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[cyclist]

Armstrong has never failed a drug test.

What do I think ?  Let's just say that it would be pretty difficult to systematically dope and not fail a drug test.  On the other hand, there is alot of 'smoke' coming from the doping gun to ignore.

At stake is Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories and who know what else ?

[cyclist]

From VeloNews:

USADA Letter Paints Dark Picture of Armstrong Era

7-time Tour de France champion accused of systemic use of performance
enhancing drugs and a years-long conspiracy to cloak wide-ranging doping


Lance Armstrong holds up seven fingers at the start of the 21st and final stage of the Tour de France on July 24, 2005, capping his seventh straight Tour title.



By Matthew Beaudin

updated 11:32 a.m. ET June 14, 2012

A United States Anti-Doping Agency letter, first made public on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, paints a deeply troubling picture of Lance Armstrong’s run as the world’s most dominant cyclist, alleging systemic use of performance enhancing drugs and a years-long conspiracy to cloak wide-ranging doping.

It is a sweeping, top-down indictment of the Armstrong era, spanning teams, management and doctors, some of which, such as RadioShack-Nissan manager Johan Bruyneel, are still involved in the sport. Here, we detail a number of the key components of the letter, including details of the doping practices allegedly used and the evidence on which USADA has based its case.


USADA accuses Armstrong of using prohibited substances, possessing banned drugs and equipment, such as needles and blood bags, and trafficking EPO and other drugs. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency also claims Armstrong assisted and encouraged other riders to use performance enhancing drugs, and later covered up violations.

In a statement Wednesday, Armstrong said, “These charges are baseless, motivated by spite and advanced through testimony bought and paid for by promises of anonymity and immunity.

“I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.”

USADA says Armstrong tested positive at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland for EPO and that blood collection data from 2009 and 2010 was “fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions.”

The letter was sent to Bruyneel, RadioShack-Nissan team doctor Pedro Celaya, Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral, Pepe Martí and Dr. Michele Ferrari. Armstrong was the only cyclist listed as a recipient and, according to a UCI statement, the only athlete named in the investigation.

The Alleged Conspiracy
USADA collaborated with a nearly two-year-long federal investigation into doping in pro cycling, and had been looking into the Armstrong years since 2010, at the behest of the International Cycling Union, when former cyclist and Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis’ allegations went public.

USADA claims that the letter details “a portion” of the evidence gathered in its investigation of the United States Postal Service, Discovery Channel, Astana and RadioShack teams — all of which Bruyneel has managed and Armstrong has ridden for.

“USADA sought to give the riders an opportunity to be a part of the solution in moving cycling forward by being truthful and honest about their past experiences with doping in cycling,” the letter reads.

With the exception of Armstrong, USADA says, every rider contacted described their involvement with doping. Those riders include Landis and Tyler Hamilton, who stated in May 2011 that he had testified before the federal grand jury.

CBS News program “60 Minutes” reported that George Hincapie had also testified before the grand jury, though Hincapie has refused to comment. Hincapie, who rode with Armstrong for all seven of the Texan’s Tour wins and now rides with BMC Racing, announced earlier this week that the 2012 season would be his last as a professional.

USADA alleges a massive, 14-year doping violation that it labeled a “USPS conspiracy.” Team officials, such as Bruyneel, allegedly obtained performance-enhancing drugs and then distributed them to top riders. There were code names for drugs and the expectation that riders use EPO and other drugs in order to help the leaders perform better in stage race general classifications, according to USADA.

“Beginning in 1999 and continuing through the present it has been an object of the conspiracy to conceal and cover-up the doping conduct of the USPS Conspiracy,” the letter states. “Numerous witnesses will testify that as part of this cover-up Johan Bruyneel, Pedro Celaya, Michele Ferrari, Lance Armstrong and other co-conspirators engaged in activities to conceal their conduct and mislead anti-doping authorities including false statements to the media, false statements and false testimony given under oath and in legal proceedings, and attempts to intimidate, discredit, silence and retaliate against witnesses.”

The Alleged Doping Practices
It chronicles blood doping, saline and plasma infusions, and EPO, testosterone, Human Growth Hormone and Cortisone use as follows:

EPO use: “Multiple riders who competed on the USPS and Discovery Channel teams from 1998 through 2007 have reported to USADA that Team Director Johan Bruyneel, Team Trainer Jose Pepe Martí and co-conspirator, Dr. Michele Ferrari, a consultant to the USPS and Discovery Channel teams and their riders, developed training plans dependent upon EPO use and instructed riders to train with the drug,” the letter reads. “Multiple riders with first hand knowledge will testify that between 1998 and 2005 Armstrong personally used EPO and on multiple occasions distributed EPO to other riders.”

Blood doping: According to USADA, “Blood transfusions became more important to the conspiracy herein after the urine EPO test was introduced in 2000.” Those transfusions, USADA claims, were administered by Bruyneel and others. “Armstrong used blood transfusions, was observed having blood re-infused, including during the Tour de France, and had blood doping equipment at his residence,” the letter reads.

Testosterone: USADA claims the drug was known as “oil” to the USPS and Discovery Channel teams. “Multiple riders who competed on the USPS and Discovery Channel teams from 1998 through 2007 have reported that Dr. Ferrari developed a method of mixing testosterone (i.e., andriol) with olive oil for oral administration and that this testosterone-olive oil mixture was frequently administered to team members,” the letter states. “USADA has eyewitness statements from multiple sources that Lance Armstrong used testosterone and administered the testosterone-olive oil mixture to himself and other riders.”

Human Growth Hormone: The anti-doping agency says that riders on the USPS and Discovery teams used the drug to promote recovery and that Bruyneel and others provided it to team members.

Cortisone: “Johan Bruyneel and Pepe Martí encouraged the unauthorized use of corticosteroids for performance enhancement and gave these drugs to riders,” the letter claims. “USADA will also rely upon first hand testimony from witnesses who were aware of Armstrong’s use of cortisone without medical authorization.”

Saline and plasma infusions: USADA alleges the USPS and Discovery teams used the injections to mask the use of other prohibited substances, such as EPO. “Riders who competed on the USPS and Discovery Channel teams from 1998 through 2007 have reported to USADA that each rider’s hematocrit level was always of primary interest to team director Johan Bruyneel,” the letter reads. “USADA will also present testimony concerning infusions given to numerous USPS riders, including Lance Armstrong.”

USADA later outlines Bruyneel’s alleged possession of blood bags and needles, his trafficking of EPO and other drugs, his administration of the substances and his covering up of the uses.

“With respect to Mr. Bruyneel, numerous riders will testify that Mr. Bruyneel gave to them and/or encouraged them to use doping products and/or prohibited methods, including EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone, hGH and cortisone during the period from 1999 through 2007,” USADA claims. “Riders and other witnesses will also testify that Bruyneel worked actively to conceal rule violations by himself and others throughout the period from 1999 through the present.”

The letter levels similar accusations surrounding team doctors del Moral and Celaya, Dr. Ferrari and team trainer Jose Pepe Martí.

Statute of Limitations
The World Anti-Doping Agency does not strip results eight years after they were accrued, but USADA argues in this case that the alleged activities took place within the last eight years and that “conspiratorial acts” from outside the statute of limitations may be pursued, based in part on USADA v. Hellebuyck.

Those who received the letter have 10 days to respond. A board outside of USADA will then review the investigation’s findings, and make a recommendation on how to proceed. USADA will then either close the case or file specific charges.

[cyclist]

From the Associated Press:

Column: Armstrong's Past, If Dirty Must Be Erased


By JOHN LEICESTER

AP Sports Columnist

Associated Press Sports

updated 12:10 p.m. ET June 14, 2012

PARIS (AP) -Take the entire Lance Armstrong story, the cancer survivor's resurrection from his sick bed to conquer the hardest bike race in the world, and flush it. Goodbye, good riddance, never happened.

That, at least, is what his sport will be able to do if the United States Anti-Doping Agency can back up its reams of new allegations that the seven-time Tour de France champion wasn't a larger-than-life, good ol' American inspiration but merely a co-conspirator in one of the biggest chemically powered frauds in sporting history.

There's a long way to go before that can happen, if it happens at all. It would be totally out of character for Armstrong not to contest every charge, sentence and comma in USADA's 15-page rap sheet sent Tuesday to him, his friend and former team manager Johan Bruyneel, three medical doctors and a trainer for outfits Armstrong rode for. USADA alleged they were "part of a doping conspiracy" that used "fear, intimidation and coercion" to keep it secret.

Armstrong liked to recount how he trained harder and better than competitors he trounced from 1999-2005 on French roads, famously saying in a commercial for one his sponsors, "What am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass, six hours a day."

That isn't what USADA's letter says. "Numerous riders, team personnel and others will testify based on personal knowledge acquired either through observing Armstrong dope or through Armstrong's admissions of doping to them that Lance Armstrong used EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone" - in other words, the cornucopia of banned pharmaceutical aids cheats need to give them the edge for cycling's three-week French showcase in July.

With the millions he earned from the sport and the friends in high places he acquired with his unique personal story and his campaigning against cancer, Armstrong has money and clout to fight these allegations that, if proved and prosecuted, would pull apart his whole narrative and everything he has become.

Inspiration no more, Armstrong would become the face for the era when cycling became a freak show, with riders whose veins bulged but who, strangely, didn't seem that exhausted after sprinting up a French Alp. Other clowns in this circus were race organizers who pedaled the myth that nothing too serious was amiss, the cycling bureaucrats who didn't act decisively until the rot was entrenched so deep that the sport's future was in danger and journalists who breathlessly told the tales of hard men in the hardest race but, with some notable exceptions, didn't do enough to answer the question, "What am I on?"

The absurdity of that era is such that if Armstrong was, by some miracle, stripped of his Tour titles as a result of USADA gumshoes digging into the past, then who could you give them to? Jan Ullrich, the chunky German who finished runner-up to Armstrong three times? Excuse me while I choke on my schnitzel. Only this February, the 1997 Tour winner was exposed for involvement in blood doping and banned for two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Ivan Basso, the Italian who stood next to Armstrong when he delivered his farewell 2005 podium speech denouncing the "cynics and the skeptics" who no longer believed in cycling, was also subsequently banned. So, too, was Alexander Vinokourov, third behind Armstrong and Ullrich in 2003. I could go on. But it's just too sad.

Unlike his former teammates Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, don't expect a belated confession from Armstrong. Battling tooth and nail is more his style. He has much more wealth, prestige and admirers than Hamilton and Landis ever did, far too much to lose. Besides, he insists USADA's charges "are baseless, motivated by spite and advanced through testimony bought and paid for by promises of anonymity and immunity."

"I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one," Armstrong said in a statement he flagged to his 3.5 million followers on Twitter.

Armstrong is a smart guy. By definition, the smart dopers are those who don't get caught. Instead, they hire dirty doctors to provide them with dosages and timetables of what to take when so their cheating doesn't show up in tests, and to help them dodge the radar of the expensive anti-doping program that cycling's governing body, the UCI, has operated since 2008. That so-called biological passport program works by monitoring riders' blood readings, flagging up suspicious ones that could point to doping.

The bio passport would have kept tabs on Armstrong, too, when he returned to cycling for the 2009 and 2010 Tours. USADA's letter says its evidence of doping includes data from blood samples the UCI took from Armstrong in both those years

Why drag up all this again now? Why spend taxpayer dollars to try to nail a rider from cycling's past?

Short answer: Because determining the truth about Armstrong's past is vital to the well-being of cycling's present. Even retired, he remains one of the sport's most widely recognized names. If he was dirty, his name needs to be expunged from the record books. If he was dirty, the cancer survivors his story inspires should be told he's a fraud. If he was dirty, kids need to know that cheats do get caught, even many years later.

USADA's letter to them and to Armstrong said "numerous" riders will testify that team manager Bruyneel, Italian doctor Michele Ferrari and Spanish doctors Luis Garcia del Moral and Pedro Celaya pushed doping products and methods and worked to conceal rule-breaking. If they were dirty, they must be drummed out of cycling so other riders can't be corrupted.

In short, if Armstrong and associates were dirty, we should be thankful that USADA is trying to do something about it, because others who might haven't.

There's evidence that suggests cycling is no longer as dirty as it was, that the UCI bio passport is deterring cheats and that riders today are winning more on merit. The victory in May of Ryder Hesjedal at the Giro d'Italia was seen as a significant sign that cycling is progressing because the Canadian rides for a team, Garmin, widely praised for its toughness against doping.

Cycling is a beautiful sport. The individual effort, the teamwork, the fabulous backdrops of French chateaux make it so. To be able to appreciate all that to the full again, to believe in today's seemingly more honest generation, the dirty past needs to be exposed and then deleted. Go away, vanish. Make way for a cleaner future.

[cf0102]

Alot of baseball players didn't fail a test either. I don't care one way or another, but you're not telling me that everybody else was doping and he still kicked all of their a$$es and he wasn't doping. Of course he was doping!