So over on the blog Vandermint Auditorium there’s a snarky piece that makes the argument that because Lance Armstrong consistently beat cyclists who later admitted to or were caught doping, he must have doped as well. (The piece doesn’t make this argument directly, but instead is written in a sarcastic way that makes the writer’s intent pretty clear to me. And it comes off as snarky.)
But he doesn’t mention this interesting study done on Armstrong’s body, which found that his heart can pump an abnormally large amount of oxygen, that he increased his muscle-efficiency rate through an intensive training regimen, and that his muscles produce abnormally low amounts of lactic acid. While I suppose that that doesn’t prove that Armstrong was clean, it does put the lie to the VA argument that Armstrong couldn’t have possibly beaten cyclists who doped unless he doped himself.
I agree to the extent of your arguments. However, is it not possible he used the same means of performance enhancing that was undetected for his Tour de France tests as he did for that study?
(Warning: I was not able to open the linked study as the link comes up with a File Not Found)
Link is now fixed, thanks. I’m not trying to argue that the study shows that he was clean, only that the playing field was already unlevel before he used anything (if he used anything, that is). The variables the study covers are not variables that can be altered via PEDs, so it’s clear that he started with a natural advantage. He may have doped on top of that, giving him an even larger advantage, but that’s back to the sort of speculation I despise when it’s done to baseball players.
I’m a Lance fan, but at that level all endurance athletes are going to have abnormally high VO2 Maxes, so I wouldn’t say it is enough to quell the VA argument. Not to mention, Lance is somewhere in the high 80s (tied with Prefontaine, I believe) while many runners and guys like Ulrich and Indurain have/had maxes in the 90s.
That said, I maintain that his successes were from the US Postal team’s awesomeness, and smart riding.
As for lactic acid, there was a big NYT story debunking the theory that lactic acid is purely bad for you: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/health/nutrition/16run.html?ex=1305432000&en=4ef1ab12beaa61a7&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss