well its obvious what's happened here isn't it, lance was simply scrubbing the dope out of his skin in the shower!!!!

At the risk of a stupid question.

What exactly do the French have against Armstrong? Whenever this kind of story crops up it always seem to start with a Frenchman.

The French hate Armstrong because he is American, does not respect their rules or speak their language and because he won a French race 7 times in a row that a french man has been unable to win in years!

he is suspect in my upinion and they do right to target him

opinion

i find him cool. he should race

The French have so obviously targeted lance over the years we should not be surprised by this. Here's hoping he competes in the tour this year and wins! That would really upset them.

I know nothing about cycle racing but doesn't his manager know the rules ? It seems a good rule that the competitor should stay within sight of the testing official once he appears. Was a shower so important that he would risk everything ? At the point he didn't know if the official was genukine or not, so why take the risk ?

The thing is with the French is that they hate any champions that are not french, for example a French spectator punched Eddy Merckx in the stomach in the 1975 tour de France, just because the french could not accept that Merckx could be better than Anquetil, and now that they have an excuse for trying to stop Armstrong winning the tour this year they will do everything they can to stop him, also the French newspaper published an article in 2005 just after armstrong retired about doped samples in 1999. If the French get their way then Armstrong definitely wont be competing in the tour this year.

Maybe French hate Armstrong or maybe Armstrong hates French.

Armstrong won Tour de France 7 times, and allways loved to show that he is not respecting French. Cmon, show some respect to country where you love to race so much. Go and ride Giro or Vuelta. Maybe Italians and Spanish are nicer people. Or maybe beter race home then. Is there any tour in USA?

"The AFLD statement directly contradicts, this, saying that, "Mr Armstrong, despite being repeatedly warned by the examiner, did not meet the obligation to remain under direct and permanent observation."

Looks like someone lies there. Lets hope this is not another "Lie-gate"

Armstrong won Tour de France 7 times, and allways loved to show that he is not respecting French

?? Example please ?

this is getting pretty desperate. I'm no Lance fan, but this sounds ridiculous. I mean really, what kind of doping could Lance be doing that would be significant, that he could eradicate in 20 mins.

I personally have lost the ability to believe in clean athletes most of the time, and LA is no exception, but if you're going to ban the bloke, at least get some real evidence.

Seems to me a repeat of this is easy to solve:

1. Official has a small card clearly stating what athlete may/may not do. The card has a unique identification number.

2. Official also has an identification number that athlete/manager can phone/text to a confirmation/authentication service, together with their own PIN for access. The service returns the number of the card.

As for Lance - well 7 times is an awesome achievement and unless proved to the contrary let's leave it at that.

If the testers are going to show up unannounced (fair enough), surely they would have such good ID that their presence, identity, and legitacy could not be questioned?

Next time it will be a hoaxer showing up to a team training camp, demanding that the riders specified p*iss in a jar and provide a blood sample, then go on to publish results in newspapers as to how gullible they are?

And then the UCI will have something ELSE to complain about?

Regardless of what people may or may not think of Lance, this is a farce!

If he doesn't do the Tour, the viewing figures will be well down, so the advertising revenues will be way down. If that's what the French want, let them have it. Their hatred of him is becoming boring!

The french hate Lance for 1 "huge" reason they aint got shit on him, he is yet again the most tested athlete why dont they give him a break instead of trying to break him. He is in a no win situation he wins the tour he's a doper he doesnt win he's past it, BULLSHIT the guys a legend who realises he loves racing, bring on the 09 tour!!!!

I agree this seems like an excuse to damn him, I defiantly wouldn't let a man with dubious id stick something in my arm (hello talk about doping) take my blood, urine and hair, seems like the tester was more at fault than lance. I thought they could refuse 3 anyway ? Does come as a surprise, they have been looking for a reason for 9 years now they have the slightest one without making it up and sticking it the a news paper. As the French aren't bound by any law's or the legality of their action he'll be banned

Its well known that the French dont shower to often,it just thru the French tester when Lance made a point of having a shower.

Bunch of bloody Napoleans!

yes the "most tested athlete in the world" didn't know the AFLD could test him.... yeah right. Right after the AFLD ping former team-mate Beltran last year ! Remember the video that came out of the AFLD tester forcing Beltran to follow him. These AFLD goes pinged 4 guys in one Tour. A lot more than the UCI could ever do in years. Well done AFLD for not taking any crap. You can't walk away from a tester. The "most tested athlete in the world" should know that.

Yeah, "the most tested athlete in the world" should know that, and I'm sure he probably does, hence his suspicions when the guy didn't seem legit. I can't see why this is so hard to comprehend?

You're retarded to think that anything can be used to treat the hair follicles in a manner which would still leave usable and identifiable DNA yet damage and remove any traces of performance enhancing compounds, good on you for using your brains before you jump on the band wagon guys.

This is so clearly French arrogance and hatred it's not funny. Think anything else and you're as stupid as them.

There are always two sides to every story. I'm waiting for the French report to be submitted. From what has already been revealed is Lance ignored several of the testers warnings to not leave his line of sight. Why would one behave this way ? he should know better. I'm looking forward to the transcript which was recorded. Why oh why do you guys buy everything Lance & co print as absolute ? Why just being French means that you've lied ? Ignorance perhaps. Rules are rules. You don't walk away from the tester. He broke the rules. This is even after the UCI bent the rules over testing periods for the TDU. I'm sorry not good enough.

"The French hate Armstrong because he is American, does not respect their rules or speak their language and because he won a French race 7 times in a row that a french man has been unable to win in years!"

He does speak French, always did when interviewed on TV during the Tour.

I really fail to see why the French would think that he was doping - he's comeback is for charity for god's sake! And anyway, what could he have done in that 30 minutes or so to hide it if he had been doping!? It's just another example of old fashioned cycling organizers (especially french) being stupid and petty. I hope this gets cleared up and he and wins the tour.

He is no rookie, he knows the drill, he also knows that he is very high profile and a top target, so why would he directly flaunt the rules, despite a warning from the tester, to take a shower. He would be aware of the ammo he would be giving the doubters. Must have needed a shower really really badly, or maybe something else really really badly?????

The way I see it, the Tester is in a JAM, because his his claims that he instructed Armstrong to stay in his vicinity are contradicted by Armstrong (obviously) but also Bruneel and another witness. (I think...When I initially read the story, I seem to remember somebody else was present as well).

So you have a guy who's credentials may not have met international requirements, whose statements are contradicted by the athlete, but also 3rd-party witnesses. Sounds like "amatuer-hour" to me!

Also, I thought testers always showed up in teams of 2. Is that just USADA? That would have bolstered the claims of the tester as to what he REALLY instructed Lance to do.

This feels like a situation where the tester went in under-trained or unprepared, told Lance he could take a shower, and then when this turned into a media Sh1t-storm ho got pressure and help from AFLD to "massage" his story, despite the fact that there are other witnesses.

We'll never see it reported, but I bet this tester is very quietly censured internally by AFLD and and takes a new job someplace in upper Uzbekistan with a ridiculous payoff with a legal agreement not to discuss the matter. They could say, "We sacked him because he failed to live up to very most scrupulous and exacting standards of the AFLD, but the athlete still failed to follow the rules".

LEAVE HIM BE. the man is innocent as we have seen over the years. Let him race and piss off more frenchmen.

whiteboy trash wrote ''yes the "most tested athlete in the world" didn't know the AFLD could test him.... yeah right. ''

Why would LA know of the AFLD exsistence? They only came into being in Sept 2006, which is after Lance retired. They have NO collaboration with WADA or the UCI, even their own web page for international collaberation shows ''page en construction'' They only operate in France, under their own rules.

It is the AFLD who have leaked this story of a NEGATIVE dope test (the 24th since LA returned) to the press!

Oh my bloody gawd here we go again, cant we talk about something different, something positive for once, it's like watching loose women on TV when ever his name is mentioned, get over it for fooks sake, let cycling move on..................