Lance Armstrong to come out of retirement

[Hound]

Wow just read that myself and my head's spinning too!!!! I should really check things before I post!

I think what I mean was if he was taking drugs he would have been pretty happy retiring without getting caught. For him to now come back says to me that he has nothing to hide.

Lance Armstrong refuses to allow past samples to be subjected to advanced drugs tests.

http://www.sporting-life.com/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=international_feed/08/10/02/CYCLING_Fra-Tour_Armstrong.html

Lance Armstrong will not agree to a retest of six urine samples from his first Tour de France victory to determine whether they contain traces of EPO.

Pierre Bordry, president of the French anti-doping agency (AFLD), had raised the possibility of asking the American to undergo a new analysis of the samples taken from the 1999 Tour.

With Armstrong set to make a comeback in 2009 after three years away from the peloton, Bordry felt such a move would give the seven-time Tour winner "a chance to confirm that he never cheated in his brilliant career".

But Armstrong will not agree to the AFLD's request, insisting the matter is in the past.

"He is not interested in discussing again results from samples taken in 1999," Mark Higgins, Armstrong's media spokesman, is quoted as saying in L'Equipe.

"I will refer the AFLD or whoever will ask the questions on this subject to the Vrijman report."

Higgins is referring to a report, published in 2006 by Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, which cleared Armstrong of doping in the 1999 Tour and accused anti-doping authorities of misconduct in dealing with the American.

In an age of doping scandals that have rocked the sport over the past few years, many sceptics still doubt that Armstrong was clean when he won his seven successive Tours between 1999 and 2005.

The rider has never been caught cheating, however.

His urine samples from the 1999 Tour are frozen in a drug-testing laboratory just outside Paris.

Never been caught cheating. Indeed.

If he had come out with, "I've nothing to hide, go test all you like", then you'd be confident in his integrity. But he hasn't.

What I can't understand is why they have to ask his permission. Surely that's the whole reason behind keeping the samples for years....

[magpie seanie]

What security procedures have been in place to protect the integrity of the samples does anyone know?

[lynchbhoy]

heard on the radio the other morning where on Radio station Today FM they had an excerpt from some american programme, that had some lady who was in the room with her husband (aquaintences of armstrongs) visiting the cyclist as he was in getting his tests done first (or second time ) with cancer.
They asked him did he ever use perf nhancing drugs and what did he use, and according to this woman, he replied 'epo , steroids' and a whole host of other things.
how true this is I dont know but apparantly its available on off the ball's podcast on the website

if true, then he is most def a cheat.

[magpie seanie]

Lynchboy - They are the same people who had a bitter falling out with Armstrong subsequently I believe.

[Denn Forever]

How many years ago was his first win?  Are the samples kept properly?  Deep freeze?

If the early samples tested positive, how would they know it was performance enhancing drugs rather then cancer fighting drugs?

The call is not well thought out as he would bave many reasons to appeal.

And he fought cancer and won for f&cks sake!