So Lance Armstrong is a liar and a cheat

[FiveTimes]

Given that EPO testing only came in around 2000 that doesn't mean much. Also, with blood transfusions and saline drips and advanced warning of test dates they were easy to beat.

I wouldn't call testimony of 11 drug cheats as "mainly speculation"

ftfy

[Robinho]

I might be wrong, but I read he had never failed a drugs test. The evidence primarily seems to be mainly speculation, and those authorities shouting loudly at press conferences that it has been proven.

Let's be honest, if he won the thing 7 times in a row whilst the rest of them where doped up to the gills then he was probably doing it himself.

[FiveTimes]

Let's be honest, if he won the thing 7 times in a row whilst the rest of them where doped up to the gills then he was probably doing it himself.

if everyone was doped up and so was he and he still won - does that make him the better rider ?

[Robinho]

if everyone was doped up and so was he and he still won - does that make him the better rider ?

Dunno, possibly he was a better drug user. We just don't know.

[fckvwls]

if everyone was doped up and so was he and he still won - does that make him the better rider ?

Irrelevant. It would make him a lying cheat and a fraud though.

[Mich the Tester]

if everyone was doped up and so was he and he still won - does that make him the better rider ?

Yes. Unfortunately lots of sports were filled with nasty substances for a very long time and the drug/doping controls really only became effective in the last 10 years or so; before then, it was easy enough to use masking agents. Now then, put yourself in the position of a young professional sportsman who has to perform to earn a living and pay the bills. You've just become professional and are a fresh faced newbie, you ride your first professional race or play your first match and get thrashed by people that only two years earlier in the juniors you were able to beat. Then the team doctor comes for a chat and it's made perfectly clear that if you want to earn a living from a sport, having given up pretty much everything to get to this point, then you're going to have to win races and matches, and the only way to do that is start using the naughty stuff. Now you've started on it, and before long, having bought a nice house on a big mortgage, and made business commitments to sponsors, you have a choice; carry on, and carry on earning a living, or stop, lose every competition you enter, lose your job and your income and end up trying to compete for a job with people your own age with experience and qualifications when the only thing you can put on your CV is 'can ride a bike/run/swim very fast'.

I can't condone drug use in sports and I think the people who've brought it in and keep pushing it to athletes are scum, but I think I understand why people use it, and it'd be disingenous to condemn them for doing so.

Anyway, taking away titles long after the events is pointless and vindictive; it was a different era with different values, and happily it seems to be over. Leave it in the past where it belongs.

[FiveTimes]

Irrelevant. It would make the whole tour cheats and a frauds though.

ftfy

[TheBigD]

if everyone was doped up and so was he and he still won - does that make him the better rider ?

Not necessarily.

Although it would make him the one whose body reacted best to the drugs.

[Robinho]

What is the difference between a supplement and a performance enhancing drug?

[BrilloPad]

I just wish I knew where to get these performance enhancing drugs.

Though I face a blood test for a race next June so maybe best if I just say no.