"Never Tested Positive"

Frigo's Luggage said:

Riis never tested positive. Ulrich never tested positive. Will all of the Armstrong lovers out there now agree that the "never tested positive" spin is meaningless? Can we agree that you guys will never raise that issue again? I never tested positive for psuedofed. However, I am pretty certain that I have raced with it in my system.

Never tested positive doesn't mean you doped. Otherwise, every negative test is really a hidden positive. Faulty logic, unless you think 100% of the peleton dopes, in which case its an even playing field.

Serafino said:

Never tested positive doesn't mean you doped. Otherwise, every negative test is really a hidden positive. Faulty logic, unless you think 100% of the peleton dopes, in which case its an even playing field.

You missed the point. there is a difference between "didn't dope" and "never tested positive"... Subtle but different. That is what Frigo's Luggage wanted to point out. The hypocrisy of the latter.
And talking about "all dope"=>level playing field that is one the best examples of faulty logic. a) Dope affectes different people differently
b) Not all cyclists/athletes can afford the "top gear" and the "top service" ala Fuentes
c) Not all cyclists/athletes are prepared to use the riskier (and more effective) PEDs...
We have been through all this...

I didn't miss the point. I'm saying that anyone saying anything (didn't test positive, didn't dope, etc.) is under a cloud. Sad but true. Negatives mean nothing now given how many retired without any positive tests but have been shown to be dopers. At least in the public's eyes ...

For many Cycling = Doping. End of Story.

Serafino said:

Never tested positive doesn't mean you doped. Otherwise, every negative test is really a hidden positive. .

Never tested positive is no defence.

Given the circumstances this week, I'm amazed that anyone could give any rider the benefit of doubt based on their "never having tested positive" defence.

As well as doping being ethically/morally wrong - the byproduct of all this "never tested positive" stuff is that the innocent riders will also get tarnished.

Landis can't say..."never tested positive"... 😄

stevebaby said:

Landis can't say..."never tested positive"... 😄

Testing positive is stupid.
Paying lawyers a million dollars for your defense is dumber.
Donating your hard earned money to those lawyers is dumbest.

fscyclist said:

Testing positive is stupid.
Paying lawyers a million dollars for your defense is dumber.
Donating your hard earned money to those lawyers is dumbest.

Soliciting donations for the Floyd Fairness Fund and donating other people's money to the lawyers is just nasty.

We can only hope that would avoid to others to follow his example.

poulidor said:

We can only hope that would avoid to others to follow his example.

Personally i don't think anyone can truly believe that Armstrong never took banned substances now that most of his GC rivals have been caught out. The 20% improvements that EPO gives would be pretty impossible to beat for a clean rider and to do it 7 times is impossible.

Serafino said:

Never tested positive doesn't mean you doped. Otherwise, every negative test is really a hidden positive. Faulty logic, unless you think 100% of the peleton dopes, in which case its an even playing field.

It's not an even playing field. Not everyone can afford 30,000 Euro in dopage like Ullrich -- massive blood transfusions, micro dosing EPO, HGH, steroids, cortisone, hormones, amphetamines, and the medical attention of doctor to correctly administer and train with these products is prohibitively expensive for all but the most well paid cyclists. Most cyclists are probably shooting EPO in their basements and hoping for the best.

Even if you can pay for it, it becomes a question of how far a cyclist is willing to push it. Do you thicken your blood so much that you risk dying in your sleep? How mush testosterone do you take and still get away with it. Some, like Riis probably, are willing to take a lot more risks.

Ultimately, the "level playing field" argument is mostly an artful dodge to protect the sport as it is. But the playing field with dopage is no level and nothing should excuse it.

The only really good defence against people accusing you of doping is being **** and DNFing half your races. Then no one will believe you doped. Anyone who wins is automatically under suspicion because how could a clean rider possibly triumph over a doped rider supported by a doped team. Or if he could beat one how can he beat all of them.

tcklyde said:

It's not an even playing field. Not everyone can afford 30,000 Euro in dopage like Ullrich -- massive blood transfusions, micro dosing EPO, HGH, steroids, cortisone, hormones, amphetamines, and the medical attention of doctor to correctly administer and train with these products is prohibitively expensive for all but the most well paid cyclists. Most cyclists are probably shooting EPO in their basements and hoping for the best.

We don't actually know that for sure yet. Not that I condone doping at all and I am not defending anyone here but from what has come out of the Telekom of the 90's the dope was team supplied.

The very beginning of OP, Saiz was the guy busted with all the EPO. It was a metric [censored] load of dope, clearly for the whole team.

So to assume that only the big guys can afford the best dope could be naive, if the team is supplying that cash directly to the rider or the vendor of the dope.

If the teams do buy the dope (or give the cash to riders to do so) it’s going to be the teams with the biggest budgets who can afford the best doping programs.

Rhubarb said:

We don't actually know that for sure yet. Not that I condone doping at all and I am not defending anyone here but from what has come out of the Telekom of the 90's the dope was team supplied.

The very beginning of OP, Saiz was the guy busted with all the EPO. It was a metric [censored] load of dope, clearly for the whole team.

So to assume that only the big guys can afford the best dope could be naive, if the team is supplying that cash directly to the rider or the vendor of the dope.

If the teams do buy the dope (or give the cash to riders to do so) it’s going to be the teams with the biggest budgets who can afford the best doping programs.

Valid points but...
1) Even if doping is team supplied a team won't have a domestique on the same treatment as the team leader. The reasons are pretty much obvious.
2) The big guys can ask and receive "extra gear" either with the team knowing not and sometimes not... I think Voet in his book mentions that cyclists of Festina sought drugs from soigneurs and doctors outside the team because the team doctor (don't remember the name now) would not exceed a certain limit in what he would give them.
3) It 's not necessarily true that the team supplies the drugs or even knows about what's going on. It is very likely that they make clear what they expect of each rider in terms of performance and how the riders achieve it is their problem

I'm not one to think that LA was perfectly clean, but there was another factor very prevalent in his wins.

He had a team united behind him, at the same time that Ullrich did not. Vino was going off on pointless solo charges, and Zabel focused exclusively on sprints. If Ullrich had the same 8 dedicated supporters that LA had, he might have won in 2003. The same fractious war of personalities was seen on other teams, and still is - witness Di Luca's outburst on the Giro prologue this year.

There is more to cycling that just shooting up dope.

Yep. Armstrong had a great team. Heras, Landis, Hamilton, Andreu....

JohnO said:

I'm not one to think that LA was perfectly clean, but there was another factor very prevalent in his wins.

He had a team united behind him, at the same time that Ullrich did not. Vino was going off on pointless solo charges, and Zabel focused exclusively on sprints. If Ullrich had the same 8 dedicated supporters that LA had, he might have won in 2003. The same fractious war of personalities was seen on other teams, and still is - witness Di Luca's outburst on the Giro prologue this year.

There is more to cycling that just shooting up dope.

Frigo's Luggage said:

Yep. Armstrong had a great team. Heras, Landis, Hamilton, Andreu....

All busted when they left USPS/DC and were seduced by the wicked ways of Saiz, Riis, etc., save for Frankie who admitted doing it on his own without the teams knowledge).

Now, I'll say it again. I know a guy who raced for a Rabobank development team as a junior and U23. He told me a story last year (before OP broke - the day before actually) of systematic team initiated, supplied, and managed doping (EPO) at the team.

Sounds very much like the two doctors at Telekom story. Spot on actually. Some riders took the bait, some didn't out of concern for their health and/or moral issues.

This is not the case of some rich rider deciding to spend big money out of their own pockets to dope. This is team managed (maybe through intermediaries) doping.

NJK said:

The 20% improvements that EPO gives would be pretty impossible to beat for a clean rider....

I would love to see some scientific proof to back that claim.

I don't know the staistics. But one of the cycling mags quoted a doped rider as saying the difference between a rider on epo and a rider without epo is like the difference between a man and a women.

babylou said:

I would love to see some scientific proof to back that claim.

babylou said:

I would love to see some scientific proof to back that claim.

Easy, you just have to search with google, use "EPO improvement blood doping performance" and you will find a lot of studies.

The website cyclinsmag has drawn some very explicit charts above the evolution of output power on TDF during the last 20 years.
It's here : http://www.cyclismag.com/article.php?sid=2433