"They" say cheater
Posted: Monday, August 27, 2012 by Travis Cody inIn July, I wrote that "they" were after Lance Armstrong yet again.
I didn't know then, and I don't know now, whether the accusation of cheating is true or not. Neither do you. But the United States Anti-Doping Agency, while giving no evidence of a positive drug test in over 500 controls throughout Mr Armstrong's cycling career, now says he did. And USADA apparently gets the last word.
Last week, Mr Armstrong said he was done fighting USADA because the process is inherently unfair. So USADA now wants to strip Mr Armstrong of his Tour de France legacy. Washington Post columnist Tracee Hamilton has summed up my feelings in an editorial.
In my opinion, USADA still has not proven that Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs or illegal techniques to gain his success. It would appear that they don't have to show a positive drug test or how it was obtained, if they have one, until or unless Mr Armstrong accepts binding arbitration. Evidently, the fact that in all his professional cycling in the Tour de France and in the Olympics, the fact that he never tested positive for illegal substances is secondary to what undeclared people with unknown motivations have said under allegedly sworn testimony.
Did I just call those witnesses liars? I guess I did. But I'm a person with an opinion here. USADA doesn't answer to me and neither does Lance Armstrong. But since it matters to me, this is my place to put my opinion on record.
Yeah, I'm going to go on record as doubting USADA. Because, as Ms Hamilton points out in her column, why should the testimony of a person trump the science of testing? How is that right? How is that just?
Call me naive. But if this case matters to you and you have an opinion, your opinion is going to be based on what you think. You don't know. I don't know. Maybe Mr Armstrong did cheat and USADA is full of heroes for never giving up and finally punishing him for it. Or maybe Mr Armstrong didn't cheat and USADA is full of vindictive people who have decided to wield a power without challenge for their own agenda.
I don't know. Neither do you.
Did Lance Armstrong cheat better than anyone who ever tried to gain an unfair advantage over the competition and just never get caught during his career despite over 500 controls before, during, and after races?
Did Lance Armstrong's body chemistry become altered during intensive radiation and chemotherapy treatments to save his life from cancer, allowing him to train and perform better than anyone else, legally?
Did Lance Armstrong legally train harder than anyone else?
Is Lance Armstrong just one of those special athletes?
USADA says cheat. Lance Armstrong says no cheat.
"They" say. "He" says.
No positive drug test.
Your opinion. My opinion.
"People lie. Blood and urine usually don’t. And if they do, they don’t lie 500 times."
-Tracee Hamilton
Those 3 sentences sum it all up quite nicely, don't they?
Now I am not a fan of the sport so I have nothing whatsoever vested in the outcome however I do find it incredulous to think that Lance Armstrong somehow figured out a way to beat the drug testing all throughout his career. D'oh.
And if Lance Armstrong's character is anything like I think it likely is, he doesn't give a flip what "they" think. He knows what he did and how he did it, and that is probably all that truly matters to him.
It would be all that mattered to me, too. Why waste your time in a law suit to prove something that ultimately can not be proved. People will still believe what they will.