You probably have your own opinion whether Lance was doping or not, we are probably never going to find out. But what I think is more important to take from this is that USADA's case against Lance.
As a professional athlete Lance will have kept his anti doping agency informed of all his movements, in this case USADA. The same applies to athletes from any other country. This allows the governing body to perform random out of competition tests at any point. There are severe consequences for not adhering to this. Skipping a test carries the same penalties as testing positive as Zoltan Kovago, the Hungarian Discus thrower found out at the olympics.
So USADA was convinced Lance was doping (if they are now I'm sure they were back then), and they had the opportunity and resources to test him at any time, yet he has passed every test. So what does this say about USADA's testing regime.
Tests have been developed to detect most drugs: EPO, HGH, steroids, corticosteroids, stimulants, even designer drugs like CERA. These are looking at minute quantities, down to nanogram per millilitre quantities ( or parts per billion). Problem is being a drug it will be metabolised and excreted from the body, so they only stick around for so long. This is where a good testing program can make all the difference. If you are testing athletes when they are likely to be taking the drugs, months before a large competition then athletes that are doping have a higher chance of being caught.
So lets assume that Lance was doping for the 7 years that he won the tour. USADA had 7 years and hundreds of opportunities for their testing to coincide with his doing regime.
With USADA casting away the hundreds of negative samples in favour of the word of a collection of confirmed dopers they are throwing away the credibility of their testing process and with it the confidence that sport really is drug free.
So who's next, Michael Phelps?
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