[froze]

Who cares if Lance doped? The whole damn peloton dopes!! So if you have 98% of the pro race world doping then you are led to believe that in order to win you too have to dope. So in reality Lance still is the greatest TDF rider of all time, regardless if he doped or not. You see, if no one doped Lance still would have beat them because he won doping against other dopers.

Does that mean I'm for doping? NO WAY. It should be completely banned. But to use Lance as the scape goat when they all do it is not right. Kids in high school athletics dope, why? Because they want a college scholarship, and hopefully pro endorsement, and they too know that others are doing it so to level the playing field they do it.

I use to race cat 3 back from the mid 70's till the mid 80's and I knew a several guys within my team that doped and wanted me to also, but I refused. But why did those guys dope? Because other cat 3 racers where doping, so in order to compete they felt they too had to dope, PLUS they wanted a shot at the pros where we all knew they were and thus to get enough wins to get a sponsor and onto the pros where they knew they needed to dope to keep up with the others.

This doping crap is in almost all sports, from tennis...yes tennis, I had a girlfriend who was a top 5 world rank pro tennis player back in the late 70's who doped because all the other women players were! She also try to convince me to dope along with cycling buds, talk about pressure! And we all heard of baseball and football players doping, well that doping even for those sports goes right down to the high school level. In fact there has been parents and gym teachers arrested for providing dope for their junior high kids!

Even race horses and race dogs are being doped. Talk about insuring the outcome of gambling race.

Do I think Lance doped? I know for a fact he did prior to his cancer, after his cancer I'm not sure, I only have the word of Chris Carmichael that Lance and the entire USPS team did not, and Chris would do surprise checks to make sure, and supposedly if anyone was found to have doped they would be let go from the team. Chris took that stance after Lance got cancer and Chris questioned the good Italian doctor if doping could lead to cancer and the doc said there was that risk, so Chris made sure no one on his team would dope. At least that's what Chris told me, whether or not that's true is a different story.

[Duende54]

I have to agree with you froze! I have friends with teenage kids in sports under pressure to use PED's or get left behind in the sport. I am kind of glad my kids are geeks and did not excel in sports! In 1976 I was on the junior varsity football team and I was damn good. A couple of the larger varsity players approached me and asked me where i thought football would take me. Back then I had hopes of a college scholarship so I told them that. They laughed and then told that if I wanted to go that far there were things I needed to do to get bigger. So it was prevalent in High school back to the 70's. I have no doubt that by the 90's it was rampant in sports all over the world! I am glad my football career ended that year with a knee injury! I am pretty sure I would have used steroids had it not been for that!

[Weav]

I don't know but it is my feeling that the did dope, but that is only based on the fact that people are squealing on him, the latest being Hincapie. I don't know what to believe really, these pros have watched what happens when the feds get involved (Clemons, Bonds,etc.). The feds hate being lied to and sometimes I wonder if they are trying to prove the truth or trying to prove their allegations and justify their investigation. Is Hincapie covering his @ss by telling them what they want to hear, because if they think he's lying then they'll go after him, and I'm sure he doesn't want to do prison time for this junk. I think this should be sorted out in the courtroom of public opinion. Like someone mentioned, the whole darn peloton dopes!!! This is all ridiculous in my opinion.

[froze]

Originally Posted by Duende54

I have to agree with you froze! I have friends with teenage kids in sports under pressure to use PED's or get left behind in the sport. I am kind of glad my kids are geeks and did not excel in sports! In 1976 I was on the junior varsity football team and I was damn good. A couple of the larger varsity players approached me and asked me where i thought football would take me. Back then I had hopes of a college scholarship so I told them that. They laughed and then told that if I wanted to go that far there were things I needed to do to get bigger. So it was prevalent in High school back to the 70's. I have no doubt that by the 90's it was rampant in sports all over the world! I am glad my football career ended that year with a knee injury! I am pretty sure I would have used steroids had it not been for that!

I'm from your era, I was in track and beat two HS records (my HS track not all HS track records!) back in the early 70's and I knew fellow track folk who were doping too. We all know the Eddie Merckx doped...he admitted it!! I knew a pro body builder who doped, that's how he got to be a pro! But that stuff he took cost him his teeth, his hair, and fragile bones: is doping worth the health risk? He thought so! I thought not. He died of cancer at 43.

To be honest, I would drink and smoke grass back then but I was scared to dope for either running or cycling? Weird huh?

[bikonator]

Here is why Ullrich is so fast:

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