The Question All My Friends Are Asking: Lance And Drugs.

Friends often ask me:  So, does Lance do drugs or what?  This is as close as I can come to an answer (just like everyone else)

I hate cycling for making me write this.  I hate becoming some quasi-expert on doping methods- on how they'd hide it, what the dope does, what each one is:  I don't want to be a sports-doping doctor, I want(ed) to be a cycling fan- of the sport!

This is not about investigative journalism.  I'm just trying to collect info together for you to make up your own mind.  Or not.  Whatever you want.  Much of this stuff is heresay, read-between-the-lines type stuff- you know, internet stuff.

When Lance won the TDF in 1999, here's who rode with him, and what has subsequently been said by or about them.

The 1999 Tour De France US Postal Team

1. Lance Armstrong
2. Frankie Andreu
3. Kevin Livingston
4. Tyler Hamilton
5. George Hincapie
6. Christian Vande Velde
7. Peter Meinert- Nielsen
8. Pascal Derame
9. Jonathan Vaughters

Lance is our athlete in question.  You can search the internet for plenty of articles about him if you want.

Frankie admitted to using EPO.  At the time another teammate admitted using EPO but spoke on condition of anonymity.  That could be any of the following people...

Kevin  has not been rumored to or convicted of doping.  If we believe rumor and innuendo, then
"In that infamous IM between [Vaughters] and [Andreu], JV states that Kevin Livingston said that he was astonished when he got to T-Mob to find no doping program".  He was apparently named in documents taken from Dr. Michele Ferrari.(an Italian doctor involved with doping).  But not charged with anything.


Tyler has recently confessed to using EPO on 60 minutes.  He was convicted a few years ago of blood doping.  You remember?  The twin defense?



George  Accused by 60 Minutes which quoted unidentified sources to say that Hincapie saw LA use EPO, as well as using it himself.  On his twitter, GH denied this.  He has also been accused of doping by Stephanie McIlvain (an Oakley employee during the tour-winning years).  And there's this.

Christian VV has never been accused or convicted.  If anyone is clean (if!) it seems to be him.

PMN tested positive for doping earlier in his career, in 1993.

Pascal D. said recently that he wasn't in LA's inner circle and saw no evidence of doping.

Vaughters, though he runs perhaps the cleanest team in cycling, the Garmin/Chipotle/Slipstream, etc. team, has said various insinuating things about drugs over the years.  He never finished a tour- after dropping out close to the end rather than taking the meds for a bee sting, once.  But read this.