In today’s Washington Post, Lance Armstrong speaks out about the charges of EPO doping within the French newspaper, L’Equip.
Lance Armstrong went on the offensive yesterday, saying it was “preposterous” for the Tour de France director to say that the legendary cyclist fooled race officials and the sporting world by cheating his way to seven straight titles.
“I actually spoke to him for about 30 minutes and he didn’t say any of that stuff to me personally,” Armstrong said, referring to Leblanc.
“But to say that I’ve fooled the fans is preposterous. I’ve been doing this a long time. We have not just one year of only B samples; we have seven years of A and B samples. They’ve all been negative,” he said during a conference call from Washington.
L’Equipe is owned by the Amaury Group, whose subsidiary, Amaury Sport Organization, organizes the Tour de France and other sporting events. The paper has often raised questions about whether Armstrong has used performance-enhancing drugs. On Tuesday, the banner headline of its four-page report was “The Armstrong Lie.”
EPO doping tests have been out since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Does anyone think that Lance Armstrong’s samples have not been tested over and over again in the seven straight wins? If not, why wait the six years until Armstrong has retired? Suddenly, we’re supposed to believe that six-year old untampered urine samples have turned up EPO signatures from this “independent” lab. This is just a sad, last attempt by a news rag to discredit the legacy of one of the greatest athletes of our time. It is tabloid journalism at its worst.
Well, they ARE French.
Come on. Get the facts.
- What you must understand is that in the last two decades or so cycling has become one of the most drug-ridden of all sports.
- In 1998, EPO was illegal but there was no way to prove somebody used it.
- David Walsh published the Book “LA Confidential, the Secrets of Lance Armstrong.” in which he describes how Armstrong has systematically been using illegal drugs.
- On July 8, 2001, British paper The Sunday Times revealed Armstrong’s association with Michele Ferrari, an Italian sports doctor linked to some of the 1990′s more dubious cycling teams and the author of the sound byte: “EPO, taken in the proper doses, is no more dangerous than orange juice.”
Don’t believe someone just because you want to.
There’ve been german and belgian traitors, french dopers and OF COURSE there are american dopers too. This is not just about the French disliking americans.
Alex, Amsterdam/Netherlands
Lance Armstrong is one of the most biologically tested men on the tour. They make every single winner of the Tour de France take multiple drug tests in case there are allegations later. They tested Armstrong even more because of his early cancer treatments.
If he tested for drugs right now, I would say take away his title. They tested samples that were sitting around for close to six years. Intentional or unintentional, anything could have happened to those samples in the past six years.
Did I mention that they’re French?
There FRENCH,They will try anything to discredit America or it’s people,, so sorry they have forgotten what America did for them, like give them back there country in WWII
How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?
No one knows! Well what can one expect from the Frogs. They can’t stand to see an American best them once again.
This is a personal vendetta of a French correspondent whom Lance gave the cold shoulder to once in an interview. There is abolutely no truth to the accusation.
Nothing but dumb american nationalism.
Is this all you can offer?
Everything I hear when Americans talk about the French is just “the French are losers, they lost in WW II”. This is so pathetic.
Is that anything you know about France? Have you ever been there? Do you know French people? What do you know about France?
Hell, I’m not french, I got many american friends, I’ve spend months in France, in the US, in Germany, in Canada, in Asia.
I don’t care whether athletes are French, Dutch or American. It’s simply not interesting.
Don’t hide behind your stupid biases and nationalism!
Drug tests are of no use if there is no way to identify illegal substances. This is what we are talking about, and this was the case in 1998. Talk about the facts, not about stupid clich?s.
This is not a Hollywood movie. We’re not talking about heroes, even if you like them so much.
Regards,
Alex, Amsterdam/Netherlands
For me, this has nothing to do with nationalism.
The EPO drug tests have been around since the 2000 Olympics. The Tour adopted these tests in 2001. Armstrong has been tested at least a dozen times for EPO since they have come into being. All of these have come up negative.
Now that the tests have been around for so long, please tell me why they waited until now to test this six year old urine sample. How can they be sure that the sample has not been contaminated in the last six years?
So they’re NOT French?
Just because you were able to give your lips a proper workout reading some poorly-sourced allegations of drug use that provide nothing in the way of concrete evidence, it doesn’t mean that Lance Armstrong didn’t win the Tour de France all those times fair and square. I know we’re all dumb American nationalists, but we do like to have proof before we accuse someone of cheating. I don’t know what it’s like in the Netherlands.
We’ll also ignore the idea that France may want to take something away from the American that has consistently won its national sport/competition. That wouldn’t have anything to do with it. It must be nice to be as smart as you. Isn’t it just AWFUL to have to deal with people who just don’t get it? Dumb Americans who don’t know anything about France. Hmph! Must be unbearable to live with such ignorance.
Regards to you, too!
Hi Morgan,
you are right: we can’t be sure the samples have not be altered later.
An interesting question is, indeed: Why have they waited so long. As far as I know, it was not possible to identify EPO in old samples about until 2004. There still is a scientific discussion whether it’s possible after more than 5 years.
But perhaps some guys didn’t want their beautiful to tour to be covered by a discussion about doping.
There ARE many strange issued to be cleared from the French side, too.
We can’t be totally sure that Lance is a doper.
But we have to take it into consideration, there are serious hints in favour of it. I mentioned the book of David Walsh, who certainly is an honest person. I mentioned that Armstrong works together with a doctor who has previously been linked to doping. And there is this sample.
If it was possible to take EPO in 1998 without any fear of being trapped, most definetely MANY athletes did it.
In any case: Armstrong is a great athlete.
But perhaps he’s not as great as a sportsman. We can’t aswer it for sure right now, and perhaps we never can.
Regards,
Alex
David,
I didn’t call Americans dumb. But look at what Dick, George and Paul posted. Just stupid, nationalistic issues that have got nothing to to with doping. I was just referring to this.
Look at what another blogger posted:
http://mrwalsh.blogspot.com/2005/08/all-this-performance-enhancing-drug.html , which of course I can’t make you responsible for.
But hey, I just performed a “armstrong” search on the technorati.com weblog search. That’s how I came to this blog.
And obviously most of the bloggers throughout the blogosphere simply called the French losers, as I’ve heared so many times before when talking about France with Americans.
I’m not one of the guys who call Americans superficial (as many Europeans do) or dumb (as some Europeans do), but from my experience, Americans TEND TO regard themselves as superior without taking different perspectives.
Let’s make peace, we’re all biased in many ways.
Regards,
Alex
Fair enough.