To bad the world isn't flat.

I think it would be great if ol Lance could just be put in a little boat and givin' a little push
to send him on his voyage over the edge. It would all seem so natural to me.

I didn't see the interview, but I really want to know how he made it past all the drug screening tests. It seems like the stuff he was using was well known, so how did 100's of tests not show any evidence?

I guess my real question is, were the drug testers involved as well?

Micro dosing EPO below threshold of detection.

Micro dosing testosterone when away from the races.

Constant use of EPO micro doses to keep your Hemocrit elevated so that your Bio Passport seemed stable.

Blood transfusions of your own blood to beat DNA tests.







What else you want to know? Need a coach? :-)





BTW, the question I haven't seen asked... how many tests were normal?

Lance's number... which is more like 250+/- rather than 600 is on the low side and that is because he was only a full season rider for a short part of his career. His dominant years were carefully managed so that he could train in privacy more than he raced at events.

Most riders actually race the entire season and so have had far more tests and scrutiny than Lance.



I've been hoping to learn of some quantitative comparisons but have found none.

Sometimes it seems like obvious questions never get asked and so easy answers are left to seem unattainable.


best regards,
mike

I find it fascinating on some level. Many moons ago I rented a condo off of a lady that had a Phd in sports medicine. I had to have her visit me to get approval for some landscaping I wanted to do. 

While we were chatting I asked her what she was working on and I was shocked by the answer. She said she had just come back from Eastern Europe where she had been working in a private lab for 6 months. The sole purpose of the lab was to study doping in competitive sports. They were analyzing all the methods available for doping and how to detect them. It seems that the two go hand in hand. If you really understand the screening methods you can be a better doper.

I swear I'm not making this up. It seems that there was a bunch of money in this field. She was 10 years younger than me, drove a BMW and I was renting her condo. This was in 1982 as I recall. 

At the end of the day it's all about money and athletes are just race horses with 2 legs. Another personal perspective on the topic. A guy I know was an All Canadian (don't laugh) college football player. After school he got a try out with CFL football club. At training camp he hurt a ligament in his knee. The team doctor pulled out a needle to give him a shot of pain killer. He said no way, because he figured he would ruin his knee if it was numb. That was the end of his football career. The team felt he didn't have the right stuff to turn pro.

That's 2 real life examples I know of, so this sport/drug interdependence must be massive and very profitable. How will it ever change if remains so profitable?

It has become such a huge industry now that it may be impossible to get rid of. The whole of 'professional' sport has become so smeared with this 'stuff' that it is virtually impossible to see any major cleansing of sports on any level. Money has been at the root of this and the love of money has destroyed any respect I had for athletics as a whole. 

2 whole generations of athletes have been tainted with the drug thing ...both user and non-user alike. 

Someone will always offer up a new drug that will go undetected for a period of time and a new cycle will start up again...

Come out of her oh my people!!!