Validity of the tests (Score 1)

I agree that it is better to use testing data over testimonies, however there is evidence to suggest that passing drugs tests isn't a guarantor of not being doped. Consider: -His competitors and team mates admitted to doping, without testing positive -He had doctors on his team that were convicted of being heavily involved in doping http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/18788834 Having doctors on your side would help enormously in the planning of getting a clean test -Athletes in other sports, eg the BALCO scandal, tested clean in many races before being caught - I agree the tests in the 90s were a joke, and (I imagine - see the quote) only testing out of competition became the norm during Armstrong's winning streak: "The rise to prominence of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in the late 1990s was a significant stimulus to the development of established and transparent out-of-competition testing practices" - I couldn't find exactly when out-of-competition testing became the norm in cycling http://www.faqs.org/sports-science/Mo-Pl/Out-of-Competition-Testing.html#b What the East Germans used to do, before going to international competition, was to test every athlete. Those that tested positive were withdrawn with an "injury". So even though he has tested clean - he had doctors that helped with doping, and teammates who were either convicted / admitted to doping. In this case the science is unfortunately all that its cracked up to be, hence the added weight to testimonial evidence I have a friend who is a big cycling geek, and a great source of info is this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breaking-The-Chain-Drugs-Cycling/dp/0224061178