Is zeker een goed stuk!
Voor degenen die zeggen: hij is 500 keer getest en nooit betrapt, lees dit maar eens:
"Lance passed 500 tests. He must be innocent"
This is straight from the press release, because it's been Armstrong's most used retort to the doping question. Two things:
First, there is no way he was tested 500 times. DimSpace has compiled a record of all the possible tests Armstrong may have been subjected to, with over-estimates, and it comes to 236. So there's more than a little hype in that number that started at 400, then hit 500, and just like that fish your uncle caught on his summer vacation in 1997 grew in size with every story-telling, ended up around the 600 mark.
Nevertheless, 236 is an impressive number to pass, so how is it possible? Well, here's a list of names - Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Dwain Chambers, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Valverde. That's just six names of athletes who also doped for very long periods without failing a test. Some were caught eventually (Chambers & Montgomery) because a test was developed for a drug called THG based on a tip-off. It then emerged that Chambers had doped for years, with everything, avoiding detection. Ullrich went down because of good old-fashioned investigative work that discovered blood bags in a clinic. Marion Jones was never caught. The reality is that testing is limited, especially when it happens in-competition. That's why people say that if you fail a drug test in competition, you have failed an IQ test - it's so simple to manipulate the timing and dosage of your drug use so that you are not tested when you compete.
And remember, the effect of doping lasts long after the drug is gone. You can take EPO, get the benefit, and compete without the drug in the system. Micro-dosing allows you to take the drug very close to the event without it being detectable. In fact, you can dope 12 hours from your race, and as long as you get dosage right, you'll pass doping controls. The authorities have to be very lucky to test you while you have the drug in your body.
The point is, passing the drug controls is not really all that difficult.
Another point about Armstrong is that his Tour victories spanned a period where the two most common doping methods were not detectable. First, EPO was widely used without being detectable. Once a test was developed for EPO, the practice changed, almost overnight, to blood doping, which was also very difficult to detect. It was only with the introduction of the biological passport that it became possible, because they were looking for the effect of the drug rather than the drug itself. Armstrong did not compete under that kind of scrutiny - his era was one where doping control was almost 'quaint' by comparison.
It is no co-incidence that upon his return in 2009, when the biological passport was being used, his values were immediately picked up as borderline suspicious (by Morkeberg, if you fancy a google search). And, part of the USADA case is Armstrong's blood values which they say are indicative of doping - we are yet to see that evidence. But again, this is a sign of a changing anti-doping landscape, that now catches what 12 years ago was impossible to detect.
So, we should not be too surprised at the fact that he never failed a doping test. One that stuck, anyway - there is the pesky matter of that cortisone positive, and that inconvenient failed EPO test when research testing discovered that his samples were positive from the 1999 Tour (edit: I initially said 2001 - the 2001 samples were those alleged by Landis to have been covered up at the Tour of Switzerland. It was on 1999 that the research testing was done - thanks to those who picked up my mix-up). Here again, Armstrong escaped because doping control had not made the step up to where it is today - today, samples are kept for long periods so that any undetectable drugs can be detected in the future, when the test becomes available. Had this been the case for the Armstrong era, in 2001 specifically, this claim of "never failed a test" would never have existed. As it is, it's false because of those test failures, but the absence of a B-sample meant it did not stick.
And then there is also the allegation of bribes paid to cover up positive tests - if USADA has evidence in the form of testimony that can be backed up with records or documentation, then this more than answers the "500 test" myth - why beat the tests when you can pay to make them disappear?
Or why worry about beating them when you know when they're coming? The latest report suggests that sources within the French lab (AFLD) say that Armstrong was routinely informed of when the tests would happen, allowing him ample time to manipulate the sample. The "surprise" element of out-of-competition testing is 90% of their effectiveness, and so if this is the case, then you again get a clearer picture of why those 236 tests failed to discover anything.
Here again, the evidence and testimony will either be believed or dismissed as hearsay. Either way, the "never failed a test in 500" defense is irrelevant because it is a) exaggerated, b) shown up as meaningless by the anti-doping climate of the Armstrong era, c) possibly false anyway.
