Mr. Clean

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There has been a lot of talk, on this site and others, about Lance Armstrong’s return to the pro peloton, his “transparent’ comeback, and what it will prove.

It will prove nothing.

The problem is this: testing Mr. Armstrong heavily during his comeback will not, does not, and cannot answer the question at hand – did he dope? It is a logical fallacy to test him in 2009, not find evidence of doping, and proclaim he has been clean throughout his entire career.

If I go into a Basha’s supermarket tomorrow and walk out with nothing other than the merchandise I paid for at the cash register, it does not mean I have never shoplifted from that store at any point in my life. I could have stolen something last week. Or, at some point today. It would demonstrate only that I did not steal on that particular visit to that particular store.

Mr. Armstrong’s openness to testing during his ’09 comeback does not answer the question of his 1999 Tour performance against a doped field with blood later shown [with modern testing] to indicate the use of EPO. It does not answer the question of his association with Michele Ferrari. It does not answer the question of his teammates on Motorola & US Postal admitting their own EPO use. In short, it doesn’t answer any of the relevant questions surrounding Mr. Armstrong’s cycling career.

It can only show, at best, that he ran it clean for a few months in 2009 when his best years were far behind him.

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About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

18 Replies to “Mr. Clean”

  1. If he dominates again it will prove he is the stongest clean and/or the strongest not clean. It will be interesting. The biggest question will be if Basso or Landis can do anything. It doesn’t seem that Landis is preparing anywhere near the way Armstrong has begun. So I do give Armstrong some credit on the work ethics.

  2. Age is a factor. If he does not dominate he can say, “Well, I’m old and I’ve spent the last couple of years banging soul-less starlets.” Lance has a special kind of OCD…I doubt he would be able to let himself get out of shape from a psychological standpoint. Not that I am qualified to make that kind of judgment, but he appears to be the Type A poster child. Anyway, he’s going to race clean THIS TIME and like Juan Grande says it’s a logical fallacy, regardless of his results, to say “oh he must have been clean and naturally X percent better than the best in the world while juiced thanks to his training and inherent talents.”

    We’re going to get a good preview of Basso in Japan this fall. I think he’s going to fly. Landis will probably make a nominal impact stateside.

  3. It makes perfect sense, He was the best doper for 7 years, when most were doping. He now feels, after last years results, the sport is much cleaner. Why not come back and see how you do? Even though his performance was enhanced in the past. He still had to have one of, if not the best, training regiment.

  4. When you know the drugs you do are not tested for drug testing is no worrys. I just hope they keep the b samples this time. It may take along time to develop the test for hgh and the new cancer drug outa colorado. But I can only hope it will come out in the future and the truth will follow.

  5. well written. this is basically what lemond was getting at when he took at seat at the second press conf. interesting that the entire cycling ‘journalism’ body called greg a kook and didn’t bother following up with any questions of their own. starting with – how does putting someone on your own payroll to say they have proof you’re clean work, exactly? and how do pulling numbers out of a hat without a baseline have any meaning? and by the way, what about dr. coyne’s claimed baseline data for mr.a being completely debunked by his peers for lack of any evidence whatsoever, the day before the ‘big comeback announcement’? (basically, they figure coyne made the shit up, check the nyt story). there is an alleged follow up interview with greg, a 55 minute rant of epic proportion, which hopefully finds its way to the net soon. meanwhile, the fact is, mr. a is: ensuring astana’s return to the tour, ensuring trek’s return to the tour, ensuring another year of sponsorship money for the tours of georgia (which would otherwise be canceled) and california (which is teetering on the brink) and ensuring above average media coverage in any event he visits (as witnessed in crossvegas). and ensuring that the game of doping and catching dopers remains, as ever, farcical folly.

  6. Yep, it doesn’t matter. Armstrong played the game just like everyone else, and he beat the odds like a Texan can often do. The past will be the past. His proclamation of cleanliness is in line with the New Peloton World Order. Love it or Leave it. It’s just cycling.

  7. kinda like when you loan your homey $20 in college to go out, and when you ask him for the kwan, he says ” dude, that was 2 weeks ago…” as if time passed alleviates the fact that he still owes you the kwan.

    I am interested to see how the shit blows up with Contador, b/c Lance has too much type A and ego to ride #2. Same for Levi.

    I agree that LA will bring attention back to the sport which is good, but at what cost?

    LA walked by me in the Oakley booth with his douche entourage at the show to go sign autographs and I left…. if it is about Cancer foo, then start a team that promotes awareness. Don’t promote yourself and your need to have a clean image under the guise of cancer promotion. That makes you a bigger whore than you already are.

    Lemond is going through a lot of shit and may be a nut job, but have we gotten so passive aggressive that we are going to focus on his mid life over the the fact that what he says is DEAD FUCKING ON THE MONEY???

    He had a VO2 WAY Higher than LA

  8. what humpty said. fo sho. lemond’s question was ultimately unanswered. what about real testing? dont test what is supposedly put in (or NOT put in) to the machine — test what come OUT.

  9. Not eggzachery the right forum for LeMond to be hacking on the champ, and you know what, he’s one of very very few peeps that has enough gonadage to critique L.A. That shit is amazing in it’s own right. Dude is fult tilt nuts and I suspect his motivation is proportional to his legal fees.

    It’s as if he is as tacky as us. Maybe we can get him to start writing for DC. That would be the Shiznit!

  10. So, does Armstrong saying he is riding clean now the same as Ted Haggard saying he doesn’t like smoking male prostitutes’ ropes anymore?

  11. Who cares? The good ones all doped in that era. You lie if you say it wasn’t great entertainment.

  12. If nothing else it shows that he has the confidence that he’s good enough to win clean – you’d think that a dirty winner wouldn’t be so cocky about getting a result without the aid of his chemical enhancements. I say let it go and watch the show…

  13. I still have to argue about how precise the doping tests are these days. Just as Rico only tested positive for 2 out of 5 tests (was it) at this years Tour. When he admitted that he had started before the Tour and therefore should have had 5 positive tests not just a few…Also LA did some great things in the past regardless if he was clean or not. However back then, now and the future no matter what he does, it will not stop others from not doping. It all starts with the individual…

  14. pantstrong wants to end up on a ticket with bloomberg in 2012. that’s really what this is all about – keeping a high profile so he can go into politics.

    if it was all about the cancer, there’s a raft of better ways to promote the cause.