It's Finally Over!

Most of you are newer readers of my blog but several years ago I wrote a serious of posts about performance enhancing drugs in sports:
A brief history of steroids and performing enhancing drugs - Part one
A brief history of steroids and performing enhancing drugs - Part two
A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs - Part 3: Naming names!
A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs - Part 4: How the testing works .
HgH, Sly Stallone and me: An update to "A Brief History of Steroids...", Part 5
The Hall of Fame, McGwire, Dick Pound and WADA: an update to: A brief history of Steroids.....
A new study: An update to "A brief History of Performing Enhancing Drugs..." Part 7
The Tour de France today: An update to "A Brief History of Steroids...."
An update to: "A brief history of Steroids and performing ehnhancing drugs "

You'll notice the Tour De France installment. I have never been a fan of Lance Armstrong. Let me correct that. When he was a young up and comer, before his cancer, and he won the World Championship - usually a portent of big things to come for a young cyclist.

And even when he began to win the Tour, well he had been a protege of my cycling hero, Greg LeMond.

Of course I knew he used drugs, every world class athlete does. But then things changed. He became "Lance the superhero". The man who had been tested "more times than any other athlete" according to him (well, at least the same # of times as the other cyclists in the tour with him).

And then, worse, he became so holier than thou about the whole thing.

His Dr. busted for providing for blood doping all his clients earning the nickname "Dr. Blood"? Nothing

The fact that his blood, used as a test sample for the new test for EPO, the drug cyclists use most to build additional aerobic capacity, test positive for his 2d tour victory but b/c it was for a past tour he couldn't be suspended? Not a chance

The fact that every top rider who ever rode in support of him has been busted for drugs or admitted to using them? No way, NOT Lance!!

Floyd Landis saying that he personally used drugs with Lance, from testosterone to EPO? Not a chance, Floyd was busted and lost HIS tour de france win and he is just vindictive (why against Lance, Lance has never explained).

Test positive at the 2001 Tour de Suisse? No,not Lance! (oops well maybe, but if we deny it enough maybe people will forget).

Frankie Landreu (another longtime teammate on the US Postal Team) and his wife testifying that Lance openly discussed his drug use with his oncologists (cancer doctors)? LIARS!!

But now, this Sunday, 60 minutes will be airing an interview with Tyler Hamilton, yet another teammate will be saying yet again, that he used drugs with Lance.

But don't worry, Lance the Great has already come out and reiterated the most tested athlete mantra, and of course Tyler is only doing it because he is writing a book. Oh, and that funny Grand Jury testimony.

But now. OOOOPS. George Hincapie, who Lance described as "like my brother" who was his roommate for years and his teammate for EVERY one of his Tour de France Victories, has apparently ALSO testified to the Grand Jury that he and Lanced used Testosterone and EPO repeated during all the Tour de France wins.

Let's see. George is STILL cycling so it would look really bad for him to admit this.

But, it's just another person out to get Lance the great.

My hero Greg LeMond tells a story. LeMond won the Tour 3 times. He would have won at leat 5 if not Lance's 7 if not for a hunting accident when he was shot by his brother in law. LeMond came back and won two more Tours after that accident, but later in his career, the shotgun pellets left in his body caused a blood infection and so he had to take a few years off again to get healthy.

When he came back, LeMond said he was in the best shape of his life, riding faster times than he ever had. And then he went to the Tour and in a Mountain day he said he saw people doing things that he knew were impossible, and that he knew he could never do. He knew WHY they were able to do them. So he dropped out of the Tour and retired.

Funny, but that is exactly what Frankie Andreu said, but he said it to explain why he and Lance DID use drugs.

Busted. The myth of Lance, with his good friend George's testimony should now finally be over.