Posted on 02/06/2012 6:44:51 PM PST by the invisib1e hand
The long struggle to connect Lance Armstrong with doping finally came to an effective halt on Friday afternoon with the announcement that the federal investigation into the seven-times Tour de France winner has been abandoned after the best part of two years. It feels like the end of an era, if not the end of the connection between bike racing and illegal performance enhancers, as could be seen by yesterday's conclusion to the long-running Alberto Contador affair, in which the Spaniard was stripped of his 2010 Tour win and given a two-year ban. But Armstrong's historic series of victories in the biggest of all bike races – the only one with a recognition factor among the general public – will stand for ever in the record books, alongside the five wins of the late Jacques Anq...blah blah blah...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Case closed, then. There will never be a smoking gun, or a dripping syringe. We are left to examine our own conclusions, and to wonder how it really feels to be Lance Armstrong.Maybe if would help Roger Clemens' case to give a hundred grand to Planned Parenthood.
A couple days ago, he gives $100K to Planned Parenthood, and suddenly, the Case against him is dropped.
(He ain't even one of "Holder's People"!
LOL
Good grief. I hadn’t heard about that.
Lance Armstrong can KMA. I’ve always admired him, drug charges or not, although it would never have occurred to me to donate to his fund.
Now, as far as I’m concerned, he can go jump in the lake.
Contador got what he deserved. Now I want to see Andy win the TDF for real this year.
This was announced a couple of weeks ago, and this is just the official announcement.
I’m tired of everything being political.
Joe Pesci (sp?) was quite the opposite, and a complete laugh riot.
The bottom line is that they didn't have the evidence even to go to a grand jury.
Presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Therefore, Armstrong is innocent.
No, he's presumed innocent, by some, and that does not make on innocent in fact, necessarily.
Notwithstanding that is the curious chain of events, which doesn't really involve guilt or innocence in the matter of cheating at a sport.
yeah, it sucks doesn't it?
I would disagree. The presumption of innocence is supported by the fact that 2 years of investigation didn’t even render sufficient evidence to go to a grand jury hearing.
This particular presumption of innocence has such powerful support that saying “innoncent” is entirely reasonable.
Nobody will ever do that again.
And if he was, everyone else was too.
He was still one helluv an athlete!
In 1996 a friend and I went to Leige for the Tour Time Trial.
While there, my friend took an absolutely outstanding photo of Lance as he rode toward us down a small rise, just before the road curved to Lance’s left.
In 1998, a stage of Rheiland-Pfalz started at Tix Toyota in Bitburg Germany. I was still moving slow after being hit by a car, but managed to drive myself there.
When the Motorola cars drove up, I hobbled over, introduced myself, and asked Lance if he’d sign the photo from the 1996 TT.
They seemed surprised to find an American out there in the Bitburg farm country.
He looked at the photo, asked where I got it, and called the entire team and support staff over to look at it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of grown men oohh and aahh over a photo like that.
I learned quite a few production details about that bicycle, all of which I’ll keep to myself.
I raced bicycles for years, and understood the pre-race preps they needed, so planned to just take a minute of their time. As it turned out, Lance and Frankie offered all manner of conversation.
When they asked about my seriously bruised arm and leg, I explained about my close encounter with a car, and that spurred minutes more of conversation.
I’m generally not one to put others up on a pedestal. But I’m here to tell you Lance and the team were most gracious to me.
What Lance accomplished with his Tour wins was a feat of human accomplishment that won’t be repeated for a while.
After speaking with Lance, reading his books, and speaking to Eddy Merckx for a minute about Lance, I’m of the opinion Lance truly accomplished it all free of drugs.
He’s just a freaking mutant.
And it’s about time he was vindicated.
To the best of my knowledge, my picture is only 1 of 4, as the negative was destroyed. Mine is the only 1 autographed. Few years ago I posted it here in a thread.
Yup, knew he was taking something. Nearly every mountain stage he would just take off and no one could stay with him, every time !
Now we find out it was clenbuterol after all.
Lance just had better doctors perhaps.
Lance Armstrong was always strong, going back to when he was an elite level triathlete in his teens. From what I have observed about elite level athletes, the ones with the longevity of competing at a high level are most likely the ones that are clean. Kent Bostick is another example, although not quite on the level of Armstrong, but still racing Cat 1’s into his fifties. I happen to know Bostick, and I’ve happened to see some of his training and nutrition routine going back to his Shaklee days. It’s a harder road training smart and keeping tabs on the fueling, but it’s the road that can pay off for decades. As for the ones on the juice, they tend to be “out of nowhere”, and flash in the pan. Here today, gone tomorrow.
I also think that Lance dares not mess with his endocrine system with the juice, based on his health history. There is no telling what it will wake up.
From just about day one, he was above his peers.
Great point about Lance not wanting to “wake up” anything by abusing meds.
When I spoke with him in 1998 he was training himself back in to shape. He related to me the way he suffered when he initially started training again, and I truly think the man views his body as a temple to be revered.
YES! GO ANDY!!!
The point is that there is also a reasonable question whether the abrupt dropping of the case is in anyway tied to his donation to the Administration's favorite charity. All of human history suggests it is likely.
Furthermore, the man gave money to planned parenthood, which is in the business of slaughtering babies for money. As if they need his money? As if they don't already get all manner of federal support? As if they aren't already a profit center? I mean, please.
So, really, let him go fvck himself, OK?
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