Unsurprising cycling news of the day June 14, 2012 at 8:32 am
The US Anti-Doping Agency has brought formal doping charges against Lance Armstrong. Years ago, I said that there may be something fishy about Lance based on the same risk management principle that suggests that you should look very carefully at any position that seems to generate large excess returns with little risk. Yes, sometimes things are that good. But sometimes they are not, and you are missing the real issue.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I hope they’re not basing their whole case on the grumblings of spiteful clowns like Landis, and the unsubstantiated speculations of guys like Saugy.
Well, there is the issue of a guy who had stage 3 testicular cancer with a tumor that had metastasized to his brain and lungs who then not only recovered, but beat the best in the world at one of the most difficult tests of strength and endurance in sport. Yes he *could* be a superman, right out there on the end of the bell curve. But perhaps he isn’t.
The first really decent test for EPO was introduced in 2000. You can see this in the winning time for the marathon in various olympics.
This was the year which Lance won the Tour de France by the longest margin.
That does not prove he was not taking drugs – but in what was probably the cleanest race ever he was at his largest advantage over the field – suggesting that he was taking less drugs than the rest of them.
John
one thing I will add is that the sport is rife with doping anyways so it’s not like he had an excessive advantage over everyone. just the folks who weren’t also doping.
And on a more important note it still Infuriates me that the Gov’t has wasted even $1 trying to prosecute him and Clemens and Bonds and whomever else. Whoever is pursuing these cases should be fired and forced to payback the $ they’ve wasted. There are far more important issues regardless of whether Lance raced for the USPS or not (they were broke back then and they’re still broke, so who cares)
hmjjbe – I would respectfuly disagree. Cycling is one of the sports I care the most about, and I want it to be clean. I’m happy if my taxpayer’s money is spent on that. For me, Lance was one of the least attractive leading cyclists ever – arrogant, temperamental and a poor role model. Miguel Indurain said that he “never felt superior to anyone”; too often Armstrong makes me feel that he thinks exactly the opposite. If it turns out that Armstrong didn’t have anything to be arrogant about then I, for one, will cheer.