Surprise! Lance Armstrong Drops Drug-Testing Program as Too Hard, Too Expensive

First, let me say, I want to hear from anyone who believes Lance rode clean for 7 TdF wins. I'd like to believe. I love believing. So let me know what you think if you like, even if you think I am totally wrong!

And don't get me wrong. That Livestrong thing is awesome. Now to begin...

Ahh. I get it. I have to say I was skeptical about Lance's testing program, but it appeared he had hired a reputation (I mean someone with a great reputation) who would administer the program scrupulously. Now, it turns out, maybe that was the problem? 

How do you come back when there are nagging doubts? How do you join a team scandalized by doping and claim to be clean? How do you go back to Johan Bruyneel's camp without creating too much buzzkill for your rep? 

You say you'll have a totally transparent program with a website with all the results posted daily, and a program administered by someone whose reputation is way cleaner than almost any pro cyclist's could be. 

Then, once you're past all the early stages of doubt and potentially tricky publicity, you just say, oh, too hard, too expensive, too confusing to the uneducated cycling fans out there, all that. 

I would have been fine with Lance coming back and winning and me simply doubting he was clean. I would also have thought it awesome if he had come back WITHOUT mixmaster Bruyneel and Astana. After all, Bruyneel is a careful talker like a Nixonite looking for plausible deniability in this quote...

I never tested positive during my 12-year pro racing career (during which I won two stages of the Tour and wore the yellow jersey once - as well as rode off a hundred-foot cliff during one of the race's most spectacular crashes). No cyclist has ever tested positive for illegal drugs while riding for my team.

http://www.bicycling.com/tourdefrance/article/0,6802,s1-7-623-17501-1,00...

Bruyneel doesn't say nobody doped. Nobody tested positive. That's pretty clear sport talk to me. If you don't get caught you haven't cheated. It's the rules of the game. 

But Lance said he was going to do it to prove to us how clean he was, to help fight cancer, and of course to keep the spotlight on him for more than just dating rock stars, movie stars and child stars. Having done that he joined up with a team noted for doping violations and a leader noted for doping violations and got settled in.

Remember how many former domestiques have failed tests after leaving his team? Yes there are several possible interpretations, but I take it that they just weren't in a program as well-cloaked as that led by Bruyneel. I have no proof, just ideas, and I'm really not one to think people are cheating. But "Another One Bites the Dust" rings in my ears when I hear of the former Lance-workers, and others Google up on a search too...

But it hardly seems a stretch to point out that Beltran is the fifth rider to share one or more Armstrong triumphs and later either test positive or admit doping.

The rogues' gallery: another Spaniard, Roberto Heras, and U.S. riders Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis and Frankie Andreu.

Armstrong, it must be said, never was sanctioned for a positive doping test.

Of course, he did test positive for a corticosteroid during his first triumph, in 1999, but that result conveniently went away after he produced a therapeutic use exemption for the drug -- although that paperwork allegedly was backdated.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/2008/07/the-dope-on-lan.html

So people more knowledgeable than myself seem to be having similar doubts. For an update and follow-up on his piece above, see Philip Hersh again...

It's just that Armstrong made such a big deal of Catlin's role during the New York press conference announcing his return to competition -- and again at a cycling trade show in Las Vegas a day later -- that it seems pretty hypocritical to have the deal end before it began.

It actually has been unraveling for a month. In the beginning, Armstrong said he would be so transparent that the Catlin test results would be posted on a website. Then, at the Tour Down Under in January, he skimmed back on the website idea, saying the uninformed public might misinterpret scientific data.  And he also said the Catlin program had yet to get up and running.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/02/armstrong-fails.html

Also see, with comments, http://www.europeloton.com/2008/07/another-lance-armstrong-domestique.html

So Lance is the 7-time-consecutive Tour de France champ and what he did was amazing even if doped. I grant that. Just one ride through the grass down a hill in France could have ended it, and so many other incidents. But Lance wanted us to believe he did it all clean.

I don't believe that any more. Not that he needs me to. But if he did, well, then he has enough money to fix any shortage of ability to get around complications, hassles, lack of any service, anywhere. He knew what it would be like before he made his claims. It's not like he hasn't cycled on a team or trained outside the USA before. 

So I'm back to hoping he does great. If he wins, yay USA, nervously. If he dopes I hope he gets caught. If he doesn't win I'll take that to be because he can't dope and win, not that he's older.

But the sad part is that now I am wondering more about Levi than I ever have, considering the old birds of a feather fly together verbomb my grandma would have dropped at this point were this a conversation with her.

Of course she also said "Don't take it so hard. It might not be true."

Why do I care about pro cycling? Why can't I just consider it pro wrestling and be done with it? 

Armstrong's drug-testing program scrapped - The Associated Press -

SuperSport

Armstrong's drug-testing program scrapped The Associated Press - 59 minutes ago When the seven-time Tour de France winner announced his comeback, he said he wanted to prove he was clean by getting anti-doping expert Don Catlin to test ... Armstrong’s Testing Plan Ends Before it Begins New York Times Lance Armstrong Abandons Anti-Dope Testing Before It Begins FanHouse Don Catlin and Lance Armstrong part ways BikeRadar.com Globetrotting - Chicago Tribune Blog - The Associated Press all 190 news articles