Friday Afternoon Commute - Livestrong

Good afternoon

• The Washington Area Bicyclist Association is hosting the St. Elizabeths Bike Carnival, where the public will be able to cycle around the long-shuttered east campus (2700 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE) before it is fully redeveloped. The festivities run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; more information can be found here.
• BicycleSpace 2-year anniversary ride.
• Biking from Georgetown to Great Falls.  
• Registration is open for the 2012 Eastern Pennsylvania Greenways and Trails summit. Some of the trails push on into Maryland.
• The Armstong story kind of dominates the news today. Tracee Hamilton takes Armstrong's side, pointing out that he never failed a test - and that tests don't lie (except that other admitted cheaters also never failed tests, so clearly tests are wrong. And Armstrong actually did fail tests.). But her question of "what is the point of testing?" is a valid one.  Alberto Contador calls Armstrong "a cyclist who always showed such strength, great intelligence and spectacular physical conditioning." The Post shows how almost everyone on the podium when Lance won was caught doping at one time or another.  USADA's statement is here. Why it might not matter. 
• Two middlingreviews for PR and a bad one. 

My thoughts on Armstrong are this:

First, what he did as a cancer survivor is still inspirational. Just competing at that level after such an incident is pretty incredible. A lot of what he did - the time he rode off the course and stayed up, the strategic and tactical moves he made, the brutal training - had nothing to do with doping.

Second, he probably did dope. It sounds like there is a lot of evidence and it's unlikely that all of it is fabricated. Most of his competitors were obviously doping, making his achievement even more incredible (in both senses of the word).

Third, it looks like some of the data they have is from his comeback. Doping during his comeback was highly risky, every sample he gave them was a chance to get caught, and for what at that point? Stupid, but proof that he was coming back to win.

Fourth, almost everyone he raced against was probably doping too. So it's not like it wasn't an even playing field. Cheating is cheating and more importantly it forces people to risk their health to compete at the highest level (of course, pro cycling might be dangerous enough that it's true with or without doping), but it seems unfair to crack down on him - and this was a crack down, not a failed test - and let others skate free.  Maybe we need the all-drug Tour. Perhaps they should just act as though 1999-2005 didn't even happen. There were no winners. 

Finally, he still has his Olympic bronze medal I suppose. Now he's 3-time Olympian Lance Armstrong. 

Comments

[darren]

Sally Jenkins of the Post has now weighed in as well. SPOILER ALERT: she sides with Lance

[darren]

oops, link... http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/othersports/lance-armstrong-doping-campaign-exposes-usadas-hypocrisy/2012/08/24/858a13ca-ee22-11e1-afd6-f55f84bc0c41_story.html

[darren]

Disagree in re "cheating is cheating." The Vaughters argument of the "dragged vs the draggers" is pretty compelling (http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/2007/07/21/fresh-doping-allegations-hit-rasmussen/), and IMHO, an anti-doping authority would be pretty negligent if it didn't doggedly crack-down to establish non-analytical positive cases against 'dragger' conspirators (some of whom still active in the sport)

[oboe]

Fourth, almost everyone he raced against was probably doping too.

Not sure you can support this. Certainly most of the top GC candidates were doping, but there were clean riders as well. It's just that they came in 8th, 11th, or 21st.

[washcycle]

No I can't support it, because they weren't all pursued the way Lance was, that's why I said probably. But if they could have made everyone clean with a magic raygun I'm not convinced the outcomes would have been different.

[charlie]

I think it is possible Lance didn't dope.

1) His exculsive focus on TdF helped a lot.

2) I'm sure his teammates were doping, and that helps a lot.

3) I've always suspected his cancer was related to doping earlier, but given a cancer history I'd be personally wary of drugs after his recovery. Bloodbanking, maybe.

[guez]

"But if they could have made everyone clean with a magic raygun I'm not convinced the outcomes would have been different."

Perhaps, but they might have been different and we'll never know, which is why doping has destroyed the sport.

I'm not sure, either, why so many people assume that the field is even when everyone cheats. Lance had one of the most sophisticated training regimens in the history of cycling. Assuming he doped, does anyone doubt that he had the best people on it?

[david]

Americas fixation with Lance Amrstrong is largely due to nationalism and the lack of good coverage of the sport in America. Lance is the only world class cyclist that many Americans have any familiarity with. The tour de France is the only bike race they know of. There are at least two other major tours , Italy and Spain and a host of other classics. There are other riders who unlike Lance compete in many races, to win, not just the tour of France.They do not seem to have the doping problem. By centering attention on Lance you get a distorted picture of cycling, and indeed a distorted picture of Lance. There are many clean racers. To say they are "all doping" just because Lance has problems is wrong. Take a wider look both at cycling now and the truly great cyclist of the past. Cycling is not a dirty sport it is not full of cheaters . Wider coverage of the sport would show that and give American young better examples of a champion. One who treats his teammates like teammates one who takes on all comers i.e. races in more then the tour etc. and above all does not cheat. Lets cut the "they all do" stuff and see that the cheaters are punished.

[oboe]

@charlie,

You forgot to mention LA's high-cadence pedaling style, and Chris Carmichel's training regimen. Also, advances in bike technology like Trek's advanced Madone carbon fiber matrix which gave him an extreme competitive advantage.

:)

[washcycle]

David. I refer you to this.

[washcycle]

guez, I'm not sure I'd agree that the sport of cycling has been destroyed. Consumed - yes. But it appears to be as popular and lucrative, if not more so, as ever.