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I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999. Lance Armstrong
Hicks [1904 Olympic marathon] was ‘kept in mechanical action by the use of drugs that he might bring to America the marathon honours’. Mark Johnson, lecture UCTV 2016, ‘Spitting in the Soup: Inside the Dirty Game of Doping in Sports’
‘The marathon race, from a medical standpoint, demonstrated that drugs are of much benefit to athletes along the road.’ ibid. Dr Charles Lucan 1905
‘The use of a substance or device which improves the physical performance of a man without being injurious to his health can hardly be unethical.’ ibid. Dr Peter Karpovitch 1941
Endurance athletes immediately took to speed. ibid.
To take drugs to do their job was absolutely expected. ibid.
We [US] didn’t even create an anti-doping agency until the year 2000. ibid.
23 June 1969 Sports Illustrated front cover: Drugs: A Threat to Sport. ibid.
Munich Olympics 1972: The East Germans saw this as a real opportunity. ibid.
East Germany’s State Plan Subject 14.25: ‘Just like mission control when an astronaut is sent into space.’ ibid. Kurt Tittel, GDR Sports Medicine Director New York Times 1976
East Germany: 1,500 sports science researchers; 1,000 doctors; 4,700 coaches; 3,000 Stasi agents; 2 million annual doses. ibid.
UCLA lab: 86 Americans positive in pre-Games tests. ibid.
20 American medal winners in Los Angeles had actually tested positive but they never were busted because the spreadsheet went missing. ibid.
The state of fair play and purity is a complete fabrication of the Olympic founders. ibid.
Sports doping: group achievement, not solitary delinquency. ibid.
It is a tale of almost mythic proportions: a hero who overcomes unlikely roots and a deadly disease to dominate his sport … The Armstrong story is either one of remarkable success or an astounding fall from grace or … both. The Fifth Estate: Lance Armstrong: Master of Spin, CBC 2012
In his first four attempts [Tour de France] overall his best results was 36th place. ibid.
EPO: to increase the production of red blood cells which carry oxygen throughout the body. ibid.
Even after cancer Armstrong was still working with the man known as Dr Evil – the Italian physician Dr Michele Ferrari. ibid.
A positive test for EPO should have required a two-year suspension, but those test results weren’t revealed and no action against Lance Armstrong was ever taken. ibid.
[David] Walsh [cycling journalist] set out to prove that the world’s top cyclist, a legend and a leader in the fight against cancer, was not what he appeared to be. ibid.
At least the International Cycling Union took action. ibid.
It’s the dirty secret of pro sports: the police investigations, drug rings, tragic death. It’s the problem team doctors don’t want to face … the untold story of prescription drug addiction and pro sports. The Fifth Estate: The Pain Game: Drugs, Doctors and Pro Sports, CBC News 2015
Pro football is a collision sport with injuries, pain killers and pressures on team doctors to match. ibid.
The recent raids of three NFL teams by agents of the US drug enforcement administration were part of a DEA investigation into the abuse of prescription medication in pro football. ibid.
Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball. George Mitchell, December 2007
Everybody that I know in the game of baseball uses the same stuff I use. Mark McGwire
The only reason I took steroids was for my health purposes. I did not take steroids to get any gain for any strength purposes. Mark McGwire
Performance-enhancing drugs are an illusion. I wish I had never gotten involved with steroids. It was wrong. It was stupid. Mark McGwire
The steroids I did were on a very, very low dosage. I didn’t want to take a lot of that. I didn’t want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno. Mark McGwire
Canseco and others had transformed their bodies by taking heavy doses of anabolic steroids. Ken Burns, Baseball: The Tenth Inning I, PBS 1994
Professional baseball players were free to take whatever they wanted. ibid.
Steroid-inflated home run records had replaced day to day heroics. Ken Burns, Baseball: The Tenth Inning III
The game’s steroid problems hit the front pages and airwaves once again. Ken Burns, Baseball: Tenth Inning IV
Bonds testified that he had taken steroids inadvertently. ibid.
Bonds had become the symbol of the steroids era. Barry Bonds finished 2007 with 762 career home runs. ibid.
Although 89 players were named, the most sensational section of the report was devoted to allegations of extensive doping by the most successful pitcher of the last fifteen years, Roger Clemens. ibid.
Some of the greatest stars in the game would also be exposed. ibid.
I’ve just been handed a piece of paper here that if it’s right it’ll be the most dramatic story out of these Olympics or perhaps any others. Desmond Lynum, BBC presenter, re Ben Johnson
Sooner or later your ability to succeed on natural talent runs out when you run against the chemical barrier. The question became do you take drugs and try to win, or do you content yourself with losing for ever by staying away from them? Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson’s coach
The urine sample of Ben Johnson, Canada, Athletics 100 metre, collected on Saturday 24th September 1988, was found to contain the metabolic of a banned substance namely Stanozolol. Olympic doping committee televised announcement
In 1988 Ben Johnson failed a drug test at the Olympic games in Seoul. Just forty-eight hours earlier he had set a new world record in the 100m, won the gold medal and defeated his arch-rival Carl Lewis. In the years after Seoul six of the eight finalists have been implicated in some form of controversy involving performance-enhancing drugs. And Johnson has long believed he was the fall-guy in a sport where steroid use was endemic. The Race that Shocked the World, BBC 2012
1984 Los Angeles: No athlete was going for greater glory than Carl Lewis. ibid.
Not only had results gone missing, but there was now a new substance on the scene: it wasn’t detectable at all. ibid.
Johnson needed to increase his speed endurance to compete with Lewis. ibid.
The drugs took twenty-eight days to clear the body. And with no out-of-competition testing, avoiding a positive test required nothing more than looking at a calendar. ibid.
Zurich 1986: for the first time in nine races Carl Lewis had been beaten by Ben Johnson. ibid.
Rome 1987 World Championships: 9.83 seconds. ibid.
Just four months before the Olympics Johnson pulled a hamstring. ibid.
Four weeks before the Olympics Lewis and Johnson locked horns again in Zurich. ibid.
At the 1988 US Olympic trials Carl Lewis tested positive for three banned stimulants. This was not made public. ibid.