Court Upholds Landis' Doping Ban

I still think he is innocent. Everything I have read about synthetic testosterone states it doesn't help an athlete right away- that it has to be taken for weeks at a time.

Dolly M wrote:

I still think he is innocent. Everything I have read about synthetic testosterone states it doesn't help an athlete right away- that it has to be taken for weeks at a time.

My understanding from what I've been told is that small amoumts synthetic testoterone applied after a race is "rumored" among elite cyclist's to aid in recovery...perfect for a race like the Tour De France. As a long time retired elite cyclist, I can tell you first hand that among the elite ranks in my day, anything "rumored" or factual that was thought to enhance performance was openly discussed by many and tried by few. When I was racing, it was blood doping & steriods...and I know riders who did both.
Move on from this Floyd Landis story. It's done - finished - over with & has become a blight on what has and IS a colorful and exciting sport. Hopefully those pro teams who've commited their phylosophy's to a drug free sport, actually mean it. We'll see on Saturday.

This race has been tainted for years. Wouldn't put it past French Tour officials to doctor up lab findings. Bet there's been a huge investigation surrounding Lance Armstrong, but they couldn't pin anything on him so they went for Floyd. If a frenchman won the tour he'd get carte blanche.C'est la vie, non? Viva le Tour de Merde.

Nico wrote:

This race has been tainted for years. Wouldn't put it past French Tour officials to doctor up lab findings. Bet there's been a huge investigation surrounding Lance Armstrong, but they couldn't pin anything on him so they went for Floyd. If a frenchman won the tour he'd get carte blanche.C'est la vie, non? Viva le Tour de Merde.

Doping in cycling is rampant - period. Giro, Vuelta etc. etc. The fact that the Italians will take down any of their own top riders during the Giro show's that it's a major problem. Sure, the French are dying for a tour winner but look at the facts. This case has been going on for a couple of years and Floyd has lost at every juncture. By the way, anyone who thinks that Lance didn't dope is a dope (pardon the pun). If Floyd had stayed with Discovery he might have gotten away with it like Lance.
Move on!

Fred wrote:

<quoted text>
Doping in cycling is rampant - period. Giro, Vuelta etc. etc. The fact that the Italians will take down any of their own top riders during the Giro show's that it's a major problem. Sure, the French are dying for a tour winner but look at the facts. This case has been going on for a couple of years and Floyd has lost at every juncture. By the way, anyone who thinks that Lance didn't dope is a dope (pardon the pun). If Floyd had stayed with Discovery he might have gotten away with it like Lance.
Move on!

Move on. Right. Ignore the problem. Hey, what the heck this or that team bent the rules. It's all in the spirit of the sport. And this goes for all sports either amateur or professional. It's all corporate greed. Show me the money! There's no accountability anymore. Look at any athlete today and you got to figure they're juiced up on something. 9 times out of ten they are. Even Lance.

Nico wrote:

<quoted text>
Move on. Right. Ignore the problem. Hey, what the heck this or that team bent the rules. It's all in the spirit of the sport. And this goes for all sports either amateur or professional. It's all corporate greed. Show me the money! There's no accountability anymore. Look at any athlete today and you got to figure they're juiced up on something. 9 times out of ten they are. Even Lance.

Nico, you misunderstood the spirit of my comment. I meant move on from this Floyd story and hope that pro teams who have taken it upon themselves to free cycling from it's imbedded culture of doping, actually do something about it. Doping is not good for this sport...any sport for that matter. Unfortunatly there are athletes who don't care about the long term effects of doping both physically and what it does to their sport. They can only think from momemnt to moment. From a coorporate standpoint, this past year major sponsors have pulled out of cycling because of the latest doping scandals. This has sent shockwaves throughout the cycling community especially at those clubs who look the other way when it comes to doping. The Tour De France this year also has overlooked teams that have been embroiled in these doping scandals. I hope that cycling can get a hold on this doping issue although athletes will alway look for solutions to improve performance and unfortunatly doping is one of them.

At least cycling is trying to catch the cheats, it may damage the sport, but true fans will still watch.
A lot of 100m sprinters have been caught cheating lately, but everyone will be watching the 100m finals at the olympics.
We need to keep the pressure on the teams and the cyclists so that we can clean up the sport. With the large sums of money on offer if you win, it is going to be a long road ahead.

Fred wrote:

<quoted text>
Nico, you misunderstood the spirit of my comment. I meant move on from this Floyd story and hope that pro teams who have taken it upon themselves to free cycling from it's imbedded culture of doping, actually do something about it. Doping is not good for this sport...any sport for that matter. Unfortunatly there are athletes who don't care about the long term effects of doping both physically and what it does to their sport. They can only think from momemnt to moment. From a coorporate standpoint, this past year major sponsors have pulled out of cycling because of the latest doping scandals. This has sent shockwaves throughout the cycling community especially at those clubs who look the other way when it comes to doping. The Tour De France this year also has overlooked teams that have been embroiled in these doping scandals. I hope that cycling can get a hold on this doping issue although athletes will alway look for solutions to improve performance and unfortunatly doping is one of them.

Sorry, intonations are lost by blogging. I was countering your observations with my own snide remarks. The best thing for the all Tours is to close down since they are incapable of stopping doping. This would send a message to the corporations. But it wouldn't last long. Greed will always find a new venue.

All of you bring up good points. But, let's not lose sight on what incouraged doping in cycling in the first place.

Sponsors invest money into cycling teams for a main reason. It promotes their company and products. Thus, they need riders to win races, which promotes their products all the more. And sponsors have always demanded cyclists to win racing events.

That mentality rolls down hill from the sponsors to the team managers to the riders themselves. Look at how the sponsors of the Phonak team quickly ran away. They suddenly didn't want to be connected with that situation.

If we trully want to rid cycling from doping, than everyone involved needs to get on board here and work together.

The BS that is currently going on between the ASO, UCI and WADA needs to stop. They all need to work together in promoting a better and clean sport.

Cheers

remember, MOeP, that I posted here last year, that Phonak's world sales INCREASED after Floyd was busted... sometimes, bad publicity ... Isn't...

:-)z

ZENmud wrote:

remember, MOeP, that I posted here last year, that Phonak's world sales INCREASED after Floyd was busted... sometimes, bad publicity ... Isn't...
:-)z

Yes, I do remember that post.

It just seems that many don't seem to remember that sponsors demend taht cycling teams to win races. I for one don't believe that sponsors don't know their riders dope.

Cheers

My Opinion_El Paso_TX wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, I do remember that post.
It just seems that many don't seem to remember that sponsors demend taht cycling teams to win races. I for one don't believe that sponsors don't know their riders dope.
Cheers

You are right about sponsors willing to ignore the doping factor until it becomes bad PR. They then cry about how they don't want to be associated with drugged up athletes they so generously support.
A solution beyond what has been discussed is for Grand tour organizers to consider making races less demanding. A few(good)pro cyclist's have brought this up without much success. Not too long ago, the Tour De France routinely held multiple race one day stages. They did this to accommodate small villages and towns who wanted the Tour to finish in their little town squares...and paid good money for it. The riders eventually grew tired of this and held strikes at the beginning of select popular stages forcing Tour organizers to re-think planning strategies. More than likely, synthetic hormones really took off during this period. No human could expect to recover day to day from these great physical demands without some kind of "help".
Today's Grand Tours are as hard if not harder and riders complain about it all the time. Some "busted" riders have stated they take drugs because of the increasing difficulty of these races.

Nico, Isn't it the pace that makes the race demanding, not the distance or the number of stages. If nobody doped it would still be a great race. Maybe overall times would be down slightly, maybe more people would drop out but the thrill of competition would continue.

Also, people who think the Tour would die are badly mistaken becasue of the scenic course. The chance to see the scenic French countryside through Provence or along the Loire valley or through the Pyrenne would be popular if they were riding unicycles or skateboards. The event is a travellog and a world class race all in one

This result is exactly what one expects from the dope testing bureacracy. First and foremost they must promote their own importance. The outcome was always going to be pro WADA. WADA needed it to promote their continuing parisitism on sport. To continue the notion that testing of athletes is a good way to catch cheats. That idea is a pile of excrement.

To be true the tests would have to be validated. To this day we don't have any idea what the false positive rates are for the many varied tests used on elite athletes. It is absolutely wrong to use an invalid tests as the only evidence of the cleanliness of these athletes. As I have posted before the tests at most should be used to determine who gets investigated. The investigation should center around finding dope, dope suppliers, dope managers and those who condone the use of dope. Solid evidence of doping would be found and that would serve as the real evidence of doping. And not just the doping athlete would be banned and striped of victory. All involved would face penalties. Dope testing only serves to support doping that does not turn a dope test positive. Which the infamous Dr. Michale Ferrare (SP?) said is not cheating. To clean up cycling peer pressure and the threat of group consequence will be needed. Individuals who are found to have doped will be proven to have doped based on solid real evidence that leaves no room for dispute not just some scientifically unvalidated test.

Zeek wrote:

This result is exactly what one expects from the dope testing bureacracy. First and foremost they must promote their own importance. The outcome was always going to be pro WADA. WADA needed it to promote their continuing parisitism on sport. To continue the notion that testing of athletes is a good way to catch cheats. That idea is a pile of excrement.
To be true the tests would have to be validated. To this day we don't have any idea what the false positive rates are for the many varied tests used on elite athletes. It is absolutely wrong to use an invalid tests as the only evidence of the cleanliness of these athletes. As I have posted before the tests at most should be used to determine who gets investigated. The investigation should center around finding dope, dope suppliers, dope managers and those who condone the use of dope. Solid evidence of doping would be found and that would serve as the real evidence of doping. And not just the doping athlete would be banned and striped of victory. All involved would face penalties. Dope testing only serves to support doping that does not turn a dope test positive. Which the infamous Dr. Michale Ferrare (SP?) said is not cheating. To clean up cycling peer pressure and the threat of group consequence will be needed. Individuals who are found to have doped will be proven to have doped based on solid real evidence that leaves no room for dispute not just some scientifically unvalidated test.

I might add beyond that of peer pressure, riders who flaunt and I say flaunt in the sense of riding at the top of the leader board and getting caught despite knowing they'll be tested, that sort of rider should be banned for life. No a two year suspension. The penalties for cheating aren't harsh enough in my opinion. Ruin a couple of careers and the rest might pay more attention.
One could say that Floyd got a lifetime ban because of his age, but I'm surprised at how many younger riders succesfully return after a suspension, ride well in some cases continue on with doping.

Fan wrote:

Nico, Isn't it the pace that makes the race demanding, not the distance or the number of stages. If nobody doped it would still be a great race. Maybe overall times would be down slightly, maybe more people would drop out but the thrill of competition would continue.
Also, people who think the Tour would die are badly mistaken becasue of the scenic course. The chance to see the scenic French countryside through Provence or along the Loire valley or through the Pyrenne would be popular if they were riding unicycles or skateboards. The event is a travellog and a world class race all in one

It's a combination of pace, distance difficulty & recovery. Riders who have complained have complained mostly about distance and difficulty I.E. multiple mountain pass stages etc. The pace is the easiest to control from a riders point of view as the peleton can regulate speed depending on the mood, who's riding off the front or what's happening tomorrow. Typically, the flat stages are fairly fast tempo from what I've been told until the end when the sprinter teams take over and then it's hang on for dear life. What you see on TV is typically the last half of a stage. Sometimes they'll show the earlier parts and riders taking it easy until they find their legs. On the other hand, the Tour De France is all around harder than other grand tours because of it's priminence as the most important race on the calendar. The Vuelta and Giro have shorter albeit sometimes faster stages.

Fred wrote:

<quoted text>
I might add beyond that of peer pressure, riders who flaunt and I say flaunt in the sense of riding at the top of the leader board and getting caught despite knowing they'll be tested, that sort of rider should be banned for life. No a two year suspension. The penalties for cheating aren't harsh enough in my opinion. Ruin a couple of careers and the rest might pay more attention.
One could say that Floyd got a lifetime ban because of his age, but I'm surprised at how many younger riders succesfully return after a suspension, ride well in some cases continue on with doping.

It seems to me that by your view a more potent deterant is appropriate for the flimsiest of evidence. By that logic the ADB (anti-doping bureacracy) should impose a death sentence against the "vermon cheats". This would allow the ADB to demonstrate their absolute insulation from the jurisdiction of sovereign nations, endear them to fans such as yourself, and strike absolute terror into the athletes. Better yet they could draw and quarter the accused athlete before the next scheduled event and they could choose who to draw and quarter on their own suppostion and save the money they presently waste on bogus tests.

Zeek wrote:

<quoted text>
It seems to me that by your view a more potent deterant is appropriate for the flimsiest of evidence. By that logic the ADB (anti-doping bureacracy) should impose a death sentence against the "vermon cheats". This would allow the ADB to demonstrate their absolute insulation from the jurisdiction of sovereign nations, endear them to fans such as yourself, and strike absolute terror into the athletes. Better yet they could draw and quarter the accused athlete before the next scheduled event and they could choose who to draw and quarter on their own suppostion and save the money they presently waste on bogus tests.

No, you are reading more into Fred's letter that you should and you know it, A life ban sounds fair to me

Athos wrote:

<quoted text>No, you are reading more into Fred's letter that you should and you know it, A life ban sounds fair to me

I am all in favor of permanent banishment from all professional compensated sport, but it must be based on sound evidence that would convince a group of disinterested jurors to conclude doping had occurred. The current Mickey Mouse (no disrespect to Disney) WADA imposed system is unacceptable. I would urge all athletes to refuse to compete until it is changed.