This ain't no court of law, but the way we are heading someone is (again) going to land in one. In summary,
Sports Illustrated has today published an extensive article based on their own investigation into the drug-abuse claims made by
Floyd Landis and others against the USPS professional cycling team, including one
Lance Armstrong. Yesterday Floyd stepped aside and said that cycling should fix its own problems from here; today he's back, angered in a way by the SI article. Meanwhile Lance denies all accusations.
It's a long but fascinating read and by no means does it cover every accusation ever laid at Lance's door. It doesn't represent a legal case against Armstrong but it does summarise many of the claims made over the years and adds some more recent quotes from the people concerned. As I said, Armstrong denies all and we have to take him at his word. But it's quite stunning to read all of this in SI, which has previously named LA their "sportsman of the year". I have pulled some quotes from the SI article, below.
But what of Floyd's
gun control analogy? In Floyd's view the "bad guys" (in the US) already have guns (read drugs) therefore we should just let everyone have them and 'control' it? However Australia for example has enforced tougher gun control since 1996, amid howls of protest from shooters, yet seems to have settled into a more peaceable, lower-risk state (although even that is disputed, some studies suggesting that as criminal or suicidal firearm use declined alternatives increased). However disputed, gun control has popular support, at least in Australia. I suspect that the general public also sees drug control in sport as a 'fairness' issue and that drug control remains a popularly supported action.
Arguments of fairness aside, legalising drugs in sport would possibly necessitate as much - or more - testing and thus cost at least as much as the current state, if cost concerns us. If you are to monitor the safe use of performance enhancing drugs (PED) then testing remains likely. And costly. Or do you legalise it and monitor overuse by PED-related illness, injury or death rates?
Alcohol is a dangerous yet generally legal - but
somewhat controlled - drug in wide community use, and alcohol-related health and social issues are manifold as well as obvious. Do we accept legalised alcohol use as a "success" and model PED use in the same way, allowing for extreme users to suffer the consequences?
And cigarette smoking remains legal yet somewhat controlled by taxes, availability and marketing for health (and societal cost) reasons. Is that a good model for PED use? Would it work as well?
It's a difficult moral and ethical question with no single "correct" answer; nor is it as easy to solve as simply giving up.
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultAround 8 p.m. on Nov. 11, 2010, Italian police and customs officials acting at the behest of agents of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled over Yaroslav Popovych as he drove on a roundabout in Quarrata, a quaint Tuscan village of stucco facades and colorful shutters between Pistoia and Florence. The officials had been looking for Popovych, one of Lance Armstrong's Radio Shack teammates, to execute a search warrant. Italian authorities say the Ukrainian cyclist was startled but cooperative. He led them through olive groves to his house beside a cemetery. There the officials found drug-testing documents, medical supplies and performance-enhancing drugs. They also found e-mails and texts that, they say, establish that as recently as 2009 Armstrong's team had links to controversial Italian physician Michele Ferrari, with whom the Texan had said he cut ties in 2004.
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultLance Armstrong entered the Olympic world around 1990, at age 19, after a transition from competing in the triathlon. Two of his teammates on the 1990 U.S. junior team, Greg Strock and Erich Kaiter, claimed in a suit against USA Cycling in 2000 that coaches administered steroids to them in 1990, damaging their immune systems and cutting short their careers, according to documents from the suit. Neither Strock nor Kaiter ever tested positive. The suit was settled in November 2006; USA Cycling paid each rider $250,000.
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultIn May 1999, USA Cycling sent a formal request to Catlin for past test results—specifically, testosterone-epitestosterone ratios—for a cyclist identified only by his drug-testing code numbers. A source with knowledge of the request says that the cyclist was Lance Armstrong. In a letter dated June 4, 1999, Catlin responded that the lab couldn't recover a total of five of the cyclist's test results from 1990, 1992 and 1993, adding, "The likelihood that we will be able to recover these old files is low." The letter went on to detail the cyclist's testosterone-epitestosterone results from 1991 to 1998, with one missing season: 1997, the only year during that span in which Armstrong didn't compete. Three results stand out: a 9.0-to-1 ratio from a sample collected on June 23, 1993; a 7.6-to-1 from July 7, 1994; and a 6.5-to-1 from June 4, 1996. Most people have a ratio of 1-to-1. Prior to 2005, any ratio above 6.0-to-1 was considered abnormally high and evidence of doping; in 2005 that ratio was lowered to 4.0-to-1.
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultDuring an interview with SI last week, Catlin was read his 1999 letter. He said that because he tested by code and not by name, he has "no clue which sample belonged to Lance," but he admits the data are disturbing. He explains that one failed confirmation would be a "once-in-a-blue-moon" occurrence. As for the three high T/E ratio results detailed in the letter, he says, "that's very strange." When Catlin's letter was read to Breidbach recently, he too expressed concern, saying, "Wow, that should not happen. If you find a nine and can't confirm, then something is very wrong with your screening test."
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultAccording to Betsy Andreu's statement, Armstrong was asked, "Have you ever done any performance-enhancing drugs?" By Andreu's account, Armstrong said yes and then listed them: EPO, growth hormone, cortisone, steroids and testosterone.
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultSwart says that on a recovery ride after a race in Italy that March, Armstrong, disappointed with the team's result, had suggested that riders start taking EPO, which was banned by the IOC in 1990. "He was the instigator," Swart says. "It was his words that pushed us toward doing it. It was his advice, his discussions."
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultMike Anderson says he felt a dull sadness as he stared at the little white cardboard box in Armstrong's bathroom cabinet. His eyes focused on the word ANDRO written on the label. Anderson tried to rationalize it. Maybe it was leftover cancer medication, but this was 2004, long after Armstrong's disease had been defeated, and there was no prescription attached.
AS THE CYCLIST AND CANCER CRUSADER FACES - 01.24.11 - SI VaultThe agents looked through the bag and found syringes and drugs with labels written in Spanish. As Landis recounts, Armstrong then asked a member of the contingent to talk to the agents and persuade them that the drugs were vitamins and that the syringes were for vitamin injections. Says Landis, "The agents looked at us sideways but let us through."
A Summary Of The Sports Illustrated Lance Armstrong Investigation | Cyclingnews.comSwart says he took EPO but admits he never saw Armstrong or another teammate from the Motorola team take the drug. However he claims that during internal blood testing on July 17, 1995, “Lance was at 54 or 56 (blood haematocrit percentage).” In 2001 the UCI introduced a limit of 50%, while an average male value is around 43%.
Armstrong's spokesman Mark Fabiani told Cyclingnews, "The story is filled with old news, recycling the same old tired lies from the same old tired liars".
A spokesman from Sports Illustrated told Cyclingnews, "We stand by the reporting in the story."
Floyd Landis Calls For Legalised Doping | Cyclingnews.comHowever Landis's beliefs that doping should be legalised come on the back of his retirement. He told Cyclingnews:
"In the US we have these gun laws where half the country thinks we should have them and half don't, but the fact of the matter is that the bad guys have guns and you can't get them back from the bad guys. It's nice to live in a pretend world where you can start over, where you say you're not going to have guns, well that's wonderful and good luck with that and go to church on Sundays and enjoy yourself, but the fact of the matter is that there are guns and the bad guys have them and trying to keep others from having them isn't going to accomplish anything," he said, using guns as an analogy for doping in sport.
