Don’t call it a come back…

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestmailby feather

He had to know they were going to watch him very closely. He had to know that. So now what? Is Lance looking at a ban?

France’s anti-doping agency accused Lance Armstrong of violating its rules Thursday for not fully cooperating with a drug tester and says it could punish the seven-time Tour de France champion.

…The agency, known as AFLD, said in a statement that the doctor leading the tests maintains Armstrong “did not respect the obligation to remain under the direct and permanent observation” of the tester.

At question is a 20-minute delay when Armstrong says the tester agreed to let him shower while the American rider’s assistants checked the tester’s credentials.

AFLD said cycling’s governing body has given its permission to open disciplinary procedures against Armstrong, but did not say what the punishment could be.

AFLD president Pierre Bordry noted that the statement does not say that Armstrong is guilty of an infraction. AFLD is expected to make a decision on whether to proceed with sanctions after its nine-member ruling committee has considered the tester’s report.
Source: sports.espn.go.com/cycling/news…

Twenty minutes alone before allowing samples to be taken? I could see why they’d complain. You can do a whole lot in twenty minutes…

I wonder how this will play out?

The AFLD is empowered by French law to impose sanctions on athletes that have broken its rules and can do so separately from the athlete’s own national anti-doping body. When Floyd Landis was first charged with a doping offense after winning the 2006 Tour de France, the AFLD initiated a separate hearing process, but eventually backed off after the cyclist’s lawyers argued he could not fight legal actions on two continents at once.

Eventually, the AFLD announced that Landis would be suspended from racing in France for the same length of time (2½ years) he was suspended from all international competition. Landis unsuccessfully disputed his positive test for synthetic testosterone through two rounds of arbitration.

Will Lance stay home in July? Will he have a choice?

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestmailby feather

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

49 Replies to “Don’t call it a come back…”

  1. Since this story was on Velonews yesterday under the heading “Armstrong is outraged at accusation of AFLD” and now the mainstream media is picking it up…you know the Astana camp was freakin’ out right away and hurrying to get off the first shot in what is bound to be a war.

    I’d be a damn shame if this whole “comeback” was derailled by 20 freakin’ minutes. Especially considering he’s already been tested 24 times. Almost makes it look like they are out to get him…

  2. I’m convinced Lance doped as much as anybody, but this sounds like a bunch a shit. The dude doing the test has to know the rules. If Lance is supposed to stay within sight prior to the tests he should have followed Lance to the shower or told him that he couldn’t shower. If Lance said fuck off and headed to the shower after being told not to, then the tester should have left right then – no sticking around to grab samples -and called out the violation immediately. Lance would have then essentially “skipped” a test and could have been considered guilty. The system doesn’t even have a chance to work if the people running the system don’t follow or enforce their own rules.

  3. LA was tested 24 times, he knows the drill better than anyone and knows better than to disappear er, take a shower for 20 minutes. He’s done in France.

  4. I’d rather see him ride the Giro anyway. The Italians are so calm, methodical and disciplined in their anti-doping program… er, uh… never mind.

  5. If the accounts in the press about how the test went down, I have to say I’m with Lance on this one. I can completely understand he would want to make sure the test collector is who he says he is and that he is collecting the samples under the proper authority.

    I may be niave in regards to the testing but shower shouldn’t affect hair samples. Nor would 20minutes affect blood tests. 20 minutes is very quick to affect your urine test as well.

  6. …i woulda pissed in his knapsack before i showered…told him to squeeze what he needed out a’ that after bruyneel dropped the dime…

    …just sayin’…

    …okay, okay, but in all honesty, it really does seem like the “french” have an agenda…

  7. I’m no Lance fan but it appears that the French lab/tester was less than 100%. Would you allow some guy with a back pack to stick a needle in YOU? Read Lance’s comments on April 7, looks like the French are creating a situation. Honestly, given the chance, the French can screw up anything.

    http://www.livestrong.com/lance-armstrong/

  8. i’m no expert. LA may have been able to sabotage the urine testing but i don’t think you can cleanse your blood in 20 mins. I also think you can’t really hide from the hair testing…so, for me, it’s a moot point.

  9. …how the afld, knowing how controversial any dealing w/ armstrong could be, would send a solitary ‘chaperone’ rather than two w/ one to act as a witness to the proceedings, is beyond me…

    …all things considered, it was less than an intelligent act on their part…

  10. I think they’re just trying to make noise. It is highly irregular for someone from the lab to be collecting the sample rather than someone from the agency. If the lab is collecting the samples, then they can’t be blinded. Isn’t this the same lab that got a “we’ll let it go this time, but don’t get caught doing it again” from CAS for testing Landis’ samples when they knew who’s they were?

  11. The only thing that Lance uses to dope is the tears of French cycling fans (at least currently). 24 fucking times…..25 is the lucky number. He is never going to suspect that we are going to test him again, says the French tester.

    20 minutes in the shower, must have used the time to fire off a couple handfuls of knuckle children.

  12. AFLD obviously has an agenda, and needs to have their UCI accreditation revoked (or at least an internal house-cleaning). They could have sent two people, in an official vehicle, and videotaped the interaction. There would be no questions. Lance probably behaved like a jackass, but it’s understandable. A random guy with a backpack showed up on his doorstep, wanting blood, etc. I don’t particularly like Lance, but give me a break, AFLD is run by a bunch of morons. Every test result of any potential controversy has been “leaked” for the past decade. I don’t trust a thing that comes out of there.

  13. This reeks of the same rigmarole that Page got into this season with the UCI.

    It goes without saying that the French are so hard up to see LA fall, they’d pay top dollar for it, and if this is the “tax evasion” that finally takes down the Teflon Don of the Pelican, they’re going to give it some stick if at all possible… and it appears to be possible.

    Poor LA. Poor, poor LA…

    yawn…

  14. Dude, I got popped for a DUI two falls ago and stalled the cops long enough to alter my blood test. If I can slam two Saki bombs in 5 mins and then pass a blood test, you can alter your fucking blood in 20 mins.

    Now the hair is a different story, but how do they test hair for blood manipulation? Piss yes, blood yes, hair, I have no fucking idea.

    Either way, he knew he it was going to be a witch hunt.

    home fry is going out like Capone….like a bitch.

  15. The French are looking for DHEA . Its not a dead hit with the urine or blood test , but the french nordic team were busted for the DHEA with the hair sample .

  16. correct me if i am wrong, resident DC law student; from what i understand, in France they operate under a different sort of judicial system than we do here in the U.S. of A- theirs is guilty until you prove yourself innocent, or something pretty close to that. does this mean that LA is, in fact, guilty?

    Q; “Twenty minutes is enough to alter a blood test”. how?

    A: bag o’ saline on a fast drip

  17. thanks, I thought that it would take longer to affect blood results.

    Now from http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/7991866.stm I have this quote,
    In addition, the form asked the tester to state if there were any irregularities or further observations from the testing process and to that he wrote ‘no’.

    “I have learned that after the tests were all negative, the laboratory has now suggested that the 20-minute delay should be investigated.

  18. as a followup:
    saline will instantly reduce the haematocrit count, but will not mask the presence of other substances. i have no idea how THAT is done…

  19. “AFLD is run by a bunch of morons. Every test result of any potential controversy has been “leaked” for the past decade. I don’t trust a thing that comes out of there.”

    el jefe-

    Absolutely. Bunch of drama queens.

  20. Hematocrit is based on a ratio so diluting the blood dilutes the ratio.

    Otherwise, dude is probably homologous doping if he’s even doping. Also it’s possible that the PED’s he’s on are light-years above the common options.

    I can’t imagine being that stupid but then again, even if Le Douche Nozzle inspector was not legit, I as a cyclist, would simply sit there in his presence until the credentials are validated, then proceed. Can’t tell me that there’s some priority in a shower post training ride. Holmes got busted.

    this is not LA’s first doping control.

  21. What ever…

    This is just wrong.

    Thief swipes 83-year-old woman’s 66-year-old bike

    A thief in Maine stole a 66-year-old bicycle that belonged to an 83-year-old woman. Ruth Slovenski got the blue Huffy bicycle as a gift when she was a teenager in 1943. The bike was stolen after she left it unlocked Saturday during a visit to a nursing home in Lewiston, a southern Maine city of about 35,000 residents where Slovenski lives.
    Police said Slovenski had left the bike near a mailbox. When she went back to it two hours later, the bike was gone.
    The bicycle has wide fenders and a large metal basket. A nursing home security video shows a man wearing a hat and dark clothing riding off on a bike that fit that description.
    Police said Slovenski told them the bike had great sentimental value.

  22. I don’t think much could go on with the blood. You could infuse some saline to lower hematocrit. The dope tests and passport are alot smarter than hematocrit – the other marker’s would still show doping if it was going on.

  23. Yeah, you can do a lot in 20 minutes. Like get a blood transfusion, shave your head and grow it all back. Even if he cheats the piss test, the others will still tell the tale. Granted, he was supposed to remain in the testers sight the whole time. This is the crux of the matter. This is a WADA rule, but this was an AFLD test. I’m assuming they use the WADA protocols? If that’s the case, and this was explained to him, then he’s culpable, and should be sanctioned. He claims he was told it was okay to get a shower, the agent says otherwise. At this point, it’s one man’s word against another’s. Give the system a chance. I don’t really blame him for being a little circumspect about some stranger showing up and asking for samples, given the number of people that seem to have an axe to grind with him, even on this site at times. Not that any of you would pose as an agent of the AFLD.

  24. “It’s all bullshit, and it’s bad for ya!” -The late, great George Carlin

  25. Is there a 12 step program for giving two shits about LA? As Dwight Schrute said ” I shun thee”.

  26. you can take the needle out of the ass but you cant take the ass out of the needle

  27. Lance knows the gig, he should’ve just sat there while this guy’s credentials were verified. Having said that, the AFLD and lab’s conduct in leaking it to the press as well as the tester not informing LA in no uncertain terms that if he left his presence, he’d have to note it in his report make this whole story a contrived pile of nothing unless LA tests positive later on without the benefit of a 20 minute shower before providing samples. As a lawyer, the chain of custody issues present in the Landis case (which I believe to be the same lab here) are unforgivable, as was their conduct in leaking info to the media that allowed the French press to purportedly link LA’s 1999 samples to those that tested positive for EPO. I wouldn’t put evidence tampering past these buggers in a second. Doper or not, the AFLD and that lab run a poor shop and should have their accreditation pulled.

  28. I’d say Backpack Boy screwed the pooch. Sounds like he refused to show credentials. And he told Lance it was okay to hit the showers, right? God damned Frogs could fuck up a wet dream.

  29. Oh yeah, and chain of custody don’t mean shit in France. Corrupt, all of ’em. Fuck, they might as well be Mexico.

  30. I don’t trust anything Lance has to say on the topic. His years of cheating destroy his credibility….

  31. 2 sides, 2 different stories. Unless you were there, you don’t know.
    We can guess all we want but it is all just that…guessing.
    Both sides have some pretty major potential reasons to lie so I am going to just sit back and watch this cycling soap opera continue to unfold.

  32. Butthead might be a genius. that was pure as pure can be. talk your shit in prose. some of the best posts ever on this site. some of the worts too but the good ones are good. where have you been as of late butthead? you need to put a cap in some of these guys posting here again as well

  33. they kicked Rasmussen to the curb for less, why not lance

    20 min shower? raise money for cancer but waste water Lance.

    dope or not the French are fucking themselves out of this sport at this point. All they got is the TOur. They have no riders worth a shit. They only have MAvic and Look left in house and both are beeing looked for buyout by 3rd parties corps. outside the country.

    And Lance wants to buy the rights to Le TOur and that really fucking pisses them off.

    so what am I saying? Let him ride, I dont give a fuck. he is an ass but he sells bikes all over the world and right now we need to sell more bikes

    However the French Freeriders are fucking killing it for what it is worth and no one not even the Canadians are close at the moment

    random shit here my bad

  34. Nevermind the props for me. I think it is time to give Greg LeMond his props.

    Bring back the LeMond frames and fuck Trek

    Fuck YOu Lance

    Hey charmichael, think you are a coach now?

  35. ^^^^^^^^^^
    you can take the dick out of the ass but you cant take the ass out of the dick

  36. What do you consider a group? 3-5. I say more than 5

    mikey I think you meant Group Ride?

    although there is nothing gayer than a group mountainbike ride.