What a difference a week makes.
Nike today ended it relationship with Lance Armstrong stating:
Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him.
But just last week, Nike stated:
Lance has stated his innocence and has been unwavering in his position. Nike plans to continue support Lance and the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a foundation that Lance created to serve cancer survivors.
I say, kuhnkat old boy, have you ever thought of joining the diplomatic service? You may be useful in the counter-terrorism section.
Biggles,
you claim you want a clean environment and then tell me petrol doesn’t hurt it. Maybe you had better give us details of what YOU consider pollution. Apparently you have a unique version.
You have a very eurocentric view of the World Wars. In my opinion the US should NOT have entered the war until much later so that the Soviets and Nazis had plenty of time to slaughter and xhaust themselves!! You yap about they saved a lot of our boys lives. Welp they and us saved YOU from Goose Stepping and singing the praises of Der Fuhrer.
Then they turned around and tried to do the same as Hitler was doing a bit at a time and through internal revolutions instead of external invasions. How many Americans you figure died in the Cold War maneuverings all over the world, but, especially in South East Asia?? How much time and money was wasted in the arms race??
Support Putin?? Yeah, you really are a moron aren’t you?? How’s that Great Game working our for ya?? Ya gonna hafta invade Scotland again?? I am really impressed with how y’all are running the cost of energy in Europe up faster than our morons are doing it here in the states.
Petrol has never hurt the environment. It’s good clean fuel. And as for the Russians, a lot more of your lads would not have come home from Europe if it hadn’t been for the Russians. The German war machine was far from broken before Stalingrad. It would have taken a couple of years just to get the Swastika out of France, let alone destroy the Wehrmacht, without the Russkis. Support Putin for Czar, and we are back in business – one more monarchy to support the Brits. OK ? Then the world will be safe.
Biggles the dufus suggests we stop threatening Putin. Excuse me Biggles the dufus, who has been threatening Putin in the last 20 years?? He has been sending nuclear armed subs and bombers into US territory just like was done during the Cold War, yet, where has the US pushed its nukes?? Not in Turkey or Eastern Europe, or Asia. In fact, the world looks alarmingly like the Soviets WON the Cold War and simply collapsed under their own economic stupidity!!!
And like most fools, Biggles the Fool whines about pollution and seemingly wants a pristine environment but will not give up his petrol engines!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh Dear, kuhncat, never assume!! First lesson of life. Do you really think I would change from my reliable petrol motors? They always did the job for me. Perhaps if we got comrade Putin on side, instead of threatening, we might have a good ally – not quite as good as WW2, but you know what I mean. – Over.
Biggles, the USSR was controlled by the Security Services and the military. Putin now controls Russia. Oh yeah, Putin was also the head of the KGB and his methods haven’t changed, murder, gulags, intimidation and bribes. Amazing how people like you are so blind to the reality out there.
Oh, and you will have an ELECTRIC plane in your hangar?? What about all the pollution from the rare earths that go into the construction of those high efficiency electrical motors and generators??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh, I am not YOUR good fellow dufus.
I guess you mean Russia. America destroyed the USSR without firing a shot. Remember? No, my good fellow I just want a nice clean plot of land in the country with a hangar.
Biggles,
do you live in the USSR, China, or a third world country?? The US and most westernized countries have already cleaned up most of the real pollution. Trying to make the earth cleaner than natural is a job for environmental morons.
Let’s get the dope and other poisons out of creeks and rivers and seas, so that the fish can stay clean and we can eat them, unless one is vegetarian, and then there is still the matter of sea-weed. THAT’S the real problem. Who cares what sportsmen do these days? The golden age of purity is long gone.
If Lance thinks he has a case HE should sue the cycling group. If they are wrong he has plenty of grounds and might even be able to prove that they intended harm to him!!
Then again, it will be civil and the current testimony will mostly stand.
Clemens only had one accuser that could directly connect him to drugs. That accuser had his own problems and was impeached due to his lying.
Different Standard of evidence. Clemens was tried on Criminal charges, so he had to meet beyond-a-reasonable-doubt requirement in an increasingly hostile legal and political environment. However, when Lance tried to get this taken to court, the civil courts refused to hear it, stating that it was an internal matter of the cycling agency, declared that the courts had no jurisdiction, and then Armstrong gave up. After all, the agency was prosecuter, judge, and jury.
If it had been in court, or even an independent arbiter, Armstrong would have been able to get it all thrown out due to their internal statute of limitations. Also, they would have faced an irate and angry jury who would get the distinct feeling of a witch hunt.
I’m not saying he’s not guilty, which he is. This has distinct reminices of the OJ Simpson case, he was guilty, but was also framed.
The federal trial of Roger Clemens lasted 26 days using 46 witnesses. His crime seems to have been lying about using drugs to congress. There is no penalty for them lying to us, but the government went for blood with the same type of witnesses they had against Lance. Happily Roger won. Sadly, Lance was accused by so many jurisdictions that he could no longer afford to defend himself. I have more faith in him than I do in his accusers.
another damning line of evidence uncovered by the investigation was the money trail for millions of dollars of Armstrong payments to the Italian Dr. Ferrari after Armstrong claimed to have broken contact w/ him. in retrospect it certainly was a red flag that Armstrong had any contact w/ Dr. Ferrari in the first place. and then how could he possibly explain those large payments to a known dope Dr.? routine checkups for him and his team. cough please.
Here is the USADA site that includes PDF’s of the testimony they considered.
http://cyclinginvestigation.usada.org/
Armstrong is the big name, there have been a slew of other convictions and revocations, including numerous ones before the race even finished. His entire team has been disgraced,
And it’s not hearsay, it’s witness evidence and multiple confessions from conspirators. They convicted Capone on as much.
From his offical bio:
In 1991, Armstrong competed in his first Tour DuPont, a long and difficult 12-stage race, covering 1,085 miles over 11 days. Though he finished in the middle of the pack, his performance announced a promising newcomer to the world of international cycling. He went on to win another stage race, the Settimana Bergamasca race, in Italy later that summer.
After finishing second in the U.S. Olympic time trials in 1992, Armstrong was favored to win the road race in Barcelona, Spain. With a surprisingly sluggish performance, however, he came in only 14th. Undeterred, Armstrong turned professional immediately after the Olympics, joining the Motorola cycling team for a respectable yearly salary. Though he came in dead last in his first professional event, the day-long San Sebastian Classic in Spain, he rebounded in two weeks and finished second in a World Cup race in Zurich, Switzerland.
—————————————————
A mediocre cyclist. And suddenly, BAM win after win after win.
Also, only he can know for sure ofcourse, i seriously doubt he had any kind of cancer at all. For me that was a cover up so he could do some serious doping whilst training like a madmen. Filled to the gills with steroids and go cycling all day every day. That will make your body pump up.
Then you are ‘cured’ and there you go, like a rocket.
The charges are only against Lance Armstrong. Why? We know from the ‘heresay’ bandwagon that others also took PHD so it seems there are other reasons for these charges.
I doubt anyone cares what Nike does: they are not exactly spotless themselves.
This would be why Lance finally quit fighting the charges:
http://www.boston.com/sports/other-sports/cycling/2012/10/10/teammates-testified-case-against-armstrong/FoUyPyldKpmruBI8I2tszL/story.html
Actually in 1999 he DID test positive for a corticosteroid.
Rod, the baseball players passed multiple drug tests also. Oh wait, they were using new drugs in the same class that were banned that the authorities did not know to check for.
There is also the issue that many of these drugs can be used for training off season and will be clear of the system before a chance of being tested. Remember Armstrong also ONLY competed in the Tour at least one year so had a very narrow period when he would be at risk for testing. Here are the primary “tricks.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/seven-tricks-cyclists-use-to-cheat-drug-tests/article4622305/?page=all
There are probably any number of other drugs and methods to cheat.
William, why are you only drawing your conclusion from the ONE incident. I believe he was charged with multiple incidents which would obviously weigh on how other incidents are viewed.
Mark, you are behind the times. Ex wives, girlfirends, and business and sport associates have all testified at this point.
There is none, and that’s part of the problem.
Mediocre? A World Championship, multiple wins in the Tour du Pont, multiple stage wins in the Tour de France, and a two million dollar, 2 year contract with a French cycling team? All before being diagnosed with cancer. We should all strive to be so “mediocre”.
I find it hard to swallow that an originally mediocre cyclist gets cancer and after that suddenly jumps tot he top of the top 7 times in a row.
There is no steady progress in his career.First mediocre, then instantly superman. Just doesn’t add up.
One consistent statement you will hear from his accusers is that in this sport everyone is doping. It is both considered proof that Lance was doping and an excuse for their own admitted doping. Even the anti-doping agency admits that the riders are using unusual and sophisticated tactics to avoid being detected which is a tacit agreement that everyone does it. The experts all seem to agree that the Italian team, the French team, the American team and in fact every team is doping. I’m not sure where the high ground is here.
Yes, it is interesting, that all the witnesses saw Armstrong alone, never in groups of two or three. No ex wives or business associates came forward. The accusers have all been accused of doping themselves and were competitors who would like to tear Armstrong down. And even if they saw Armstrong injecting something – did they know what it was – could have been saline for all they know, etc.
As for Nike, they are going to stop sponsoring someone for doping when half the folks they sponsor dope. They even sponsor Michael Vick a felon who spent several years in prison. They sponsor Kobe Bryant, who got off a rape charge with a good legal team, etc. Seems like Nike has its own issues, and if it is suddenly going to get all moral with Armstrong, they better start getting moral and drop everyone else with a suspect past.
Adding to Tadhem’s excellent comment:
Some years ago there was a fad involving recovered memory theory, where Orpah-show type psychobabble was considered to be evidence. There were thousands of cases including the Father Shanley conviction. The recovered memories actually resulted from suggestion and intimidation. That is what happened in the day-care center cases. The recovered memory theory is considered junk science. Shamefully, Judge Cleland in the Sandusky case seemed unaware of the literature on repressed memorheory and let the prosecutor, Mr. McGettigan, say flat out in his opening statement that the boys did not report their molestations when they occurred because of shame and intimidation.
As an aside, the truth of the Sandusky matter rests in why an anal rape was charged when Mr. McQueary did not tell his father, the doctor friend of the family, or Coach Paterno about any crime at all, much less an anal rape. One wonders why McQuearey did not go to the aid of the child. He was not legally obliged to do so, but one would expect him to anyway. And one wonders how a jury that included two professors and a school teach would reject the anal rape charge but find Sandusky guilty of everything else in the verdict form based of McQueary’s testimony only. Clearly the jury wanted to please the judge and the community by getting a known pedophile off the streets. Their duty was to weigh the evidence. And there was no reliable evidence of any crime by Sandusky.
Clearly the desire that people have to be important in a celebrity case combined with suggestion and imagination will pull out vivid memories from the past, which memories are totally unreliable.
I wouldn’t call it a flip-flop. Caving before overwhelming evidence that you are wrong is rational. Refusing to do so isn’t skepticism. It’s lunacity.
Well said tadchem. I don’t hold a brief for Lance A, but he hasn’t tested positive to any drugs ever, as far as I know. If he did take drugs that have proved undetectable (so far), maybe in the future his frozen samples may give him away, but until then it doesn’t really matter who says he took drugs, he has so far been proven drug free. Why do others say that he is a cheat? Only they can answer.
From where I sit, having seen nothing of any empirical data relevant to this case, this looks like a clear case of hearsay and what I call ‘guilt by accusation.’ That is when heinous and highly published charges are made against someone who is tried and convicted in the court of public opinion before any hard evidence can be collected for either the prosecution or the defense.
I do recall that some retesting was called for at least once in this case because of uncertain results, which indicates to me that the testing procedure itself should be forensically examined. The almost obsessive zeal with which this case has been pursued suggests there may be political motivations present, as well.
Now maybe we’ll see less of those stupid plastic yellow bracelets.
Why bother about doping in sports? Nobody regulates doping in the music industry, for example. Sportsmen are not normal humans anyway; let them do what they please.
This just proves there are no regulations that will deter those determined to win at all costs, and that testing is an illusion. Regulations, and testing, in this case, create a sense of fairness, or safety, or equality, when the truth is otherwise.
Another instance of TPS (Tall Poppy Syndrome).
Cheers