Avatar has to go !!!!!!!

[skirs6]

Yes I have always been a massive supporter after the cancer then watching all 7 tour wins. Perhaps I should have listened many years ago when I said to a friend of Armstrong,s "How does he do it after all he's been through" They simply replied "He is ahead of the game" very sad but we need to move on in the sport

[bam_bam]

Sad. I was told many, many years ago from a tour mule that Lance was the most ruthless man the tour had ever seen... and everyone was doing drugs, keeping rested blood or both.
I bought into the story after reading his books, I actually thought the secret to his success was the amount of weight stripped from him by cancer. He was an ok cyclist before the chemo but he was a triathlete so too bulky for the tour, the cancer sorted that out, it left him bare and able to rebuild only what he needed for winning in the mountains. He use to just burn guys off, just burn them, they sit on his wheel for an hour and he'd still drop them on a hill with ease.

Now we know.

[sakimano]

Sad. I was told many, many years ago from a tour mule that Lance was the most ruthless man the tour had ever seen... and everyone was doing drugs, keeping rested blood or both.
I bought into the story after reading his books, I actually thought the secret to his success was the amount of weight stripped from him by cancer. He was an ok cyclist before the chemo but he was a triathlete so too bulky for the tour, the cancer sorted that out, it left him bare and able to rebuild only what he needed for winning in the mountains. He use to just burn guys off, just burn them, they sit on his wheel for an hour and he'd still drop them on a hill with ease.

Now we know.

Im still reasonably sure he was a great cyclist who did drugs. There are also thousands of of good cyclists who also do drugs. He is just a better cyclist... And the drugs are a steady constant.

I don't think the book is untrue. It's kind of overwhelming how not clean cycling is now. I think they should just give up on drug testing. Honor system... Because if Armstrong can do hundreds of drug tests and pass...and the only thing that brings him down is verbal testimony by former friends who wanted a payoff, what's the point of testing.

[adsgreen]

Tech has moved on - iirc the methods used then would be detected now.

[Tile Diver]

Tech has moved on - iirc the methods used then would be detected now.

Exactly, at the time of the Armstrong reign there was no test for EPO, which was the red blood cell boosting agent, there is now, however, blood transfusions seem to be the done thing these days!!!

I think cycling will benefit from Armstrong being caught and the sport will hopefully be much cleaner for it!!

[adsgreen]

Talking to surgeon wife, the issue is that you can't tell the difference between EPO injected or that naturally created via intensive altitude training. So there is a fixed limit on EPO and you can fall foul of it if you over altitude train.
However a red blood cell transfusion solves that by adding red blood cells (which is what EPO results in) without raising EPO levels. So you get the results of increasin red blood count without having to do the work or be detected.

As far as I'm aware now they have Introduced aggressive red blood cell testing and not just EPO. I don't think they thought anybody would try raw red blood cell transfusion!

[Tile Diver]

Yeah, I think the UCI's maximum allowable Hemocrit level for red blood cells count is 50, so if anyone is tested and their Hemocrit level is above 50 then I think they are subject to closer scrutiny or further testing, basically they are cheating bxxtards!!!

Have a read at Tyler Hamilton's book, some alarming stuff in there!!!

[gangstarrrrr]

[
Im still reasonably sure he was a great cyclist who did drugs. There are also thousands of of good cyclists who also do drugs. He is just a better cyclist... And the drugs are a steady constant.

This. I imagine the majority of the tour engage in some kind of drug taking. It's just that he was that much better IMO.

[RIV]

Putting the drugs to one side, he raised a lot of cash for cancer research, which is a good thing!!!

[skirs6]

Guys I have to say I'm totally gutted I think I was just wanting to believe the fairytale. As a family we have been through the terrible C. With my wife I would nt wish it on my worse enemy. I totally agree the good side of this whole thing is the massive amounts of money raised with Livestrong which can only do good.

[skirs6]

Lance. Has gone long live Livestrong

[sakimano]

Sort of on topic... I don't understand why blood doping is illegal.

It's your blood.. You take it out... Your body generates blood to rebuild your o2 carrying capacity... You then reinsert your removed blood back in your body... Bob's your uncle.

I don't get why it's illegal.

[bam_bam]

I don't get why it's illegal.

Because it's not legal. When something is illegal, it is on the wrong side of the law, thus, not legal or correctly termed, illegal. Tell me which part of illegal is confusing you and I will try to help but could you please answer a couple of simple questions before I waste any time:
- what is the spirit of sport?
- do you understand right from wrong?
- do you ever consider ethical repercussions before allowing enhancing drugs or other procedures into top-level international sport?
- should the health and safety of the Tour de France competitors even be a remote consideration or would you like to see someone die?

Why? Because it's cycling, not blood transfusions on wheels. It's about the bike and the man. When you walk into a bike shop do you always check out the newest bloodbag products or does your eye wander over to the Dura-Ace® syringe wall? When I listen to the commentary I don't want to hear "...Lance must've used his 3rd allowed blood transfusion last night, he's powering up the side of that sheer cliff face to take the yellow jersey for the 19th consecutive day".
What's next, cyclists attached to carbon-fibre lung machines so as to augment breathing? That'd be a great legacy, wouldn't it?

Interviewer: So what do you remember most about watching the 'tour' growing up?
157th equal 1st place winner Tour de France 2023: "I 'member how big dem 1st LanceLungz were innit. Itz well lolz to lok bak on dem fings"
Interviewer: "Errrm, is there anyone you'd particularly like to thank for helping you win the tour?"
157th equal 1st place winner Tour de France 2023: "I lik 2 shout 2 mi hommies @ Dow Chemikalz an 2 mi bluds up @ Bloodpakz4u. Peace."

It's about principles and tradition, it's meant to inspire due to it's accessibility. I watch it as kid, I get a bike for my birthday, I dream of riding in the peloton and I train my guts out. Where's the inspiration in knowing that even if you rode the perfect tour, wear the maillot jaune for 20 days, complete perfection, top of your game, the fittest in the world, unstoppable. However, someone beat you with a catheter and a blood pack. It's no longer about self-belief and hard graft, it's about medicine and medical strategy.
Would you want to grow up in a world like that? I wouldn't.

You can go swapping blood out where ever you want but fcuk off and start another event, just don't do it on the tour, it sullies the good name of all the guys that did it the proper way. The bar has been set, if you cannot compete, train harder. If you cannot dig deeper, toughen up. If you're a faggy, new-age hipster ready to blame your parents for shitty genealogy, then by all means, reach for some undetectable drugs and a blood pack and take the credit for winning, because that'd be alright, we all understand how it must feel to be you.
...and if you've just survived cancer but you still want to compete in the greatest and most prestigious human endurance event the world has seen, then we'll make a special exception for you too.

It's a simple principle.

- The tour is created
- The tour is amazing
- No one takes drugs
- No one has ever had blood transfusions
- The world marvels at these feats of human endurance
- At some point, someone, either inferior, in-secure or unscrupulous, takes drugs/blood to cheat on the tour

Beyond that point, what's the point of it all? It has lost its identity, its history and it's no longer about the bike and the man. It is no longer. The tour is dead to me.

Fcuk Lance Armstrong and everyone like him.

[adsgreen]

Sort of on topic... I don't understand why blood doping is illegal.

It's your blood.. You take it out... Your body generates blood to rebuild your o2 carrying capacity... You then reinsert your removed blood back in your body... Bob's your uncle.

I don't get why it's illegal.

Thats not always how it works.
You can have other peoples blood too (although obviously more risky).
The problem is that it's not just removed - it's treated, filtered and messed about with as you are only interested in the red blood cells.
The body is great at determining what it needs and when and dumping a load of extra red blood cells in is bloody dangerous. The extra clotting makes the blood very "gloopy" and people have died from heart attacks from this method. This is before the implications on the liver.

The reason this started coming to light is that techniques evolved that could age red blood cells. They discovered that many "dodgy" athletes had a huge proportion of young red cells that could never have been produced by the body alone.

So the saying is that you are encouraging athletes to take life threatening actions in order to participate in a sport?

BTW - I agree with Bam on all points.

[stu]

David Millar's book is a great read on the subject. Thinking back now, he wasn't too positive about Lance Armstrong. Nothing potentially libellous (for the time it was written - its open season now I suppose!)