations, and doesn't vacate titles after that even if doping is ADMITTED later, as happened some years back with 1996 winner Bjarne Riis who runs Team Saxo Bank. Jonathan Vaughters just admitted to doping and he runs Team Garmin.

(snip)

Contrary to the assertion that Lance "accepted" USADA's decision, he instead refused to go into binding arbitration with Travis Tygart, refusing to acknowledge the CEO of USADA's personal vendetta as legitimate. Both Lance and the UCI agree that the UCI is the only legitimate party with jurisdiction, as the UCI has announced publicly."

Defiant Armstrong posts pic of Tour champion jerseys - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/11/sport/lance-armstrong-twitter-tour-cycling/index.html)

lol...no class

On the contrary...the whole sport has no class. I thought riders were tested right after every win...which he passed. Did they ever get an actual failed test from him?

If so, did they punish every other rider who is doping? (because they all are)

Maybe he did do it but from the start, it really looked like the Europeans had a witch hunt mentality against him because an American was dominating "their" race every year.

I say, good for you, Lance. You won those jerseys.

I still don't see Bonds, Sosa or McGwire's records removed. History happened, Armstrong won those races and at the time, there was no evidence that he cheated...at the time.

I think he just got tired of fighting a losing battle...they weren't going to give up.

Monkeydad, we all know that testing isn't exactly foolproof. What this guy did was ran a pretty subtle operation. While everyone doping should be punished, you have to cut off the head. With the extensive list of financial transactions, eye-witness accounts, and abnormalities in testing -- they have plenty of evidence against him.

For years there have been allegations against him for doping. It took some time to build the full case. I can't really believe he's 'tired of fighting.' Not sure about you, but it's worth my time to fight allegations like that. These allegations came in a formal document that would be easy to refute if he were innocent. Not sure about you, but if I were innocent you better damn well believe I've been fighting.

Lance Armstrong is, and has always been, the epitome of a scum bag.

The sport at that time and probably still now isn't about best rider...it's about who the best cheater is. Lance was the best among them. If everyone is cheating is it cheating? There is a very real chance that every single rider in every TdF he won was doping. The whole sport is a mess. Not sure anything that has come out makes lance a scumbag. I am quite sure his work for cancer research doesn't.

Lance Armstrong to confess to doping during TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, report says - ESPN (http://espn.go.com/sports/endurance/story/_/id/8837229/lance-armstrong-confess-doping-tv-interview-oprah-winfrey-report-says)

Its officially confirmed, he's a fraud.