Let's see what we have as arguments here.....
Let's see...
First there's the cancer that methastasized waaay too fast for it to be possible in anyone not taking HGH.
There's also the fact that the cancer should've been picked up much, much earlier than it was, because in the early stages of testicular cancer, certain markers that indicate cancer show up in doping tests and are so obvious they are impossible to miss.....unless you're using masking agents to conceal drug use. In which case those markers are masked as well.
Then there's Betsy Andreu testifying that she and Frankie Andreu (Lance's long term friend and teammate of many tours) were there in the room when Lance told his oncologist "Yes, I took corticosteroids, EPO, HGH, testosterone, cortisone(...)", but I guess she's lying, huh? After all, who wouldn't throw away her and her husband's career, friendships and basically destroy their lives just for 5 minutes of "fame" in specialized cycling media
?
There's an e-mail lance sent frankie andreu in december 2003 about frankie and his wife being quizzed by David Walsh. Here's a quote: "I know Betsy is not a fan, and that's fine, but by helping to bring me down is not going to help your situation at all. There is a direct link to all of our success here and I suggest you remind her of that."
Riddle me this: Armstrong's haematocrit in 1999, when there was no EPO test, but only a 50% haematocrit limit, was constantly around 49%. Now it's 43-44%. There are three possible explanations for that:
1. He rode the 1999 Tour severely dehydrated to the point of near death
2. He rode the 1999 Tour pregnant
3. He rode the 1999 Tour on EPO and blood transfusions
I'd like to see you try to explain that away. Hint: any other possibility other than those three is medically impossible (and it goes without saying that option 2 is as well).
There's the team soigneur (Emma O'Reilly) that testified she found corticosteroids in Lance's luggage. Also that during a massage armstrong said "My haematocrit is 41%, way below the max allowed (50%), so I'm gonna do what everyone does"
There's the statement of the team's mechanic (Mike Anderson) that he found a box of steroids in lance's apartment.
There's lance's "misterious" millionaire "donation" for some misterious blood machine that's never been quite explained.
There's teammate Steve Swart's statement that he (swart) and all others on the team were doping.
There's the fact he chased down Simeoni for testifying in court what everyone already knew and had been proven in several cases before: that Dr. Ferrari, the italian Fuentes, (with whom armstrong has admitted time and time and time again to working with and defended) is no more than a dope salesman. Incidentally, the list of Ferrari's clients that have tested positive is quite big.
There's the fact that he chased down Christophe Bassons, the rider who Virenque, Zülle, Moreau and the others testified was the only clean rider on the Festina team. Armstrong went up to Bassons and flat out said "Why don't you just go away?", then proceded to yell at Bassons in detail just how his public acknowledgement of widespread doping in the peloton was bad for everyone involved and how Bassons should shut up and leave cycling.
There's the IM conversation between Lance's long time teammates Jonathan Vaughters and Frankie Andreu where they detail Postal/Discovery's doping practices in some detail.
There's the re-testing of 1999 Tour samples where Lance tested positive 6 different times for EPO, in ways in which, with the doses of EPO being as they are in each individual test, the samples being contaminated is impossible (high dosage on the morning of each important stage, lower doses in between, just as you'd expect from a normal doping regimen).
I'd like to point out that the usual blind lance fan's argument against this is the stupidest ever: "the samples were kept for 6 years before being re-tested. they were no longer proper".
First of all, clinical trials were started in 1972 by preserving samples to see for how many years they would still be reliably testable. We're in 2009 and still counting, and that's far longer than 6 years.
Second of all, even if the time for a sample to be reliable were extremely short, say for instance only 2 weeks, exogenous EPO doesn't "magically" appear in urine out of thin air.
There's Lance consistently denying that he had any TUEs to declare several times during the first two weeks of the Tour, only for his teammate Kevin Livingston to run into the room in a hurry screaming "****! they're testing us for corticosteroids!" two weeks later, at which point Armstrong coincidentally "remembered" that he had a TUE to declare after all, and...what a coincidence...a TUE for corticosteroids precisely. One that was later established was in fact a backdated prescription. Needless to say Lance tested positive. But he got away on account of having a prescription. Pierre Ballester has the audio records of an interview in that Tour, before Lance tested positive where Lance says, and I quote: "No. No TUEs whatsoever"
There's, to anyone who's familiar with the climbing powers (in watts, since we want to be scientifical) of riders throughout the years in Tour de France climbs, it's painfully obvious that Lance's regular climbing power in his Tour winning years is far, faaaaaaaar beyond what is possible clean, even for the theoretically perfect athlete. I don't care that he's "a freak of nature", or that "his heart is as big as a plate" or he "produces much less lactate" or that he has only one ball and is thus more aerodynamic. All those excuses are just that....excuses. His climbing power isn't a little over what's believable in the most extreme case....it's aeons above it. Fact is, no one, before EPO came into the sport, EVER, and I do mean EVER went above 390 watts on a climb. EPO made its entrance and suddenly everyone of the top climbers was at 460-480 watts. Lance was consistently at 460 watts. That's impossible clean.
His nickname in the pack in his early days was "Cortisone neck". What do you think that says?
There's the fact that at the 2001 Tour, when the EPO test was new and feared by the riders, when by the admission of several now retired riders "everyone was so scared that they were riding pretty much clean", lance's (as well as everyone else's) climbing powers are light-years below their performances of other years. Lance at 380watts....
There's Armstrong working for years with doctors such as Ferrari, constantly defending them, constantly stating they were not supplying riders with doping products....until it was proven they were and Lance suddenly stopped talking about them or training with them.
There's Armstrong making a living hell out of the lives of anyone who tried to come to public with evidence that he was doped, using his political leverage to make people lose their jobs (his Oakley liaison Stephanie and her husbamd, anyone?), credibility, race wins, contracts. heck, he flat out told Vaughters that if he gave Matt DeCanio a contract with Garmin, armstrong would have Trek withdraw sponsorship of the team.
There's countless of his teammates leaving his team, only to test positive despite their performance not increasing even a slight bit compared to when they were riding for him.
How come he's sued everyone that wrote even the slightest bit of innuendo about him, but not random house? Simple. He doesn't want to open up a can of worms. We can all say whatever we want about Lance doping because he will not put us in court. He never has anyone and never will. Because in court the evidence that he doped would be put against him and no court in the world would rule in his favour. Not to mention that whenever he sues someone for saying he doped, he's NEVER let it go to court. He's always either settled or withdrawn the lawsuits.
More obviously, there's the fact that lance and his cohorts can't even get their goddamned stories straight. Their court statements are contradictory. Bill Stapleton's statements even contradict himself!
There's surely more that I'm forgetting. But I guess that will do for now.
Armstrong is the face of the omerta. he's the one most concerned with upholding it, and has demonstrated it time and time and time again.
By the way, my personal favorite in all this is when Betsy Andreu was testifying in court what lance had said to his oncologists (see above), Tim Herman (lance's legal counsel) jumps up and yells "YOU MISUNDERSTOOD THEM! HE SAID HE WAS USING THAT STUFF TO FIGHT THE CANCER!"...................so how did she misunderstand the doctors if lance's entire defence is based on saying that that meeting never happened and those doctors are fictional people made up by Mrs. Andreu?
