| The article is very poor. The facts are that from the early 1990s the use of EPO was widespread in professional cycling.The evidence for this is overwhelming (will clarify this but assume needs no explanation) but very few riders failed dope tests. The way that most were discovered was from the fallout from various scandals, when certain teams were caught with blood, drugs and the like. Confessions and allegations followed from certain riders, who no doubt were cooperating with a view to being treated more leniently. Where Lance fits in is that his team had many dopers, who have cooperated with the authorities and named names. What is unsatisfactory is that no the only evidence against Armstrong appears to be the word of these people. No samples have been retested, no bags of Armstrong's blood have been found etc. It is undoubtedly the case that Armstrong's performances, where he convincingly beat known dopers and delivered power outputs that are thought implausibly high, deserve serious scrutiny. So too, do the performances of many other sportsmen. What is needed is proper investigations with real evidence. |