Originally Posted by
PeteHski
I think the passage of time is enough at this point to say that Lemond almost certainly wasn’t a doper. The incentive to dope is higher for those who have less chance of winning clean. LA quickly realised that doping was his only chance of winning the TdF and he wanted to win badly enough to do it. Lemond had the natural ability to win clean, at least before doping got really serious, and so why would he risk doping? Also why would a doper choose to be such a vocal anti-doping advocate? It doesn’t add up. The guys who did dope left a trail that time inevitably caught up with.
Some of the guys got caught - mostly after the Festina affair. Before that it was a crapshoot.
"Doping" and modern sport goes back to at least the 50's - Lemond beat people that were dopers. Steroids, amphetamines, cocaine... all fairly common in sport, all sports, back in the 80's/90's.
I have a hard time accepting that he, or any other athlete of the time, was such a freak of nature that he could beat other dopers while being "clean".
Listening carefully to Lemond, he seems to focus in on the use of EPO - EPO use seemed to be the no go zone, and the time things "changed" in his mind. But the change he is speaking of happened on top of other existing doping - because many people were using EPO and the traditional doping methods.