On first glimpse you areprobably thinking this was written in 2005 and Lance had captured his seventhTour de France victory. But no, the year is 2013 and the statement stands.
In June 2012 the US anti-doping agency(USADA) found him guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs and in August ofthe same year he was given a lifetime ban and stripped of all of his titles wonsince 1998. Armstrong chose not to appeal the ban but never categoricallyconfirmed his drug usage until he subtly disclosed the details of his drugsprogramme to Oprah Windfrey and her three million viewers in January of2013.Now, Lance has heroically put himself forward to assist in the crackdownof the use of drugs in sport, stating, "This is about cyclingand, to be frank, it's about all endurance sports."
The question then remains, ‘are we to trust this man?’
He claims to want to start fresh and ‘become a new man’ but by the looks ofthings he is still up to his old tricks. Cast your mind back to that interviewwith Oprah where he admitted he had taken drugs frequently but not in 2009 and2010. Why not? Because he really is this changed man and is ready to tackle thedrugs problem in cycling- fact! There is absolutely no suggestion it hasanything to do with the fact that under the statue of liberations, he can onlybe charged for fraud for those years and nothing prior to. You can just seeanother court case with more lawyers arguing his innocence all over again.
But what still remains is the fact that he was part of “the most sophisticated, professionalized andsuccessful doping program that sport has ever seen” (USADA) -and the man at thecentre of all of this will have contacts. This same man will know exactly whois involved, where they obtain their drugs from and most importantly who is thepioneer of all of this- the athlete? The coach? Or perhaps someone moreexternal but equally as powerful such as a sponsor? These are questions easy toanswer when you have someone who has taken part in an operation as covert asArmstrong’s. It has become very clear that for him to ‘play ball’ he will wantfavours, but who wouldn’t when you’re facing a $12 million payback to SCApromotions.
Armstrong will weasel hisway out of this somehow –he always does- and for that reason we must use hisknowledge to find other drug cheats and other drug networks to preservecycling. LA Confidential was published in 2004 and completely proved Armstrongwas taking performance enhancing drugs, including a number of eye witness’ whosaw Michelle Ferrari injecting Armstrong with EPO (drug used to boost red bloodcell count). Yet, Armstrong was able to preserve his name and continue tocycle, until 2012. In 2005, six of his urine samples contained EPO but afterfurther prompted investigation on Armstrong’s behalf by Dutch lawyer EmileVrijman the samples were disregarded due to improper handling and testing.
If we give him any creditat all it is that he is a very hard worker and cunning. The physiologicaleffects of erythropoietin (EPO) ensure you either employ this hard work ethic,or you die. The science behind it is simple; red blood cells carry oxygen,boost your red blood cell count and you can carry more oxygen. Our body isunable to use one hundred percent of the oxygen we inhale so anything thatboosts this efficiency will help, especially if you are an endurance athlete.Why does this make him a hard worker? Well, we all have EPO in our body, itsperfectly natural but when we inject more EPO the blood becomes more viscous-thicker. If the viscosity of the blood is too high then it will ‘clog’ thecapillaries and will cause a heart attack. To counter this, you need to beexercising; this process lowers the hematocrit and thins the blood. Relativelyspeaking, if Lance Armstrong was not exercising for a large percentage of theday- he would have died. We can therefore assume he would be awake at all hoursof the night cycling as well as throughout the day. EPO requires hard work toreap the benefits and in fairness to Armstrong he would have had to put a lotof work in.
So we know the man is ahard worker, both to preserve his name and to enhance his performance.Therefore, we must conclude he is someone we want onside and in hindsight hepossibly can change the world of cycling. A big thumbs up to Lance working withUSADA and his battle with drug cheats? Absolutely not.
Whichever way you look atit, the man has disgraced the sport. No he is not alone and cheats like himhave damaged cycling to the extent that it seems cheats will forever plague thesport. But lifting his lifetime ban and allowing him immunity from paying backthe money he won unfairly, sends out the wrong message to competitorseverywhere. Every athlete has probably considered drugs but one of the majordeterrents is that if you are caught- you will be banned and you will pay. Ifwe then employ the biggest drugs cheat that has ever graced the sporting world,then the message becomes ‘if you’re caught, you’ll have to work for yournational doping agency’.
The man has had so muchimpact on the sport that we now question- is it possible to win the Tour deFrance without drugs? And we look at people like Bradley Wiggins and think ‘he’sprobably on drugs’ when in reality he is a clean, hard-working icon whodeserves every accolade presented to him. So therefore, what needs to happenhere is Mr Armstrong is placed in front of a jury and will have to either lieunder oath or come clean and pay for what he did. The people at the world antidoping agency (WADA) are catching cheats daily and definitely do not need thehelp from people like Lance Armstrong. The saviour of cycling? No. A catchytitle. The real title is ‘Lance Armstrong how do you plead?’
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