you must be psychic trashboy.the fact remains im here cos i love cycling.why are you here? cos other than criticise people i cant see a reason? I thought this site was for people that enjoy reading these articles not morons like you who sit in their mothers basements ready to pounce on the next cycling fan. If cycling is so riddled with dope as you say then why are you on this site? would love to hear why.

It will be very interesting to see how Lance does in the Tour Down Under here in Australia in January. Now that the drug-testing is significantly better than when he was racing, you'd think that any cyclist who's doping is taking a huge risk, especially one with a massive target painted on him. So if he goes badly, the nay-sayers will say that he's not fast when he's clean, and he'll shelter behind the age defence (a favourite of mine...).

If he goes well, what will we make of that? Will it prove that he doesn't need any chemical assistance, or will it prove that money can buy you immunity? Either way, it will be interesting.

Whopper wrote: `If he goes well, what will we make of that? Will it prove that he doesn't need any chemical assistance, or will it prove that money can buy you immunity?`

There is no real need to buy immunity, although having friends in high places can help a lot. One example is the way the UCI accepted a pre-dated Therapeutic Use Exemption from Armstrong when he tested positive for corticoids, even though only days earlier he publically stated that he had no such exemptions. Similarly, look at the way the UCI orchestrated that hatchet job on the LNDD in the wake of Armstrong`s retrospective `positives` for Epo for his 1999 Tour samples. The report the UCI commissioned was later described by WADA as `so lacking in professionalism and objectivity that it borders on farcical`.

Another big issue is the fact that many doping practices were and remain undetectable. When Armstrong made his comeback in 1999 there was no test for Epo in use. When a test for Epo came into use `800 ml of packed cells` autologous blood doping became the `state of the art` doping method. This method remained undetectable right through the Armstrong era and the `gossip` within the peloton was that team `Disco` were experts in applying this method to events such as the Tour, using motorbikes with refrigerated panniers to transport the blood and so on. See:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/landis/instantmessage.html

There is still no approved test for autologous blood doping. Even today there are many doping products that simply cannot be detected, or for which tests are only just coming into use, Dynepo being a good example. Also samples are likely to be tested only for a few cheaply and easily detectable substances, with more expensive tests only being done when the lab has a good reason to suspect that something is amiss. (This was the way Landis got caught, with the definitive IRMS tests only being done when his T/E ratio tests showed anomalies).

On top of all this the methods used to `cheat` dope test are legion. (For example, there are suspicions that US Postal was substituting the riders urine in the 2000 Tour, the samples provided for testing being unaturally clear for riders who had just ridden a long, hot mountain stage of the Tour).

All in all, never testing positive is no absoloute proof at all that a rider was or is clean. (Just look at all those riders who were later admitted to be dopers who never tested positive). Conversely, all a positive test shows, other than the rider was doping, was that someone slipped up or the team doctors did not do their job properly.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/?id=EPOv2

http://www.bicycle.net/2008/doping-expert-skeptical-over-actually-cathcing-cheats-at-tour-de-france

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/05072007/3/doping-expert-says-cheats-beat-tour-de-france-tests.html

aurelio: do you ever go out mate? or do you sit reading info on a bloke you aparently despise? im intrigued how someone can dislike a man so much yet seem to know far more than anyone else? Are you in fact tyler hamilton/floyd landis writing under another name?!

rawliride31 wrote: `He was a world champion at a very young age, if you knew your facts you'd know why Lance is so good`

Winning a world RR title is a whole different kettle of fish to winning the Tour! Armstrong did not even manage to complete the Tour until his third attempt, and when he did so he finished one and half hours behind the winner. He lost the best part of 30 minutes on some of the big mountain stages and, despite saying he was trying to improve by a minute a year, consistently finished more than 6 minutes down in the first flat time trial. Compare those feeble performances with those of the true natural Tour winners such as Merckx and Fignion (Fignon`s first Tour win was also his first major stage race!).

Then Armstrong secretly teamed up with the king of the doping doctors, Michele Ferrari, and came back not only to win the Tour and those flat time trials, but did so faster than any other rider hade ever done.

Of course such a transformation from Tour also-ran to `winner` is not unique. Riis and Indurain are other shining examples, and all of them come from the Epo era, something I think is hardly a coincidence...

Dear all,

Ignore aurelio, he's not a biking fan, and is just winding everyone up, he's probably doing similar on 50 different websites.........

C'mon guys...

Let's not do the whole I love Lance / I can't stand the filthy doper thing over again.

Can he prove he rode clean in the past? No.

Can it be definitively be demonstrated that he didn't? No - at least not with the current level of evidence available.

Did lots of riders dope during his reign? Yes.

Might he have done the same? Yes. Is that proof? No.

Did he ride his bike very fast? Yes.

Will he do the same now? Probably but the interest will be in finding out...

Let's see how fast he is now and keep our prejudices (pro or con) under wraps until we have some new "evidence" to debate or behaviour to applaud / criticise...

Hello to everyone,

Felt like a couple of things were ignored from the topic in question.

It is not about the frech or italians or spanish nor belgians or germans nor dutch.

It is more like starkist dont look for tuna that have good taste ,starkist is looking for tuna that taste good...

What does it mean , it means leave astana alone ,they a have a pretty good little champion Alberto Contador, at the threshold of his carriere, stop buying people to back you up in your selfish endeavors to show the whole world what big money can do.We've seen it time and time again.LOve the sport , cant live without it, take example from Eric ZAbel ,veteran cyclist 38 somewhat years old ,always there in all pro races never in yellow,seldom in green (apologies for whos counting) and. still comes in amogst the first bunch in the sprints.In the true spirit of a real athlete.

What u say ombre....

My two pennies worth...

Having been on Alpe d'Huez in 2001 when Armstrong gave Ullrich ("the look") and seeing him time trial in 2004 (again d'Huez) my opinion of the French public's outlook towards Lance hadn't changed.

The French people around me cheered him on, as well as all the competitors because they like to see man and machine striving to win.

However, the same cannot be said of the Germans and Italians, as I was appaulled to witness their behaviour spitting venom and anger at a bloke whom had beaten cancer, been drug tested more than any other athlete on the planet, done more work than all of us put together on this forum for charity and won the most prestigious bike race in the world a few times on the trot.

I'm not surprised that he had the Men in Black in his car for the Tour. If I was him I'd have had an M16 mounted on the roof!

What kind of Numpty writes: "Rip the balls off Lance" and "F**K LANCE" on the road???

FFS - That's not what I want to see associated to our sport!

In the UK, we have what is known as "the football mentality". It's when a load of people go to a football match, get drunk, paint their faces and piss all over cars/people/themselves before/during/after the match.

This accolade in cycling has been passed onto the Germans, whom I had the pleasure of seeing on the road to Courchevel 2005, carrying four foot inflatable penis and blow-up dolls, whilst being abusive to any rider they didn't like - not just Armstrong.

Lance is the most successful TDF competitor because he was given a second chance.

He has taken it with both hands, built a successful team around himself, the best doctors, specialists, forward minded thinking people - and won the hardest bike race in the world, not once, but seven times.

He is an inspiration and a competitor and is probably bored with his everyday life, so I for one, was glad to hear of his return to racing and I'm going to Italy on my bike next year to cheer him on in the mountains and I hope he does the TDF and wins it again.

JUST DO IT LANCE! ;-)

It seems to me that a lot of people here have got themselves into quite a lather! I can't see anything offencive at all in what has been written by aurelio. In fact, his messages appear to be the most coherent and logical that have been made. He/she obviously has researched the subject well, and has given many links to evidence sources. It seems rich to me to criticise for knowing too much about the subject in question.

I love cycling and for me, the beauty is in seeing men (or women) competing on a level playing field and coming out on top. That's what draws admiration and respect.

I don't know ther intricasies of the "bio passport" stuff, but I would have hoped that LA would have firstly given his time and effort to providing the MAXIMUM detail about his blood and other phisio stats and posted them on the internet immediately (even if they had shown him to be in poor fitness shape). Then, as he posted updates every time a test was made, he would be able to show how he has managed to bring himself back to peak fitness and then have a chance at winning the TDF.

As it is, I still have this nagging doubt about him, because he doesn't seem to want to be open and transparent with the people that matter (the fans). I find this all rather sad and likely to just prolong the period of recovery for pro cycling, which had appeared to be on the mend over the past few months, with a new generation of cyclists who were happy to be tested to the max and have their results published.

On a final note .... I personally doubt whether LA will actually make an impact on cycling again. But, if he would submit to the kind of monitoring that I describe above, then I and all tre cycling fans everywhere would admire him, just as we would admire anyone else who manages to fight their way to get ahead of the bunch. Anyone who suddenly manages to blast away the opposition after previously being incapable of doing so (Landis style) is never going to be doing it honestly. The real honest riders were either always great/better than the rest, or work hard to gradually get better over time. .... There's no such thing as a miracle in cycling!

Aurelio, you really have been out of the media for a while. Now you are the therapist coming into false conclusions. Ridiculous!

He has been harrassed since day one, will never forget his last words on his last TDF win....

psiturbo ? If you are going to add a comment, it might perhaps be worth explaining what that comment is.