If you somehow care about cycling you'll know that USADA has released like 1000 pages of information of evidence. I'm assuming nobody actually read that stuff, but looking at the summary it appears that Armstrong was alleged to be running some impossibly complicated scheme for the last 10 years to evade the tests all along. I feel like I'm reading a bad episode of Kindaichi meets MacGuyver. Apparently his henchman outsmarted tests with nothing more than duct tape and bubblegum, but was obviousl not so smart that most of them eventually got caught for doping anyway. Meanwhile, the mastermind Armstrong apparently relies on his incompetent henchman that can't even fend for themselves to deliver the vital supplies he needs to avoid being caught, even though he's certainly under far greater scrunity than any of his henchmans.
I can see why this isn't ever brought to a court because even if it's true, there's no way 10 guys who supposedly take part in some kind of hugely complicated scheme would be able to give a consistent testimony because you wouldn't be able to remember it correctly by then if it was really that complicated. If Lance cheated, it'd actually have to be something really simple like "I saw Lance inhaling pixie dust that totally cleans up your blood from all signs of doping". If he had to do a MacGuyver moment to elude even a small fraction of the 500+ tests he passed, then at some point he must have failed especially given those MacGuyver moments are ran by guys who clearly aren't very good at cheating. One of the example was like some testing authority showed up at Armstrong's house, a team doctor ran outside and got a liter of saline solution and bring it past the testing guy and injected it in Armstrong to fool the test. That makes a good Kindaichi episode for your standard improbably lucky/incompetent thing but if you have to do it more than once, you'll probably get busted really quick.
I remember reading The Twin Prides there was a part where the main character saying if someone can tell you the exactly everything that happened in a crime he's probably lying because most people are too dumb to do this unless they're reading off of a script. Some of the allegation is just really stretching like one guy said he saw Armstrong carring a thermo and you can put EPO in thermo. Or you can put drinks in a thermo too. It's like saying you saw a briefcase and since you can put a bomb in a briefcase the guy is probably carrying a bomb.
At this point, it's pretty clear that if Armstrong cheated, he was way too clever for anyone to catch him. None of the information offer any solid proof, which is unsurprising since if there's any solid proof it shouldn't have taken 3 years after he retired and 10+ years after the alleged incidents happened to catch him. Of course, I really question why a mastermind cheater would have such incompetent henchman, and for that matter how come none of the henchman ever asked the mastermind for his tips. After all, Armstrong eluded every test that was every done on him, while his henchman most certaily did not.
I can see why this isn't ever brought to a court because even if it's true, there's no way 10 guys who supposedly take part in some kind of hugely complicated scheme would be able to give a consistent testimony because you wouldn't be able to remember it correctly by then if it was really that complicated. If Lance cheated, it'd actually have to be something really simple like "I saw Lance inhaling pixie dust that totally cleans up your blood from all signs of doping". If he had to do a MacGuyver moment to elude even a small fraction of the 500+ tests he passed, then at some point he must have failed especially given those MacGuyver moments are ran by guys who clearly aren't very good at cheating. One of the example was like some testing authority showed up at Armstrong's house, a team doctor ran outside and got a liter of saline solution and bring it past the testing guy and injected it in Armstrong to fool the test. That makes a good Kindaichi episode for your standard improbably lucky/incompetent thing but if you have to do it more than once, you'll probably get busted really quick.
I remember reading The Twin Prides there was a part where the main character saying if someone can tell you the exactly everything that happened in a crime he's probably lying because most people are too dumb to do this unless they're reading off of a script. Some of the allegation is just really stretching like one guy said he saw Armstrong carring a thermo and you can put EPO in thermo. Or you can put drinks in a thermo too. It's like saying you saw a briefcase and since you can put a bomb in a briefcase the guy is probably carrying a bomb.
At this point, it's pretty clear that if Armstrong cheated, he was way too clever for anyone to catch him. None of the information offer any solid proof, which is unsurprising since if there's any solid proof it shouldn't have taken 3 years after he retired and 10+ years after the alleged incidents happened to catch him. Of course, I really question why a mastermind cheater would have such incompetent henchman, and for that matter how come none of the henchman ever asked the mastermind for his tips. After all, Armstrong eluded every test that was every done on him, while his henchman most certaily did not.
