F1 Fanatic

I think all this is absolutely stupid. Honestly.
Yes cheating is bad, blablabla. But sometimes they should just let history be history.
Yes he won, in some way by cheating, but who didn’t? The 2nd placed guy did, the guy in 111th place did as well.
Armstrong did what he did, because that was the game. And he played that game better then anyone. I think that its naive to think that sport is drug free. But they all seem to pretend like HE was the cheater. HE was the villain. But you know what? I think that he was a hero. Considering what he went through, and STILL beat the living cr*p out of anyone else.
A drugged hero, sure. But so was Captain America.
I really think that its bad to dig up stories, which are vastly outdated and try to erase history and pretend like it didn’t happen.
Sometimes, history has to be left as what it is.
It doesn’t make any sense to be so blindly naive and pretend like doping isn’t still a part of the tour, and that it hasn’t been. Of cause it has, let it go.
Focus on the future and how to stop riders from using it from now on.
I really think that all this is a huge waste of time and money, and I don’t really see what good it will do for cycling.

I don’t think it’s naive to think there are clean sports out there and to prefer to see all athletes drugs free. You only have to read about Olympic sports like rowing where rowers are constantly available for random drugs tests and the sport has been clean since the fall of the Berlin wall.
Of course Armstrong wasn’t the only one using banned substances and many others have already been banned and stripped of titles but he was the most successful so that the higher you go the harder you fall.
I’m glad Bradley Wiggins is so adamant in his rebuttal of the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs.

I’m about a month out of date, but do they actually have a positive drug test? Last time I checked it’s just people testifying that he doped.

@katederby
Aaah now I get what you mean, I guess I misunderstood you. Somehow. Now I don’t really know how… never mind.

@Mads, Yes, I think I see what you’re getting at…how was he taking illegal drugs at all… maybe some countries are stricter than others. I only know from following some of the GB rowing team on Twitter,that they seemed to be regularly peeing in pots for officials!

Do they have positive drugs tests for Armstrong. Well yes to an extent.

His samples from his first Tour de France win (99) were tested for EPO in 2004 by the lab where the samples were originally run and stored. They were running tests on these old samples for research purposes, as an EPO test didn’t exist in 99, and really is difficult to test for because it’s a naturally occurring protein (I think). This lab did not have any names, just identifiers given to them by a cycling board, but 6 of his tests were positive, and 3 more questionable. A journalist then managed to get off the cycling board a list of the blood tests that Armstrong had in that tour with identifiers, managed to get the list off the lab, compared the numbers and wrote an article. Results were highly discredited by Armstrong’s supporters at the time, but are now backed up by the testimony put forward, basically that he was doping with a lot of EPO in 99, but smaller amounts in 2000 after the test was developed.
He also tested positive for a steroid in 1999, for which he was given a back-dated prescription for a legal medication with this steroid in it, again matched by testimony. There’s also testimony relating to questionable tests in 2001 which were swept under the rug, which have since been confirmed as questionable but not positive by the board.

As for whether doping would occur in F1, it would be naive to think that out of all the F1 drivers over the last 20 years that none have doped.

It was the right move to strip him of his tour titles and not to nominate a successor. After all, Ullrich, Klöden, Vinikurov have all been convicted.

I don’t believe every rider, who has participated in the tour has doped, there are riders out there, who have retired from pro. cycling because they refused to take performance enhancing drugs.

maybe some countries are stricter than others

That is the case. In Germany the athletes must inform the national anti- doping agency at all times, where they are located, in order for the agency to test them at any time.
If the fail do to so, they are penalised.

If I am not mistaken Rio Ferdinand was suspended for a couple of matches a couple of years ago, due to missing a drug test.

@matt90 http://www.fia.com/public/anti-doping/documents/WADA_Prohibited_List_2012_EN.pdf

The same as for any other sport.