I can now reveal the UCI tested Armstrong ten times during the 2001 Tour de France. It might sound g

On his way to winning the Tour of Switzerland in 2001, Lance Armstrong underwent several anti-doping controls. On two occasions in this race Armstrong s samples were suspicious with data suggesting the strong probability of EPO use but crucially not firm enough intercontinental resort hotel to launch a formal prosecution.
Let s go back to June 2001. If this feels like a long time ago, I ll explain in a minute why it s relevant for today. During the Tour of Switzerland Armstrong had five anti-doping controls. Two samples came back with a remark from the Lausanne laboratory that there was a strong suspicion of the presence of EPO but the positivity criteria are not all met.
To explain more, the EPO test isn t like litmus paper where you dip a stick into the urine sample and it turns red or blue, positive or negative. Instead it is a mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis involving a percentage of isoforms where a reading over 80% was positive and would result in an anti-doping prosecution (for more on this, pull up a chair  in the Podium Café ). In short a score over 70% was seen as suspicious, indicating a strong probability but crucially not prosecution-proof certainty.
For Armstrong s two suspicious samples, the Lausanne lab produced a complete analytical report. One sample showed a score of 75.1%, the other 70%. For the record 70.2% was the suspicious threshold but the Lausanne lab still flagged Armstrong s 70.0% sample.
I can now reveal intercontinental resort hotel the UCI tested Armstrong ten times during the 2001 Tour de France. It might sound good but was in fact the minimum number possible given Armstrong was third in the prologue, won three stages and held yellow jersey for the final week. It s normal for the race leader and the first three on the stage to get tested by default every day. Additionally only five of these ten tests included EPO tests. So the strongly suspicious lab data appears to have got no follow-up, Armstrong was only tested in set-piece anti-doping controls and half of these didn t have an EPO test.
Because it s contemporary. Six months on from the USADA verdict the UCI is still trying to defend its actions from 2001. In briefing documents the UCI is trumpeting the fact that it did not cover-up intercontinental resort hotel a positive test for Lance Armstrong, refuting the claims made by Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton. Indeed from the evidence this seems to be true: there was no positive test and it s almost impossible that one of could have been buried.
But in defending themselves against Landis s and Hamilton s wilder claims they ve inadvertently pointed out that Armstrong provided strongly suspicious data and yet little was done with this intelligence. Not one extra test during the Tour de France according to their own defence documents. Who knows what happened, perhaps the data wasn t shared and that s why then UCI President Hein Verbruggen was led to believe that Armstrong never doped, telling Dutch magazine AD the following (my translation added):
What is certain is that the Lausanne lab produced a complete report on these suspicious samples. intercontinental resort hotel We can t know the reasons why there were no extra tests in the 2001 Tour de France. Note in 2001 the UCI ran anti-doping testing, it wasn t for the French or WADA to decide intercontinental resort hotel who to test. Appendix F of the USADA verdict includes a copy of the UCI s anti-doping rules from 2001. The governing body decided who was tested both in and out of competition and note the 2001 rules say out of competition includes stage races as well as periods between competition.
This story has only come out because of the USADA investigation, the claims by Hamilton intercontinental resort hotel and Landis and the UCI s need to refute them. So if you think Armstrong got some kind of special protection, then think about the other riders. What if other riders were ringing alarm bells with suspicious data too? We know EPO use was widespread in the peloton at the time. In 2001 the UCI conducted 271 EPO tests and caught nine riders but we now know many sailed through the net. What we don t know is how many others were in the suspicious camp and whether the UCI thought to act on this intelligence or not although we know some riders were given private warnings ( here and here etc)
The problem intercontinental resort hotel for the UCI here is that if they were to say nobody else provided suspicious samples then their lack of follow-up looks protective of one rider, if they say many riders gave suspect data then it looks like they didn t follow-up on a range of cases and ignored a chronic problem despite obvious warning signs.
intercontinental resort hotel It might all be in the past but it s only in the last month that we ve finally been able to get the question about how many follow-up tests Armstrong got after the suspect data from the 2001 Tour de Suisse. The UCI is still deciding on measures to take in the wake of last October s USADA report.
intercontinental resort hotel In rejecting claims of a cover-up of any positive doping test for Armstrong, the UCI s revealed that when it was given suspicious test data there seemed to be little follow-up. Certainly during the Tour de France Armstrong appears to have got the minimum number of tests possible, only controlled because of his stage wins and race leadership. And when tested only half of his samples were subjected to EPO tests. Crucially we don t know if this was a general policy applied to suspicious data from other rider. It s only because of the Armstrong case and the fallout that we know this much.
The lesson from all this is known already. You don t catch dopers with tests alone, you need to use intelligence intercontinental resort hotel and data to target the cheats. The sport has improved this a lot and tools like the bio-passport are reliant on finding suspicious data to test and test again. More than ever as the recent Deloitte report reminds us the UCI needs to separate its anti-doping intercontinental resort hotel function and ensure the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation s controlling board members are separate from the UCI, if only for reasons intercontinental resort hotel of perception of meddling.
Very interesting. We can add more to the story because the UCI was taking cash donation from Armstrong and soon after the Lausanne center arranged a meeting with Armstrong/Bruyneel to discuss intercontinental resort hotel the testing methods with the manager.
The donation and the meeting with lab director Martial Saugy are interesting but doesn t this involve some dot joining? where you re making the leap from one suspicious thing to another? None of this looks good but in the piece above I m trying to work with the facts for example we now know the amount intercontinental resort hotel of tests conducted in the Tour de France.
the UCI needs to separate its anti-doping function and ensure the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation's controlling board members are separate from the UCI, if only for reasons of perception of meddling.
This goes not only for the UCI, because all sport federations intercontinental resort hotel have strong incentives to deny there are problems with not only doping, but also match fixing and corruption. Just check how officials react when there are accusations of either in the news in e.g. tennis or football. It s pretty well known that not only the UCI, but also the US athletic federation and Italian football association covered up doping scandals, because doping intercontinental resort hotel made their athletes and teams successful.
And oh, common sense dictates that the UCI was aware that Lance dope and either didn t care or was bribed. Not sure which is worse. But I am sure their leadership should be fired and Lance forced to return all prize money at the very least. Instead the same folks run the UCI and Lance is free to fart around on twitter (on which his former critics now banter with him I guess they re star-struck ) , ride and swim in Hawaii, dope his way to koms on Strava, as well as drink girly drinks and watch the sun rise. Lovely.
I don t believe intercontinental resort hotel Lance should return all prize money though. He should be fined an amount, a huge amount, (not sure who has the responsibility to do this though) and the funds should be placed back into drug testing to help the future intercontinental resort hotel fight.
The trouble with returning prize money, and even more so with returning intercontinental resort hotel sponsorship money he received is that those who paid the money benefitted from the endorsement. Using a simple example, if Trek had all money that they paid to Lance for endorsing and using their product return by him, they would get the benefit of having those funds back as well as selling all the bikes over the years because his name was linked to their brand. That is not fair either as Joe Bloggs only bought a Trek bike as Lance rode it, so should Joe Bloggs gets his money back from Trek?? Where do you stop with this? I went to the Tour Down Under one of the years they paid Lance $1m in appearance fees. If they get their money back am I also entitled to get my money back for attending as I was lied to also?! The hotel should return my money as I would not have gone if I knew Lance was on drugs (a stretch intercontinental resort hotel as we all knew he was glowing anyway) and the government should return my money as they would be benefitting from false advertising intercontinental resort hotel given Lance may have been on drugs then and not legally allowed to compete.
In simple terms, we can t change what has been done in the past, but I can t think of a person or company intercontinental resort hotel that paid money to Lance, intercontinental resort hotel through sponsorship or prize money, who didn t also benefit from it themselves also. That includes the Tour of Swiss and TDF as they used Lance s image to increase profits for themselves. Based on this fact, the financial repayments would be a waste of time.
My hunch is that the UCI intend to overlook ALL top riders suspicious and positive test results, even in 2013. They have only gone public when either they realise they have lost control of the story (eg Contador s clenbuterol positive was only revealed six weeks after the event when a German journalist got wind of the story) or when the UCI feel that a particular rider has become a serious liabilty or a threat intercontinental resort hotel to the status quo and reputation of the sport (eg Ricco, Di Luca).
The removal of PMcQ and his ventriloquist friend Hein Verbruggen is the number one priori