Drinking the Pharmstrong Koolade

What amazes me about Lance Armstrong is the amount of support he still has from his fan base.

In spite of all the overwhelming evidence that Armstrong doped; there are still those who point to “He never failed a drug test,” and refuse to accept the obvious conclusion.

There are others who say “Okay he doped, but then so did everyone else in that era, therefore the playing field was level and Lance is still the greatest cyclist ever."

There has been doping in professional cycling probably as long as there has been professional cycling. However, never at the level we are now finding occurred during Armstrong’s era; with EPO, human growth hormones, and testosterone. Doping went from simple stimulants like amphetamines, to body altering super drugs.

The playing field was by no means level; Armstrong’s organization was a huge money making machine. And the wealth it generated bought the best doctors and the most sophisticated modern dope that money could buy.

Dope that was undetectable, or if it was detected, plan B was organized corruption to pay off those doing the testing. This is why there was never a previous failed dope test.

I can’t help but notice many riders who left Armstrong’s team, were later caught doping on other teams who didn’t have the same system set up to pay off the testers. Floyd Landis didn't get caught until Armstrong had retired.

There is yet another group of Lance Fans who point to the Livestrong Foundation and forgive Armstrong for what he did arguing that more good has come out of the affair than bad. These are the people who are donating even more money to the Livestrong Foundation since the USADA report was released.

Don’t get me wrong, people are free to do with their money as they please, but if I were donating my hard earned money to a charity, it would not be one that was founded on a gigantic fraud and a lie.

Evidence is now out that LA is not only a liar and a cheat; he is a bully who has intimidated witnesses and even tried to destroy people who in the past have spoken out against him. Cyclists who refused to dope were thrown off teams.

This is a character flaw that I find hard to accept, and if I had been donating money to Livestrong in the past, I would now be looking for another cancer charity, that doesn’t have a mafia type boss as its leader.

What I find disturbing is that Armstrong’s following has the feel of a religious cult; with Lance like some Cancer Fighting Messiah as its leader.

These followers have drunk the Armstrong PR Koolade and are coming back for more.

Many of these followers a not cyclists, but people who have either had, or know someone who has had cancer in their family; although ill-informed their intentions are possibly well intended.

This is probably the thinking behind Nike’s decision not to drop Armstrong; they figure he still has a large enough fan base to make it worth their while.

Trek Bicycle company said it would stand behind Armstrong, but that was before the full USADA report was released; since its release Trek has been noticeably quiet. I would love to be a fly on the wall of Trek’s boardroom this last week.

It is only those interested in the sport of cycling who have taken the time to read though the mountain of evidence that the USADA has released, who can see the larger picture.

Lance Armstrong and his associates, along with the UCI have almost destroyed professional cycling as a sport. They have not done so yet, but if the UCI and more importantly the riders themselves and their team management do not get their act together soon, it will be the sport’s demise. The sport will not withstand another scandal of this magnitude.

The worrying part is that if Armstrong keeps this large faithful following and even grows it; in a few years when this has all died down, we could see Lance emerge as a politician. A run as Governor of Texas, followed by a run for the Whitehouse.

Don’t laugh; if he is able to replicate the money making machine, and the level of corruption he showed he is capable of in cycling, it is all very possible. A Presidential Candidate on dope… Who can stop that?

                      

For the love of cycling

I love the bicycle and I love cycling. The reason… Almost my entire life it has given me so much, and to this day continues to do so.

As a child I fell in love with the bicycle, which later lead to some success as a racing cyclist and was instrumental in building my self esteem. This otherwise might not have happened and my life could have taken a totally different course.

My interest in cycling lead to a career in building bicycles, which eventually brought me to the United States, and again affected the course of my life. My bicycle and cycling continue to give me joy and satisfaction to this day, every time I ride.

When something is a passion in someone’s life, it is only natural they want to share it with others, so that they too might find the same joy and passion. I look on it as “Giving Back” in return for something that has given me so much.

For this reason I find the current news stories that are dominating the sport of cycling these days, extremely disturbing; namely the whole issue of doping in professional cycling.

The two main players in this story are Lance Armstrong and Pat McQuaid, who is the President of the UCI, the world governing body of the sport of cycling. (Both are pictured above.) 

If ever there were two people who owe everything they are today to cycling, it is these two.

It can be said that Lance Armstrong has in return done much for cycling, especially in the US; but it is a “Chicken/Egg” situation where the bicycle came first, and cycling made the man.

Pat McQuaid was an average pro racing cyclist who would be for the most part forgotten now if his un-illustrious career as a professional cyclist had not eventually lead to his Presidency of the UCI. Again had it not been for the bicycle and cycling the bold Pat would not be the UCI Pres.

Neither Armstrong or McQuaid would be where they are today, anymore than I would have been a bicycle framebuilder and writing here today, if it were not for cycling.

LA is an extremely wealthy man due to his earnings from cycling. McQuaid draws a substantial salary as President of the UCI. My own financial standing pales by comparison to these two, but I am still grateful for all that cycling has given me and continues to give.  

It irks me to see these two who should be so much more grateful to the sport of cycling, continue to inflict harm with the charade of lies and deceit.

Lance Armstrong has done much to bring awareness to cancer; I just wish he would put the same effort into bringing awareness to doping in sport, so that future generations do not feel they have to do that. I wish he would say, “Okay, I doped, but then so did everyone else.” Then we could move forward.

Pat McQuaid simply says that the doping problem is not his fault or that of the UCI. Well if not the UCI’s problem then whose? It would be like the Federal Government saying the use of illegal drugs is not their problem.

I can only come to the conclusion that Lance Armstrong and Pat McQuaid do not love cycling; or if they do, they love their own importance and their own egos, more than cycling.

Allowed to continue they will do great harm to the sport; the IOC (The Olympic Governing Body.) could bar cycling from the Olympics if the UCI does not get its act together and replace McQuaid soon.

More reading on the subject:

Floyd Landis and the Power of Shuddup

The UCIs failure to silence LeMond

Richard Pound Interview (Former WADA President.)

Lance Armstrong: My Conscience is Clear

                      

Doping then and now

I have written here before how doping has possibly been prevalent in professional cycling probably as long as there has been professional cycle racing.

Possibly as far back as the late 1800s soon after the invention of the bicycle as we know it today.

The picture on the left is from a French magazine article from the 1930s.

I have also mentioned before that when I started racing in the early 1950s it was an open secret that professional cyclists in races like the Tour de France took amphetamines. This is a stimulant that wards off fatigue and keeps you awake and alert.

Amphetamine was discovered by a Romanian chemist named Lazar Edeleano at the University of Berlin in 1887, but was not used clinically until Gordon A. Alles re-synthesized the drug in the 1920s for use in medical settings to treat asthma, hay fever, and colds.

In 1932, Smith-Kline, marketed the first amphetamine product in the US; an amphetamine-based inhaler to treat nasal congestion.

During the remaining 1930s, amphetamines were promoted by U.S. pharmaceutical companies as treatments for a range of ailments, such as alcohol hangover, narcolepsy, depression, weight reduction, hyperactivity in children, and vomiting associated with pregnancy.

Methamphetamine (MA), a variant of amphetamine, was first synthesized in Japan in 1893 by Nagayoshi Nagai from the precursor chemical ephedrine. MA was not widely used until World War II (1940s), at which time German, English, American, and Japanese governments began giving their military personnel the drug to enhance endurance and alertness and ward off fatigue.

Even today, amphetamines are sometimes used by the U.S. military. In 2002, U.S. pilots in Afghanistan killed and wounded Canadian soldiers in “friendly fire.” The defending lawyers argued that the pilots’ use of amphetamines, which is sanctioned by the Air Force, may have affected the pilots’ judgment.

Amphetamine was available in France under the trade name Maxiton. It was still available there over the counter at any pharmacy well into the 1950s; so it was hardly a banned substance. There was no rule banning its use by athletes, certainly not in professional cycling anyway.

It was counter-productive for a Tour de France rider to take too much, as one of its side affects is that it delays recovery, and of course keeps you awake. Something you definitely don’t want in a major stage race where you have to get up and race every day.

So was this cheating? I didn’t see it that way. It was not prohibited by the UCI or any other body; it was looked on at the time as something necessary to compete in an event like the Tour de France. It probably did a better job than coffee, is the way I still look at it.

As far as I remember the main brands used were Benzadrine (US. and UK.) or Maxiton (France.) which were amphetamines, not the more potent and highly addictive Methamphetamines.

Everything changed with the death of Tom Simpson in 1967. Simpson died of heat exhaustion on Mont Vontoux during the Tour de France; his autopsy showed that he had taken amphetamines mixed with alcohol. Whether the amphetamines contributed to his death is open for debate; after all athletes can die of heat exhaustion with or without amphetamines.

However, alcohol mixed with a stimulant is not a good cocktail; especially on an extremely hot day that this was. The amphetamine would mask the effect of the alcohol and alcohol would cause dehydration. Add to that a Tour regulation at that time restricting the riders to two liters of water each.  (Four bidons.) The effects of dehydration not being fully understood back then.

In the end lack of water killed Tom Simpson, amphetamines and alcohol mixed contributed. However, the point was by 1967 amphetamines were now a controlled substance and therefore it was used illegally. The world’s press and media had a field day.

The UCI at some point banned the use of any form of stimulant and instituted drug testing. From this point on it has now gone from the use of amphetamines, a simple stimulant, to the use of Blood Doping, EPO, Testosterone along with Steroids and Clenbuterol that can actually alter an athlete’s lean muscle mass.

Today it definitely is cheating, because the cyclist or the team who has the most money can buy the best doctors and scientists to produce the best possible drugs that not only give that rider or team a definite advantage over other less financed riders, they are always one step ahead of the drug testers.

Those who claim that through the 1990s for example, that everyone was doping therefore the playing field level should consider this: Back in the 1950s and before that when everyone took the same amphetamine tablets, the playing field was level, but in more recent times who knows what “Super Dope” one rider or team might have, when quite often it can’t even be detected.

Because winning at this level is such a huge financial enterprise; money available leads to bribery and corruption so that which does get detected is covered up. The sport will never rid itself of this problem until the top officials at the UCI are held accountable.

The UCI created this problem by allowing amphetamine use to continue into the 1960s, long after governments had placed controls on the drug’s use. Then they followed up by doing a half assed job of controlling doping through the 1970s until the present day. They have let loose a monster that will be difficult to get back in the cage.

                       

Let Down

The Feds have dropped their case against Lance Armstrong and no charges are to be filed. Talk about mixed feelings; should I laugh or cry, feel angry, be happy, or do I really give a shit one way or the other? I just don’t know.

I’m sure I am not the only one feeling this way, because the whole issue is now left unresolved; we will never know for sure one way or the other. The problem is that doping in sport is not really a crime, or it is a crime without a victim. Unless you take into account that it teaches young people that it is okay to cheat.

And should the American government even be wasting the tax-payer’s money pursuing a case that involves a sport in another country?

Professional sport is entertainment, and the greater the athletic feat the greater the entertainment. Whether it is Barry Bonds knocking baseballs over the stands, or Lance Armstrong annihilating the completion and winning the Tour de France 7 times in a row.

It was exciting and it entertained us at the time. Except that now I suspect that LA just had better dope than everyone else, and it leaves the whole thing tainted.

There was a time when I gave LA the benefit of the doubt, and I felt that Floyd Landis was wrong to first deny doping, even made money from a book in which he denied doping, then did a complete 360 degree and said yes he doped, but then so did everyone else on the team including LA.

Now I see where Landis is coming from. He rode for Lance Armstrong, he took dope and he saw LA not only take dope, but getting away with taking dope. Then when LA retires and he wins the TDF by taking dope, he is caught and immediately stripped of the win and banned for two years.

Landis had seen LA deny taking dope and getting away with it, it is only natural that he believed if he denied it long enough he too would, in the end, be believed. When this didn’t happen Floyd Landis decided he had nothing to lose if he came clean and exposed the whole rotten system.

Why do I now believe Landis? Because the system is rotten. I see Alberto Contador testing positive for Clembuterol after his 2010 TDF win, but unlike Landis he was not stripped of the win, and here we are almost two years later and that case has still not been resolved.

I'm preparing for another huge let down if and when the AC case is ever finalized. There is clearly one rule for the rich and famous, and another rule for the rest. (Update on the AC case below.)

Tyler Hamilton too, admitted doping and said he witnessed Armstrong doping. I am inclined to believe him; what motivation would there be for him to lie.

There will be plenty of Lance Armstrong fans who will be happy the Feds have dropped this case; after all Lance fights cancer. But does he? After reading this article just last month, I am not so sure about that either. Very little of the money raised by Livestrong goes to actual cancer research to find a cure.

Instead the money goes to raising cancer awareness, and of course while doing that it raises Lance Armstrong awareness.

I’d be interested to hear how others are feeling about the dropping of this case.

Update Monday 6^th February.

Since writing this over the weekend, a verdict has come down in the Alberto Contador clembuterol case. He has been given a two year ban handed down by the CAS (Court of Arbitration.)

He has been stripped of his 2010 Tour de France win, and his 2011 Giro d’Italia win also. As I understand it the ban is backdated to January of last year and a further 5 months has been taken off that because Contador was already banned for a period of 5 months during the winter of 2010 albeit when he would not have raced anyway. He will be eligible to begin racing again in August of this year.

In my view it would have been far better (And fairer.) had he been stripped of his 2010 TDF win and banned for 2 years at the time, as Floyd Landis was, instead I dragging the case out for this ridiculous length of time.

There are no winners in the case, unless you count the lawyers involved. I appears there has been some measure of justice that will also act as a deterrent to other would be dopers.

Now it would be nice to see a full investigation into Lance Armstrong’s 7 TDF wins, and if it is proved that he did dope, that he at least be stripped of those titles.

Links to stories on the AC verdict.

The Inner Ring

Cycling News

Andy Schleck's reaction

Velo-Nation Eddy Merckx reaction

                        

Ask me if I care anymore

What a week it has been for the sport of professional cycling. It started off with the Tyler Hamilton interview on 60 Minutes; now we hear that Alberto Contador’s Clembuterol appeal will now not be heard before the start of this year’s Tour de France.

The joint appeal by the UCI and the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) is against the Spanish Cycling Federation’s finding that Contador is innocent of clenbuterol use. The case to be heard by the Court for Glacial Arbitration in Sport (CAS) has been delayed at the request of Contador’s lawyers. Apparently they need more time to gather evidence.

This is ridiculous, cycling fans had been promised, and it was expected to be settled one way or another before the TDF. The man I feel for is Christian Prudhomme the man who puts on the Tour de France, what does he do now, let Contador ride or not? He is screwed either way.

I am to the stage where I don’t care anymore, and I think that is exactly the tactic being played by the UCI. The UCI failed to ban Contador when he tested positive for clenbuterol, but instead turned the responsibility over to the Spanish Cycling Federation.

When Spain found Alberto innocent, the UCI has to go through the motions of an appeal. But it is a half assed appeal, one they don’t really want to win. I don’t hear any loud protests from the UCI at this latest delay, and if you remember one of the reasons this case has gone on this long is because the UCI waited until the very last minute to launch an appeal. 

I predict that the whole matter may resolve itself; I think Contador will voluntarily withdraw from this year’s Tour de France. The reason; this year’s Giro d’Italia has been brutal over a route that has had an exceptional number of tough mountain stages.

After last Saturday’s stage 15. 143 miles (229 km.) featuring five big climbs over the Dolomites from Conegliano to Gardeccia Val di Fassa, Contador said it was the “hardest day of racing in his life.” (Video above.)

I don’t believe he was expecting to ride both Grand Tours. Remember he only has a month to recover before the start of the TDF. If he rides he will not be on top form, and he will have stronger opposition than he has had in the Giro. Could be interesting.

Another interesting tid-bit of news emerged today. Switzerland has more than 50 World Sports governing bodies based in its country. The UCI is just one of them. The Swiss Government is investigating corruption in those sport’s governing bodies. Good timing, I hope the UCI is up there on their list.