Executive Summary
According to the antidoping
vigilantes of our time an exceptional athlete like Lance Armstrong could not
have won without doping. Period! All they have to do is to prove it no matter
what it takes and how long it takes.
What is worse smart,
exceptional and average athletes who use some form of performance enhancement undetectable
at the time or antidoping vigilantes who do not mind using questionable or even
illegal means to harass such athletes over years? This is when antidoping becomes
zealotry.
Vigilantes Obsessed With Doping
What happened to Lance
Armstrong is a warning to any exceptional athlete: Anti doping zealots will come
after you until you surrender and admit under duress that you did it. It is a
modern, high tech witch hunt.
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Mr. Armstrong underwent so
many investigations into doping allegations. Over the past three years he was
subjected to an inconclusive federal criminal investigation, then followed by
US Anti Doping Agency (USADA). How many times or how often and over how many
years does an athlete have to be subjected to this kind of treatment?
“While USADA and some
independent hematologists who have seen the data say they suggest that Mr.
Armstrong was doping, other experts cited by Mr. Armstrong argue that all the fluctuations in the contents of Mr.
Armstrong's blood are well within the normal range for an athlete.
Although some athletes have
been sanctioned and banned based on these
long-term blood tests, they are open
to subjective interpretation and scientists often disagree on whether to
bring doping cases against athletes based on such results.” (Wall
Street Journal article dated 8/25/2012. Emphasis added)
Anti Doping Zealots Used Illegal Or Questionable
Methods
Lance Armstrong is reported to have passed over 500 anti
doping tests or more during his career. A Swiss laboratory refused to go along
…
Here is a relevant excerpt from a Wall
Street Journal article dated 8/25/2012 (Emphasis added):
“The new test, … if perfected, it could detect a molecule
contained in blood bags that would only be present in the system of a person
who had taken a transfusion.
The scientists, who worked for various antidoping
organizations around the world, approached … the Swiss-based International
Cycling Union, or UCI, with a plan, … They would get a sample of Mr.
Armstrong's blood during the race, freeze it at a doping lab, and after the test was perfected, use it to
determine whether he had cheated.
But the Swiss lab that handles Tour drug testing declined
to participate, … because the plan,
which also targeted other top riders, didn't follow the drug-testing protocols
set forth in the antidoping code that governs the sport”
“In 2004,
researchers from a French laboratory that had performed Tour de France drug
tests, working on their own, retested
dozens of preserved samples from the 1999 Tour. They were testing for EPO,
which hadn't been detectable at the time. … six of the samples that belonged to Mr.
Armstrong showed the presence of the blood-boosting drug.
In response …, the UCI opened an independent
investigation. Less than a year later, a report commissioned by the UCI said
that the tests shouldn't have been conducted at all and couldn't be acted upon
because they weren't performed according
to the organization's official drug-testing protocols, which are mandated
for all Olympic sports by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Mr. Armstrong vigorously denied taking the drug during
the race, questioned the validity of the tests and said the samples could have been tainted.”
Lance Armstrong In His Own Words
In a statement, Mr. Armstrong called the process
"one-sided and unfair," and said there was "zero physical
evidence" that he had cheated. "The bottom line is I played by the
rules that were put in place by the UCI, WADA and USADA when I raced"
"The idea that athletes can be convicted today
without positive…samples, under the same rules and procedures that apply to
athletes with positive tests, perverts the system,"
What About The Other Athletes Who Competed
With Lance Armstrong?
Have his competitors received
the same kind of attention by these antidoping vigilantes? Did these anti
doping zealots also run the same kind of extensive and ex post facto tests on
the competitors of Lance Armstrong? I doubt it. What if his competitors did
about the same doping or even other kinds as Mr. Armstrong is accused of? In
this case would his competitors be punished in the same way?
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