Evans' Tour victory beyond question, says Hamilton

innsaneink

innsaneink

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Cadel Evans is a true champion whose 2011 Tour de France triumph should not be tarnished by the doping revelations which have rocked cycling this week, says former pro cyclist Tyler Hamilton.
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Hamilton, among 11 former teammates whose testimony led to a life ban imposed on seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, lamented on Sunday that his era, the decade from the mid-1990s, was rife with doping.
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But despite the American's belief that there are "still a lot of bad apples" in the sport, he says Evans' historic victory is beyond question.
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"I think you have to question some of the results of the past (but) I don't think you have to question Cadel Evans' result from last year's Tour de France," Hamilton told Channel Nine's Weekend Today.
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"From what I've heard about Cadel Evans, he's a true champion.
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"He's always been a big anti-doping advocate.
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"I can't say anything negative about Cadel Evans. I've a lot of respect for Cadel Evans."
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One of Evans' teammates, recently retired American rider George Hincapie, is among those to admit doping while riding with Armstrong's team which ruled the Tour de France from 1995-2005, but he said he rode clean from then on.
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Cycling analysts have noted that average times during Evans' tour win were significantly down on those when Armstrong's team ruled from 1999 to 2005.
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Hamilton stated his belief that most tour riders from his era, prior to his own two-year suspension for blood doping in 2004, were guilty of cheating to some degree.
>
That group includes Matt White, one of the most influential figures in Australian cycling, who retired in 2007 but on Saturday confessed to doping during his time at Armstrong's US Postal team.
>
White stood down from his positions as sports director for Australian pro tour team Orica-GreenEDGE and Cycling Australia's men's road racing coordinator after being implicated in what was described as the "most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen" by the US Anti-Doping Agency.
>
"Unfortunately it is the dark part of cycling, and the dark culture. That era doping was just all around," Hamilton said.
>
"At least 80 per cent of the peloton back 10, 12 years ago were doping to some degree.
>
"… The guys who rode in that dark era of cycling, I would not be surprised if they did participate in doping.
>
"Now that I'm older and wiser, yeah I made the wrong choice. But at that time when I was young, 24, 25 years old, these older doctors came to me and said I need to do this for my career.
>
"We all were put into this position. So as for the Australian cyclists, I'm sure they were all put in that position at one point."
>
Hamilton said there were still current riders competing who had doping pasts but had yet to come forward - and believed the only way for the sport to advance was to learn from past mistakes.
>
"Unfortunately there still are a lot of bad apples in the sport today," Hamilton said.
>
"Directors, general managers, even current riders from the past that have not come clean.
>
"If we don't figure out what happened in the past, how it happened, why it happened and how we can prevent it from happening in the future, how do we know it's not going to happen again in two or three more years?"
>
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/evans-tour-victory-beyond-question-says-hamilton-20121014-27kmq.html#ixzz29GpYJ1Iw

This is something that really irks me.
This sport is tarnished beyong belief due to doping cheats, yet everyone cant say quickly enough how clean Evans is.
Why?
The same was said about many others in the sport previously and theyve been proved cheats.
I dont follow it all thjat closely so not up with all wats goin on.
Now I know innocent until guilty blah blah....and Im not saying hes guilty of anything, but Id guess most people would be a little skeptical of him now???????
Whenever I hear cycling, see it, read it....I just turn off.
 
Considering that nearly all of them were dopped up during Armstrongs reign of 7 victories…does that really tarnish his achievement?
 
The thing about Armstrong was that he was always overly superior to other full time pro athletes in a sport based on strength and aerobic fitness. He never had bad days and the ease with which he went up mountains where noted climbers struggled was always suspicious.

Evens at least looked vulnerable as do the Shleck brothers and the racing looked a lot fairer and more interesting in the years before this years event.
 
Evans always looked at his limit. That to me makes him seem clean. Contador, Armstrong and even the Sky riders from this year all look like they aren't even trying. If Chris Froome isn't doping them I am a watermelon.
 
@MacDougall said:
Evans always looked at his limit. That to me makes him seem clean. Contador, Armstrong and even the Sky riders from this year all look like they aren't even trying. If Chris Froome isn't doping them I am a watermelon.
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Probably not that important Mac , but are you seeded or seedless

This is why all samples should be kept so that they can be retested once the technology catches up to the previous era

Armstrong in my opinion should just about do jail time for what he has done
 
@happy tiger said:
@MacDougall said:
Evans always looked at his limit. That to me makes him seem clean. Contador, Armstrong and even the Sky riders from this year all look like they aren't even trying. If Chris Froome isn't doping them I am a watermelon.

Probably not that important Mac , but are you seeded or seedless

This is why all samples should be kept so that they can be retested once the technology catches up to the previous era

Armstrong in my opinion should just about do jail time for what he has done
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Well apparently he lied under oath so given what happened to a lot of athletes from the BALCO scandal, Lance could very well be looking at gaol time…
 
@Yossarian said:
The thing about Armstrong was that he was always overly superior to other full time pro athletes in a sport based on strength and aerobic fitness. **He never had bad days** and the ease with which he went up mountains where noted climbers struggled was always suspicious.

Evens at least looked vulnerable as do the Shleck brothers and the racing looked a lot fairer and more interesting in the years before this years event.
Click to expand...

This was mainly due to the blood transfusion technic he used after each day in the mountains.
 
Secondly, I am not a fan of giving someone else the Title. Unfortunately, in cycling the person who may have finished second, may not have been pushed on certain stages by the drug cheat.

Therefore I find it hard to acknowledge Andy Schleck's win 2 years ago!
 
@Tiger Watto said:
@Yossarian said:
The thing about Armstrong was that he was always overly superior to other full time pro athletes in a sport based on strength and aerobic fitness. **He never had bad days** and the ease with which he went up mountains where noted climbers struggled was always suspicious.

Evens at least looked vulnerable as do the Shleck brothers and the racing looked a lot fairer and more interesting in the years before this years event.

This was mainly due to the blood transfusion technic he used after each day in the mountains.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Yep absolutely. That was the point I was making. The only more suspicious thing was Floyd Llandis' incredible recovery to blitz the field after being broken the day before. Made Ben Johnson look like a cleanskin. Personally I think the ICU or Tour de France (whoever!) should be able to sue these bozos for earning money from these illegal acts. All these people puting their hands up and apologising but they get to go home to these mansions paid for from successes earned through cheating.
 
Evans seems like the sort of bloke who's never even jaywalked in his life because it's against the rules

wouldn't even walk when the little red man was flashing if you ask me!
 
@innsaneink said:
Cadel Evans is a true champion whose 2011 Tour de France triumph should not be tarnished by the doping revelations which have rocked cycling this week, says former pro cyclist Tyler Hamilton.
>
Hamilton, among 11 former teammates whose testimony led to a life ban imposed on seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, lamented on Sunday that his era, the decade from the mid-1990s, was rife with doping.
Advertisement
>
But despite the American's belief that there are "still a lot of bad apples" in the sport, he says Evans' historic victory is beyond question.
>
"I think you have to question some of the results of the past (but) I don't think you have to question Cadel Evans' result from last year's Tour de France," Hamilton told Channel Nine's Weekend Today.
>
"From what I've heard about Cadel Evans, he's a true champion.
>
"He's always been a big anti-doping advocate.
>
"I can't say anything negative about Cadel Evans. I've a lot of respect for Cadel Evans."
>
One of Evans' teammates, recently retired American rider George Hincapie, is among those to admit doping while riding with Armstrong's team which ruled the Tour de France from 1995-2005, but he said he rode clean from then on.
>
Cycling analysts have noted that average times during Evans' tour win were significantly down on those when Armstrong's team ruled from 1999 to 2005.
>
Hamilton stated his belief that most tour riders from his era, prior to his own two-year suspension for blood doping in 2004, were guilty of cheating to some degree.
>
That group includes Matt White, one of the most influential figures in Australian cycling, who retired in 2007 but on Saturday confessed to doping during his time at Armstrong's US Postal team.
>
White stood down from his positions as sports director for Australian pro tour team Orica-GreenEDGE and Cycling Australia's men's road racing coordinator after being implicated in what was described as the "most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen" by the US Anti-Doping Agency.
>
"Unfortunately it is the dark part of cycling, and the dark culture. That era doping was just all around," Hamilton said.
>
"At least 80 per cent of the peloton back 10, 12 years ago were doping to some degree.
>
"… The guys who rode in that dark era of cycling, I would not be surprised if they did participate in doping.
>
"Now that I'm older and wiser, yeah I made the wrong choice. But at that time when I was young, 24, 25 years old, these older doctors came to me and said I need to do this for my career.
>
"We all were put into this position. So as for the Australian cyclists, I'm sure they were all put in that position at one point."
>
Hamilton said there were still current riders competing who had doping pasts but had yet to come forward - and believed the only way for the sport to advance was to learn from past mistakes.
>
"Unfortunately there still are a lot of bad apples in the sport today," Hamilton said.
>
"Directors, general managers, even current riders from the past that have not come clean.
>
"If we don't figure out what happened in the past, how it happened, why it happened and how we can prevent it from happening in the future, how do we know it's not going to happen again in two or three more years?"
>
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/evans-tour-victory-beyond-question-says-hamilton-20121014-27kmq.html#ixzz29GpYJ1Iw

This is something that really irks me.
**This sport is tarnished beyong belief due to doping cheats, yet everyone cant say quickly enough how clean Evans is.**
**Why?**
The same was said about many others in the sport previously and theyve been proved cheats.
I dont follow it all thjat closely so not up with all wats goin on.
Now I know innocent until guilty blah blah....and Im not saying hes guilty of anything, but Id guess most people would be a little skeptical of him now???????
Whenever I hear cycling, see it, read it....I just turn off.
Click to expand...

Because he's an aussie
 
7 straight years beating opposition who were doping and everyone was shocked when it came out.

Give it a couple of years and the evidence will appear for Evans.
 
I'd like to think Evans didn't do it, but who knows. Everyone thought Tiger Woods was fairly wholesome at one point too.
 
With all due respect to cyclists on here, IMO cycling is not a sport. I am aware it takes enormous fitness and endurance to perform at this level….but to an outsider like me there seems to be little or no actual skill involved. Maybe it should just be content to be a pasttime or hobby for people with an addiction to fluorescent clothes and dodgy footwear.

I just can't bring myself to consider it a legitimate sport, but for some reason the Europeans seem to lap it up?
 
@Cultured Bogan said:
May as well let them all dope up, at least it would be fair.
Click to expand...

Yep, that would be the most appropriate solution I reckon. No need for backyard chemists and futuristic cheating/doping programs that way….. just a free-for-all of roided-up psycho's, would in all honesty probably make it more exciting too, imagine the road-rage and hissy fits, would make for great TV
 
I think a couple of things need to be considered here … firstly, cycling does more to drug test it's participants than most sports. (Admittedly they probably have needed to due to the culture that was prevalent during the late 80's -early 2000's). I wouldn't be at all surprised if other endurance sports found an entrenched drug culture if they had similar testing. (Earlier this year, a cross country skier was found positive for epo). Secondly, many of the riders from the 'dark time' of cycling are now convinced that the sport is cleaning up it's act, and that the majority of the peleton are now clean. An example of this is to look at the times the riders are doing on certain climbs during the Tour. In 2005, (possibly at the peak of the doping period), Andreas Kloden climbed Alpe Duez in just a shade over 30 minutes. In 2010, the fastest climb of Alpe Duez was nearly 10 minutes slower. Cadel's times for climbing Alpe Duez haven't really altered significantly - which indicates to me that he is probably riding clean. I believe that the war against drug cheats is working in cycling. It will never be 100% clean, but I choose to believe that the bad old days are behind the sport.
 
By Quentin McDermott and Clay Hichens

After winning the Tour de France seven times in a row, Lance Armstrong might well have been the greatest sportsman of all time.

Not only had he won the most coveted of all cycling races, he had done so after recovering from advanced testicular cancer.

Lance Armstrong maintains he has never used performance enhancing drugs.

He claims he has never tested positive in hundreds of drug tests.

Many who know him well now say he is lying.

"The doctor started asking Lance a couple of banal questions, and then boom, have you ever used any performance enhancing drugs? Lance, hanging onto his IV, rattled off EPO, testosterone, cortisone, growth hormone and steroids. My eyes popped out of my head."

Next on Four Corners reporter Quentin McDermott talks to people who worked for Armstrong, rode with him and some who raced against him. What they reveal will shock you.

The story they tell describes a ruthless competitor who will do anything to win races and earn millions of dollars in prize money and endorsements. These people tell a story that details over ten years of drug use, that began before he was diagnosed with cancer. They also tell a story of a man prepared to vilify former friends and employees if they dare to cross him.

How did he get away with it? Why did officials fail to act against him when, on three separate occasions, drug test results raised questions about his use of drugs? Why did the world governing body for cycling accept donations from him that clearly compromised its ability to treat Armstrong as they would any other competitor?

"The World According to Lance", reported by Quentin McDermott and presented by Kerry O'Brien, goes to air on Monday 15th October at 8.30pm on ABC1\. It is replayed on Tuesday 16th October at 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Show transcript

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Years later, Betsy and Frankie Andreu recalled under oath what had happened.
Show background information

Tags: doctors-and-medical-professionals, courts-and-trials, forensic-science, cycling, drug-offences, doping-in-sports, corruption, australia, france, united-states.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/ … 608613.htm
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