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On August 24 2012 12:22 Enzymatic wrote:
Personally, if I knew I legitimately won 7 tour de france's.. Then I would NEVER just do something like this and accept defeat.
That's easy to say when you dont actually have to live through this all. He has a lot of eyes on him during these trials plus all the stress + the time. Having something like this hanging over you all the time isn't exactly fun and it also puts a lot of stress on the relations with the people around you. You are going to have sleepless nights, you are going to be moody and you are going to say thins to people you love that might end up destroying the relationships you have with these people. It's also completely counterproductive to the work hes trying to do with his organization.
Remember. He just went through all this! The conclusion was that he has not used any doping, they found nothing after checking and rechecking etc 100s of tests. Imagine the relief for him as a person that it was all over, finally, after so many years. And now this organisation wants to put him through all of it again?! And whos to say after this there isn't someone else who feels like doing another investigation? I can really understand his point of view on the matter. Enough is enough.
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On August 25 2012 05:29 Silidons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2012 04:28 StarStruck wrote:On August 25 2012 03:39 multiversed wrote:
i'm also curious about testosterone in his system. it is common for people in his situation to have replacement therapy because they can no longer produce normal levels. this has become the recent medical marijuana style trend in MMA. everyone is filing for TRT permits and getting them... it's a really blurry fucking line. When they get older yes and everyone's testosterone levels are different. There are ways to enhance it naturally and unnaturally. You really need to know tabs on the athletes to know what is normal for them compared to abnormal. Average for a male in his late teens/early 20's to is have ~500-800ng/dL. With only ~250mg/wk of a long ester testosterone (labs seem to use cypionate esters more often then not) you can maintain levels of ~800ng/dL of testosterone. It's not linear when you increase, I've seen guys who are taking 500mg/wk have levels of >2000ng/dL. Anything above 1000ng/dL = taking testosterone. Fun fact: in sports, they don't test your testosterone levels, they test your testosterone:epi-testosterone ratio. You can just inject epi-testosterone to keep the ratio correct even while taking over a 1000mg/wk of testosterone. But in cycling, they use EPO. It's not a steroid - it has to do with blood. Risky shit. You can die if you don't know what you're doing with EPO.
I gave the dumbdown version. What you said is accurate.
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On August 25 2012 05:19 JackDT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2012 05:07 superstartran wrote:
Here's the issue. Yes, Lance Armstrong's numbers ARE strongly suspicious.
The issue is that there is no definitive proof that he cheated. None. No positive test, ever. No case that has been brought against him has ever succeeded. Ever. If you want to catch the guy, then do it. So either the guy has had literally the best doping doctors/methods on the planet to avoid the USADA, the French Govt/Agencies, the WADA, and UCI, or maybe, just maybe he was the exception? I don't know; but I'd like to believe the guy is innocent before proven guilty. Show nested quote +AS: So based on that, you can definitively say that Lance Armstrong used EPO in the '99 Tour. No doubt in your mind.
MA: There is no doubt in my mind these samples contain synthetic EPO, they belong to Lance Armstrong, and there's no conceivable way that I can see that a lab could've spiked them in a way that the data has presented itself. So there is no doubt in my mind he took EPO during the '99 Tour.
AS: The other thing that struck me about these results, which I was surprised never came up before, was that if you take away those 6 positives, you have 7 remaining positives out of 81 samples. That's 8.6%. Does that say to you that at that time the peloton was relatively clean?
MA: Yeah, it's an interesting observation, 'cause you cast back to the '98 Tour, obviously it was a debacle. And, I've heard anecdotal or off the cuff remarks, that '99 was a new beginning. It had gotten as bad as it could possibly get, or so we would've thought, and '99 was, "Ok, let's start again, we've really got to make an effort to be clean this year."
Well, obviously, based on Lance Armstrong's results, he wasn't racing clean. But for the rest of the samples collected during the Tour, relatively speaking there wasn't a very high prevalence of EPO use in the rest of the peloton, at least in the peloton that was tested, which was your top 3 place getters, for example.
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden?null
Ashden oversimplifies the fact that a lab technician could have easily spiked the sample. He says "it's impossible to get this type of fluctuation" when you're not aiming for an exact number, you just have to make it look realistic enough to simulate it. There's been alot of talk about it, and people have actually come up with similar results in their own labs.
The biggest issue that Ashden simply loves to ignore (and he ignores this every time someone brings it up) is that the EPO that is supposedly present is a synthetic grade EPO. And yet somehow, for the prologue stage the EPO is at 100%. That scientifically doesn't make any fucking sense, because even stored at the proper temperatures, even just after a year, the EPO would degrade over time. This has been gone over numerous times, and a big reason why this evidence is NEVER used in a court of law or court of arbitration against Armstrong.
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Russian Federation823 Posts
On August 25 2012 04:52 superstartran wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2012 04:31 kusto wrote:I don't know what the fuck all guys are arguing that there is no evidence? Here, i'll even paste it from Wikipedia: On August 23, 2005, L'Équipe, a major French daily sports newspaper, reported on its front page under the headline "le mensonge Armstrong" ("The Armstrong Lie") that 6 urine samples taken from the cyclist during the prologue and five stages of the 1999 Tour de France, frozen and stored since at "Laboratoire national de dépistage du dopage de Châtenay-Malabry" (LNDD), had tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO) in recent retesting conducted as part of a research project into EPO testing methods.[96][97] Armstrong immediately replied on his website, saying, "Unfortunately, the witch hunt continues and tomorrow's article is nothing short of tabloid journalism. The paper even admits in its own article that the science in question here is faulty and that I have no way to defend myself. They state: 'There will therefore be no counter-exam nor regulatory prosecutions, in a strict sense, since defendant's rights cannot be respected.' I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance enhancing drugs."[98] In October 2008, the AFLD gave Armstrong the opportunity to have samples taken during the 1998 and 1999 Tours de France retested.[99] Armstrong immediately refused, saying, "the samples have not been maintained properly." Head of AFLD Pierre Bordry stated: "Scientifically there is no problem to analyze these samples – everything is correct" and "If the analysis is clean it would have been very good for him. But he doesn't want to do it and that's his problem."[100] Yes, because when the synthetic EPO present in the samples somehow did not degrade over a decade, it constitutes as an absolutely untampered and fair test right?
6 years is not a decade, and no.
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On August 25 2012 05:47 kusto wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2012 04:52 superstartran wrote:On August 25 2012 04:31 kusto wrote:I don't know what the fuck all guys are arguing that there is no evidence? Here, i'll even paste it from Wikipedia: On August 23, 2005, L'Équipe, a major French daily sports newspaper, reported on its front page under the headline "le mensonge Armstrong" ("The Armstrong Lie") that 6 urine samples taken from the cyclist during the prologue and five stages of the 1999 Tour de France, frozen and stored since at "Laboratoire national de dépistage du dopage de Châtenay-Malabry" (LNDD), had tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO) in recent retesting conducted as part of a research project into EPO testing methods.[96][97] Armstrong immediately replied on his website, saying, "Unfortunately, the witch hunt continues and tomorrow's article is nothing short of tabloid journalism. The paper even admits in its own article that the science in question here is faulty and that I have no way to defend myself. They state: 'There will therefore be no counter-exam nor regulatory prosecutions, in a strict sense, since defendant's rights cannot be respected.' I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance enhancing drugs."[98] In October 2008, the AFLD gave Armstrong the opportunity to have samples taken during the 1998 and 1999 Tours de France retested.[99] Armstrong immediately refused, saying, "the samples have not been maintained properly." Head of AFLD Pierre Bordry stated: "Scientifically there is no problem to analyze these samples – everything is correct" and "If the analysis is clean it would have been very good for him. But he doesn't want to do it and that's his problem."[100] Yes, because when the synthetic EPO present in the samples somehow did not degrade over a decade, it constitutes as an absolutely untampered and fair test right? 6 years is not a decade, and no.
Synthetic grade EPO degrades over time, especially over a span of 6 years even when properly stored. It would be impossible for the EPO to maintain 100% grade over 6 years. There's a reason why you have never seen this used in a court of law or in a sports arbitration trial against Armstrong, and the primary reasons are because of the lack of a Sample A, and the fact that no one has ever addressed the fact as to why the EPO just magically somehow maintained perfect grade over a span of 6 years.
That test was complete bullshit and everyone knew it. Ashden never addresses the fact that somehow that the EPO in the prologue stage is magically 100%, which is complete nonsense since all forms of EPO that are utilized are all biodegradable. Over such a long span of time, even in a completely controlled environment, you would expect to see some levels of degradation. This is why no one has ever attempted to utilized this well known and public evidence against Armstrong, because there's too much evidence that demonstrates that it could have been tampered with. There was clearly no chain of custody, a huge lack of security, a massive amount of miscommunication, and no following of any scientific protocol or WADA protocol.
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Long overdue. Have been following this for years. The guy is such a fraud and has created such a bullshit aura about him people just refuse to accept he cheated regardless of all the evidence, any defense of him just comes across as mindless trolling. Credit to the USADA for not being bullied into giving up in their pursuit of him. It is a great shame they will come under criticism for doing what was right.
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They can't use it in court because it wasn't a doping test. If you really believe some lab employee managed to screw over Armstrong by spiking anomynous urine samples with EPO, I don't think there's any point to argue.
But there is a new reason not to argue. Armstrong admitted to doping today.
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On August 25 2012 06:01 Hanakurena wrote:
They can't use it in court because it wasn't a doping test. If you really believe some lab employee managed to screw over Armstrong by spiking anomynous urine samples with EPO, I don't think there's any point to argue.
But there is a new reason not to argue. Armstrong admitted to doping today.
Would you care to explain how Armstrong's blood sample contains 100% EPO that has mysteriously not degraded? Because Christian Ayotte, one of the scientists who helped catch Floyd Landis, pretty much pointed out that the likely hood of having 100% pristine EPO sample after 6 years is highly unlikely.
They can't use it because Ayotte and Armstrong's lawyers blew a massive hole into the whole thing when they pointed out that no WADA protocol was followed, and the fact that the 100% EPO level in the prologue level was extremely suspect, especially since the test was carried out 6 years later.
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On August 25 2012 06:00 fbs wrote:
Long overdue. Have been following this for years. The guy is such a fraud and has created such a bullshit aura about him people just refuse to accept he cheated regardless of all the evidence, any defense of him just comes across as mindless trolling. Credit to the USADA for not being bullied into giving up in their pursuit of him. It is a great shame they will come under criticism for doing what was right.
Yes , I have to agree with the last point, we have to give a LOT of credit to USADA. A lot of other countries would probably have refused to charge such a famous and popular compatriote athlete and would have tried to burry the case. They showed a very high level of independence.
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On August 25 2012 06:00 fbs wrote:
Long overdue. Have been following this for years. The guy is such a fraud and has created such a bullshit aura about him people just refuse to accept he cheated regardless of all the evidence, any defense of him just comes across as mindless trolling. Credit to the USADA for not being bullied into giving up in their pursuit of him. It is a great shame they will come under criticism for doing what was right.
Lol...
What is doping? Performance enhancing drugs? What about athletes with a genetic condition that grants them higher blood cells, better VO2 max, stronger muscle fibers and whatnot? Competing was never fair to start with (and will never be) because everyone is different.
Ban all the substances you want, teams with more money will compete at high altitude to raise their blood cells level. They will have better gear, better trainers and support. How is that any more fair than resorting to substances that can be detrimental to your health and in no way guarantee winning.
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How people can still believe in his innocence is beyond me. If I had legitimately won those 7 titles I would defend myself to the grave. USADA obviously has fairly strong evidence to show his guilt that Lance doesn't want to get aired.
I hope the UCI follows through with stripping the titles also.
And let's remember Marion Jones never officially tested positive to anything illegal.
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On August 25 2012 06:09 RowdierBob wrote:
How people can still believe in his innocence is beyond me. If I had legitimately won those 7 titles I would defend myself to the grave. USADA obviously has fairly strong evidence to show his guilt that Lance doesn't want to get aired.
I hope the UCI follows through with stripping the titles also.
And let's remember Marion Jones never officially tested positive to anything illegal.
Marion Jones was caught eventually on tests. They just got her to confess before they blew the case on her.
If you've been following the case closely, you'd know that the USADA's case entirely hinges on the testimony of multiple former teammates who have been caught, and various other people who have been involved with the whole doping thing. They have no real physical evidence that Armstrong was cheating. They haven't shared their evidence with the UCI because their entire case hinges on pretty much complete hearsay that they likely coerced out of the witnesses by cutting deals with them to lessen any punishments that they may have gotten otherwise. Also, the likely hood of them getting a positive out of any of Armstrong's previous samples is highly unlikely, as his samples have been tested over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. So either Armstrong is pretty much the fucking best doper in the world, even better than Marion Jones, Flojo, etc. or he really is just the exception to the rule. I have my suspicions about him, but I'm not going to brand a man a cheater unless I see definitive proof that they have found on virtually every cycler but Armstrong.
If the USADA does actually come forward and demonstrate that they have irrefutable proof, then I'll accept that. It won't change my opinion on Armstrong as a person; it just means that he belongs in an era where pretty much everyone cheated. Is it a bad thing? Yeah. But considering his other accomplishments that have helped so many more people, and his inspirational story for other cancer victims? It's not so bad in the grand scheme of things.
That being said, if the USADA comes forward and only demonstrates that it's entire case hinges on witness testimony, there's going to be a huge fight between the USADA and the UCI, because the UCI is not going to let the USADA crucify Lance Armstrong purely on hearsay that was very likely coerced out of them.
And reading the case again, it seems like they only have demonstrated that there could have been potential blood manipulation in 2009-2010; which means that again, they still do not have definitive proof. They are going to have to prove a whole lot to the UCI for the UCI to strip Armstrong of his titles, because circumstantial evidence isn't going to enough for the UCI to go forward and strip Armstrong of his titles.
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On August 25 2012 06:07 AeroGear wrote:
[
What is doping? Performance enhancing drugs? What about athletes with a genetic condition that grants them higher blood cells, better VO2 max, stronger muscle fibers and whatnot? Competing was never fair to start with (and will never be) because everyone is different.
Ban all the substances you want, teams with more money will compete at high altitude to raise their blood cells level. They will have better gear, better trainers and support. How is that any more fair than resorting to substances that can be detrimental to your health and in no way guarantee winning.
It's not primarily about some concept of fairness. It's about not getting into a situation where all the riders feel forced to take EPO, and the ones who take the most being the most succesful, pushing everyone to take even more, and on and on.
To repost:
Would elite athletes take a drug to win a gold medal, if it killed them five years later?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/phys-ed-will-olympic-athletes-dope-if-they-know-it-might-kill-them/#more-23071
There’s a well-known survey in sports, known as the Goldman Dilemma. For it, a researcher, Bob Goldman, began asking elite athletes in the 1980s whether they would take a drug that guaranteed them a gold medal but would also kill them within five years. More than half of the athletes said yes. When he repeated the survey biannually for the next decade, the results were always the same. About half of the athletes were quite ready to take the bargain.
Only recently did researchers get around to asking nonathletes the same question. In results published online in February, 2009 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, exactly 2 of the 250 people surveyed in Sydney, Australia, said that they would take a drug that would ensure both success and an early death. “We were surprised,” James Connor, Ph.D., a lecturer at the University of New South Wales and one of the study’s authors, said in an e-mail message. “I expected 10-20 percent yes.” His conclusion, unassailable if inexplicable, is that “elite athletes are different from the general population, especially on desire to win.”
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The problem lies in the "must win at all cost" mentality then. As long as the rewards for winning are so high ($ and fame), athletes will do it.
Wether from taking drugs, or training SO HARD, their joints and bones are pretty much done for by the time they retire (at 30?).
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
I think it's unlikely that Armstrong would just roll over if there wasn't any truth to these allegations. For goodness sake, the guy fought and beat cancer. He isn't going to fold over and give up his life's accomplishments just because it's too much to handle.
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On August 24 2012 12:09 Al Bundy wrote:
"Regardless if he did or not, it's still a huge accomplishment"
no no no no you got it all wrong. accomplishments while under the effect of doping are worth nothing. If "he did", these accomplishments don't exist.
lol.
you realize that everyone in the top 10 "did"?
and he was still the best by FAR.
for me, he will always remain the greatest cycler there has ever been, simply because he won it 7 times in a row in a time where everyone of his opponents was doping as well.
who do you want to give the tour wins?
ullrich? basso?
what u said is simply dumb -,-
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Wait... so there are no positive drug tests and the USADA that's convicting Armstrong can't actually ban anyone or strip anyone of their titles?
Why the fuck does anyone give a shit about this then?
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On August 25 2012 06:34 Telcontar wrote:
I think it's unlikely that Armstrong would just roll over if there wasn't any truth to these allegations. For goodness sake, the guy fought and beat cancer. He isn't going to fold over and give up his life's accomplishments just because it's too much to handle.
It's likely a tactical move by Armstrong more than anything. He wants the case to go to a Court of Arbitration where the evidence will not be held in a public court, therefore damaging his reputation and career. Both sides know this. He knew that if he stood trial in the USADA's hearings, his entire career/reputation would be stained no matter what if he was innocent/guilty/etc.
By getting the UCI involved, he not only prevents the evidence from being made public, but he also now no longer has to deal with a circus media frenzy around his case. The UCI will force the USADA's hand by saying that they need to cough up real evidence that Armstrong was doping, and not hearsay/testimony. If the USADA cannot produce definitive evidence that Armstrong was doping, the UCI will likely contest the USADA's ruling.
On August 25 2012 06:44 ShatterZer0 wrote:
Wait... so there are no positive drug tests and the USADA that's convicting Armstrong can't actually ban anyone or strip anyone of their titles?
Why the fuck does anyone give a shit about this then?
There is no positive drug test, only supposed manipulation of blood during 2009-2010 (which I have serious doubts about; if they can prove that there is some masking drug or an actual positive then maybe they have a case), and testimony from many former teammates and confidants that were involved in doping from the 90s-2000s. If so, the testimony from all of them can be questioned, as many of them were likely coerced by deals cut with the USADA. Armstrong isn't likely done with this at all; it's a move to get this to move into an International court, rather than a USADA hearing where he will get his reputation slugged through the mud whether or not he is innocent or not.
Unless the USADA has some real solid evidence, they are gonna be in deep shit if this gets moved to an international court of arbitration. The UCI is the one that has to strip Armstrong, and if they contest the evidence that the USADA brings (which they all but likely will, as the USADA has no physical evidence that Armstrong doped during his TdF victories), it's gonna be real funny to watch the USADA go down in flames.
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On August 25 2012 06:16 superstartran wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2012 06:09 RowdierBob wrote:
How people can still believe in his innocence is beyond me. If I had legitimately won those 7 titles I would defend myself to the grave. USADA obviously has fairly strong evidence to show his guilt that Lance doesn't want to get aired.
I hope the UCI follows through with stripping the titles also.
And let's remember Marion Jones never officially tested positive to anything illegal. Marion Jones was caught eventually on tests. They just got her to confess before they blew the case on her. If you've been following the case closely, you'd know that the USADA's case entirely hinges on the testimony of multiple former teammates who have been caught, and various other people who have been involved with the whole doping thing. They have no real physical evidence that Armstrong was cheating. They haven't shared their evidence with the UCI because their entire case hinges on pretty much complete hearsay that they likely coerced out of the witnesses by cutting deals with them to lessen any punishments that they may have gotten otherwise. Also, the likely hood of them getting a positive out of any of Armstrong's previous samples is highly unlikely, as his samples have been tested over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. So either Armstrong is pretty much the fucking best doper in the world, even better than Marion Jones, Flojo, etc. or he really is just the exception to the rule. I have my suspicions about him, but I'm not going to brand a man a cheater unless I see definitive proof that they have found on virtually every cycler but Armstrong. If the USADA does actually come forward and demonstrate that they have irrefutable proof, then I'll accept that. It won't change my opinion on Armstrong as a person; it just means that he belongs in an era where pretty much everyone cheated. Is it a bad thing? Yeah. But considering his other accomplishments that have helped so many more people, and his inspirational story for other cancer victims? It's not so bad in the grand scheme of things. That being said, if the USADA comes forward and only demonstrates that it's entire case hinges on witness testimony, there's going to be a huge fight between the USADA and the UCI, because the UCI is not going to let the USADA crucify Lance Armstrong purely on hearsay that was very likely coerced out of them. And reading the case again, it seems like they only have demonstrated that there could have been potential blood manipulation in 2009-2010; which means that again, they still do not have definitive proof. They are going to have to prove a whole lot to the UCI for the UCI to strip Armstrong of his titles, because circumstantial evidence isn't going to enough for the UCI to go forward and strip Armstrong of his titles.
You are digging pretty deep into the trench here. Just saying, is all!
I would like to know why he stops at this point?
He is pretty clearly putting in a lot of effort to defame USADA, but given the general appearence of USADA, they are relatively conservative and should if anything be seen as a good place for a "hearing" on doping from the athletes point of view. Why did he go to the extend of getting a congressman involved before the case? http://www.usada.org/media/release-sensenbrenner, Why did he try to get the USADA declared unfit for running the case? http://www.usada.org/media/statement8102012
Arguing against the authority of USADA in an Olympic discipline seems pretty desperate to be honest.
If I were to speculate I would say that there is something in this case he does not want to be brought to the light of day. Whatever it may be, his actions are very suspicious in this case and I am having a hard time seeing how he can pull out of it unscratched. On another note, a big shoutout to one of the best lawyers in the industry. The handling from mr. Armstrongs lawyer in this and earlier cases has been extremely solid.
I am however sorry that mr. Armstrong do not want to go through with the arbitration. If he really was innocent it would be as good a way to show as any.
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On August 25 2012 06:50 radiatoren wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2012 06:16 superstartran wrote:On August 25 2012 06:09 RowdierBob wrote:
How people can still believe in his innocence is beyond me. If I had legitimately won those 7 titles I would defend myself to the grave. USADA obviously has fairly strong evidence to show his guilt that Lance doesn't want to get aired.
I hope the UCI follows through with stripping the titles also.
And let's remember Marion Jones never officially tested positive to anything illegal. Marion Jones was caught eventually on tests. They just got her to confess before they blew the case on her. If you've been following the case closely, you'd know that the USADA's case entirely hinges on the testimony of multiple former teammates who have been caught, and various other people who have been involved with the whole doping thing. They have no real physical evidence that Armstrong was cheating. They haven't shared their evidence with the UCI because their entire case hinges on pretty much complete hearsay that they likely coerced out of the witnesses by cutting deals with them to lessen any punishments that they may have gotten otherwise. Also, the likely hood of them getting a positive out of any of Armstrong's previous samples is highly unlikely, as his samples have been tested over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. So either Armstrong is pretty much the fucking best doper in the world, even better than Marion Jones, Flojo, etc. or he really is just the exception to the rule. I have my suspicions about him, but I'm not going to brand a man a cheater unless I see definitive proof that they have found on virtually every cycler but Armstrong. If the USADA does actually come forward and demonstrate that they have irrefutable proof, then I'll accept that. It won't change my opinion on Armstrong as a person; it just means that he belongs in an era where pretty much everyone cheated. Is it a bad thing? Yeah. But considering his other accomplishments that have helped so many more people, and his inspirational story for other cancer victims? It's not so bad in the grand scheme of things. That being said, if the USADA comes forward and only demonstrates that it's entire case hinges on witness testimony, there's going to be a huge fight between the USADA and the UCI, because the UCI is not going to let the USADA crucify Lance Armstrong purely on hearsay that was very likely coerced out of them. And reading the case again, it seems like they only have demonstrated that there could have been potential blood manipulation in 2009-2010; which means that again, they still do not have definitive proof. They are going to have to prove a whole lot to the UCI for the UCI to strip Armstrong of his titles, because circumstantial evidence isn't going to enough for the UCI to go forward and strip Armstrong of his titles. You are digging pretty deep into the trench here. Just saying, is all! I would like to know why he stops at this point? He is pretty clearly putting in a lot of effort to defame USADA, but given the general appearence of USADA, they are relatively conservative and should if anything be seen as a good place for a "hearing" on doping from the athletes point of view. Why did he go to the extend of getting a congressman involved before the case? http://www.usada.org/media/release-sensenbrenner, Why did he try to get the USADA declared unfit for running the case? http://www.usada.org/media/statement8102012Arguing against the authority of USADA in an Olympic discipline seems pretty desperate to be honest. If I were to speculate I would say that there is something in this case he does not want to be brought to the light of day. Whatever it may be, his actions are very suspicious in this case and I am having a hard time seeing how he can pull out of it unscratched. On another note, a big shoutout to one of the best lawyers in the industry. The handling from mr. Armstrongs lawyer in this and earlier cases has been extremely solid. I am however sorry that mr. Armstrong do not want to go through with the arbitration. If he really was innocent it would be as good a way to show as any.
He does not want to go through an arbitration process in the U.S.; by avoiding this, he forces the USADA's hand and they HAVE to interact with the UCI in order to get the UCI to strip him of his titles. When the case gets moved out of the USADA's hands, and into an International Court of Arbitration of Sports, shit gets alot different. They can't rely on witness testimony alone; the burden of proof is for them to prove definitively that Armstrong cheated.
Unless the USADA has definitive proof, they are going to have a hard team dealing with the UCI. The UCI isn't going to let the USADA simply destroy the only cycling Icon that they have without a fight.
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EPT
