[Closed] How did Lance Armstrong pass his drug tests?

So one bent team, which you know about through the grapevine is indicative that 100% of riders were doping? 🙄

It was certainly fairly endemic, but I don't think every single rider was doing it.

How did they get away with it? Easy, be one step ahead of the testing process...

He didn't get away with anything because he didn't dope?

By 'supporting grass roots'?

It was certainly fairly endemic, but I don't think every single rider was doing it.

An old link but this is an interesting analysis of epo use, effects and masking:
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/features/?id=2006/epo_protease

Part of the issue is drug testing is very crude and vastly under-funded compared with drug production. If you dose correctly and understand the half-life times of the stuff then you can make a good stab at avoiding detection even with detectable drugs, if you use something cutting edge there won't even be a test for it so worst case you get a detection via the effects (e.g. hematocrit levels). And then there's autologous doping (just reinjecting your own blood once the red blood cell count has been increased via a centrifuge), undetectable as well if done properly

well I do know from long conversations with the ex rider and not just about his team....

Also I was after a "scientific" explenation - "be one step ahead of the testing process" - I had worked that bit out myself 🙂

EPO is only present in urine for a few days but you get the benefits for about 4 weeks.

There are methods for masking things in your urine. Soap under the finger nails is good one.

There is currently no test for blood transfusions as long as you use your own blood.

If all else fails there are always retrospective exemtption letters and bribing the governing bodies.

Transfusions existed in the 70’s and 80’s, to be supplanted by EPO in the mid 90’s, which was a much simpler procedure. EPO, then undetectable, was curtailed by the 50% hematocrit threshold until a test was developed in 2000, at which time its use began to diminish and blood transfusions reappeared.

A test for homologous transfusion (using someone else’s blood) was developed in 2004, but autologous transfusion (using one’s own blood) remained largely undetectable until the development of the Athlete Biological Passport in 2008. While many believe that the sport is much cleaner thanks to the Passport program, athletes were in fact engaged in sophisticated measures to mask blood transfusions.

Have you read a book called 'Breaking the chain'. Its more in the days of Richard Virenque and Festina but its still a good read.

It really is bizare the lengths people go to. I heard something about a test for a certain type of hormone that involves measuring levels against a different hormone. The way around this apparantly is to increase both hormones by the same amount!

The answer to the OP is that he didn't pass all of his drugs tests.

Everyone knows he did it

Bit sweeping that. You may believe it. Some people believe in an afterlife does that make it fact?

That aside he could have passed the tests by not cheating in the first place. Or had a complete fluid change imediately upon completion of the stage.

I've just watched a short clip on the BBC website where it said you could test for own blood doping due to the cell age. Not sure on accuracy though.
They also went on to say that there was a synthetic drug that increased red blood cell count that was [i]so far[/i] untraceable

Question.
IF you've had a blood transfusion recently , don't you have noticeable marks on the arm/body where needles have entered?

mk1fan - Sorry Il rephrase - Some people know he did it, some people are not in possession of the facts, some people can't handle the truth.

Have a look at the little iplayer link on the left hand side, about 3rd of the way down.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19369375

I'm not sure that a mark on the arm / body is in itself enough evidence. Also, I think that few people would feel a little upset if at any point a doping person could come up and say "right Mr Armstrong, put down your pint and strip naked. Refusal constitutes guilt and a lifetime ban"

Some people aren't bothered.

All professional sports men and women dope in some form or another it's just some forms are touted as 'wrong'. What's deemed 'wrong' changes year on year.

What's more disturbing is people who take the view the someone must be guilty simply because they must be guilty.

I may be slow but..
if you dont fail one of hundreds of tests taken at random and at the time and place of choice of the tester then i draw one conclusion.
At the time of those tests you did not have any of the prohibited drugs etc present.
I'd also imagine that if you were so good at concealing the use of these substances etc so that you didnt fail any of these random tests, then you had a pretty clued up medical team supporting you and if that were the case why would they be so incompetant at ensuring you passed all the tests and yet your close friends and team mates failed thiers?

then 5 -10 yrs later facing prosecution these team mates and dr's cop a deal and agree to give evidence against you to prevent them serving jail time.. thin at best and inadmissable evidence in the UK.

if you dont fail one of hundreds of tests taken at random and at the time and place of choice of the tester then i draw one conclusion.
At the time of those tests you did not have any of the prohibited drugs etc present.

Like Marion Jones?

We can't know, but I agree with njee20 - enough money in the sport for it to be ahead of testing.

He had mates in high places. For what he did for the sport no one was ever going to let him fail a test.

to prevent them serving jail time

Nobody is going to jail for this. Well, not unless the US government reopens its already closed case.

I may be slow but..
if you dont fail one of hundreds of tests taken at random and at the time and place of choice of the tester then i draw one conclusion.
At the time of those tests you did not have any of the [s]prohibited drugs[/s] drugs they can test for at the time etc present.

Part of the issue is drug testing is very crude and vastly under-funded compared with drug production. If you dose correctly and understand the half-life times of the stuff then you can make a good stab at avoiding detection even with detectable drugs, if you use something cutting edge there won't even be a test for it so worst case you get a detection via the effects (e.g. hematocrit levels). And then there's autologous doping (just reinjecting your own blood once the red blood cell count has been increased via a centrifuge), undetectable as well if done properly

This is the closest explanation to the mark.

Lance is reputed to have an unhealthily close relationship with a certain Dr Ferrari who you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Ferrari

Wiki says: "On 10 July 2012 the US Anti-Doping Authority issued Ferrari a lifetime sports ban for numerous anti-doping violations including possession, trafficking, administration and assisting doping."

I'm not a chemist but I work in the aroma chemicals industry so I have a layman's understanding of the use of gas chromatography and other related analytical methods. This is a pretty typical gas chromatogram of a complex mixture of molecules:

[img] [/img]

Each peak represents a molecule, the vertical axis being an indication of the amount and the horizontal showing the retention time in the column. Gas liquid chromatography is a little like when you did paper chromatography at school; a blob of ink is put on some blotting paper and water or a solvent flows up the paper, separating out the different colour molecules and smearing them up the paper, the smallest moving the furthest though the paper matrix. In GC you put a tiny sample of the mixture (a flavour or perfume or athlete's urine) into a 35 metre long capillary tube (the column) and you heat it up; the sample evaporates and the smaller more volatile molecules are pushed through and emerge from the end of the column, creating the peaks. From having previously run those single molecules we know how long they need to pass through the column under a given temperature ramp so we know what they are. Obviously this is hugely over-simplified and you need lots of experience to interpret GC because often one peak can hide another and certain compounds will give complex signatures with several peaks - you should see the trace when we get perfumes that have been contaminated with something like mineral oil.

My understanding - and no doubt some expert will be along soon to correct me - is that if you are at the forefront of molecular chemistry you will know that certain performance-enhancing molecules are masked by the body's own natural chemical signature and as the post above points out, the agencies who detect drug use will be a decade or so behind the cutting-edge drug manufacturers and so detection methods currently in use will not be able to pick up certain molecules. Molecular analysis is a bit hit-or-miss and you need to use a variety of different techniques together; we are constantly investing in new detection technologies, which enable us to gain a better understanding of what the big aroma molecules manufacturers are doing in the market but it takes out technicians a couple of years of experimentation to learn the best ways of using the new technologies. The latest we have bought is sorbtive bar extraction technology - a very interesting little toy indeed costing around £60,000 extra on top of a standard GC setup.

Its good to see some proper scientific explanations. I still laugh at the Lance fundamentalist fans though, who seem to be capable of ignoring the bleeding obvious 🙂

If you are interested in understanding, this is probably the best (and very good) read available:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Racing-Through-Dark-David-Millar/dp/1409120384/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345809260&sr=1-1

Your GC explanation is correct but pretty crude. Modern mass spectroscopic techniques (essentially the detector on the end of the GC) can pick out two different compounds even if they have exactly the same retention time (appear at the same point on the x axis). To do this you do need unique mass fragments from each compound, so if they are very similar in their structure they will be harder to separate.

To say testing is crude is a little unfair, analytical science is incredibly sophisticated, check out the stable isotope analysis to determine the differences between endogenous and exogenous hormones.

It becomes very difficult if you don't know what you are looking for, something of unknown shape and size, in a very huge haystack!

If you know what you are looking for given enough time and money it will be found.

Matt

Add an NMR into the mix and you can identify pretty much any carbon based compound. Which is nice.

Compared to the 80/90's, high end sophisticaed analytical instruments are so much cheaper, easier to use and more reliable than ever.

So the labs will start to catch up with the dopers if there is the time and will to keep searching, however one of the side effects of more reliable/accurate equipment/methods is that the paperwork side has massively escalated. Validation of a new method between the testing labs and then sign off by the regulatory bodies can be massive periods of time. And if it's not a properly validated and approved method you can bet that a highly paid lawyer will pick holes in it and get the cheat off.

I'll throw into the mix trial and unlicensed drugs. Just getting hold of certified reference standards is almost impossible.

Just with regards to a few of the comments recently about whether its possible to beat a drugs test, ie, be dirty but show up clean, how good the tests are etc, the following is an excerpt from the CAS case aagainst Contador

CAS report said:
Following WADA’s request, the Cologne Laboratory reanalysed three other urine samples provided by Mr Contador during the 2010 Tour de France. The bodily samples of 22, 24 and 25 July 2010 showed further clenbuterol concentrations of 16 pg/mL, 7 pg/mL and 17 pg/mL respectively. A blood sample was also taken on Mr Contador on the morning of 21 July 2010. Such blood sample also contained clenbuterol at a concentration of around 1 pg/mL.

A picogram is one trillionth of a gram or rather 1000000000000pg = 1g but as we all now know, the meat contamination theory was proved to be less likely than doping. In short, IMHO, the men in white coats in laboratories will catch you....

Add an NMR into the mix and you can identify pretty much any carbon based compound. Which is nice.

Usefull though NMR is in a chemistry lab, I can't see a practical anti-dopeing use for it. Pissing in a jar and putting it in an NMR machine would be like listening to white noise and explaining to someone that somwhere in the randomnes there was Beathoven's 5th.

Very useful for structural elucidation if you have a true unknown but yes absolutely rubbish in the process you describe. To be fair alot of sample prep still goes on before the majority of samples get near an instrument, although Direct Injection is good for organics in clean waters.

I don't know if anyone has attached an NMR to the back of a HPLC yet, probably but god knows how?

thisisnotaspoon - as a stand alone test you are correct but a gc, ms and nmr used in conjuction are going to id any pharmaceutically active compound.

"I'll throw into the mix trial and unlicensed drugs. Just getting hold of certified reference standards is almost impossible."

2 different things?

for ors use lcgc, they have all usp/ep for instance, or you can self cert as a seconday reference standard or material which most places have to do for even licensed drugs.

using gc, ms and nmr you can id a trial/unlicensed product.

just seperate the solution at the rt of the unknown and nmr that, we often spot it on a tlc plate for futher seperation of closely eluting peaks before scraping the plate and testing to get much higher purities when we investigating unknowns.

The obvious answer was that either-

a) he was very clever
b) he was very clean

I like the idea of him being clean. I can see why after 10 years of being constantly harassed, having people show up at his house unannounced to have him piss in a pot and generally being the butt of many needlessly aggressive middle aged men on the internet's rage he's had enough and quit.

I know the majority of you cynical old beggars who are so jaded will disagree with this, but that's your lot. Go and enjoy being cross at the world.

1) you cannot prove a negative, and absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence. I spent years using the worlds most powerful electron microscopes to re-visit problems and questions that had been long standing, every few years technology improves and become more sensitive.
2) Armstrong helped his cause by pretty much only racing the Tour, so was subjected to less tests than his peers.
3) he beat by some performance margin a peleton of the worlds best riders, most of whom have subsequently been linked to doping, so either he is truly superhuman, or he doped.
4) Many cyclists and other athletes have been confirmed as drug cheats without failing a test. Marion Jones already named above, Millar was caught from an empty syringe, Jonathan Vaughters came out after retirement.
5) LA seems to say everything apart from "I did not take drugs" in his rambling arguments. Its unfair, a witchhunt, he never failed a test (untrue), he is now being judged by different standards to current athletes etc etc means he can rant for pages, without actually denying what is at the core.
6) If youve read LA confidentiel or From Lance to Landis there are witnesses against LA who were not "tainted fellow riders".

It is unlikely given the time lapse there will every be categorical proof he doped; his followers dismiss the retrospectively-tested samples linked to him. His performances were literally incredible.

Can't believe SW people still think he's innocent???? I honestly thought we had more intelligent posters on here? Next some will scream Marion Jones innocence too!

I am intelligent enough to not have to use multiple question marks and believe he's clean. I will believe this until a proper trial with evidence has proven otherwise, which is the mark of a civilised society, no?

Lol@ the wit

He rejected the court procedure - why?

My repost

The issue for me is that we'll never know for sure which and he has now ensured that by refusing to mount a defence which I think is the point of not mounting one.
He did take every test asked of him but, as alluded to in the article, there is supposedly strong evidence that would have been produced in court that he did actually Fail several of these tests but managed to get them covered up or discounted for various reasons.

Personally I think he was hoping that by aggressively defending his corner up to now that no case would ever be brought. Now that's it's obvious that this would be going to court then his best strategy is to do as he has an offer no defence which means the evidence will never be laid out in front of a court where a judge will have to take a view on it's veracity.
[b]Should any of the evidence come into the public domain without it having been tested and ruled upon by a court then he can still deny everything and claim that "they're out to get me!".[/b]

The bottom line is, though, regardless of what you think, it's still not been proven. It looks fishy, but it has not been proven beyond all doubt in a court. Until that time you must assume innocence.

It will never be proven because he knows what will be discovered. Anyone who is innocent would go to court (and be advised this by all legal representatives) to clear their name. It's the actions of a guilty man

He may be your hero, but now stripped of all his titles

Didn't rio Ferdinand put a similar argument up? "I'm innocent and it's not been proven"

The cheaters are ahead, but it's not often they're ahead in the chemistry lab. Seems rare to hear of someone getting done for an unknown. It's almost always a legit pharmaceutical thats being abused.
And exception would be steroid in the 'clear' that's balco were pedalling. That's was a steroid modified by a clandestine chemist IIRC.

I don't doubt he was doing something along with the rest of them but his full statement and his lawayers suggest that the evidence is submitted to the UCI for their review...

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lance-armstrongs-full-statement-on-usada

so he's not exactly hiding.

So because he refuses to attend court to answer the charges which might have provided proof of his guilt he is therefore innocent?

proven beyond all doubt in a court

Criminal burden of proof- beyond all reasonable doubt
Civil burden of proof- balance of probabilities.

Which court are you hoping to see him in?

How did Lance Armstrong pass his drug tests?

This is my understanding of the situation

EPO was developed as a drug to treat very ill people. It was not detectable in tests and had clear benefits for cyclists. It first surfaced in the media as a cyclists started dying in the night. It turned out they had very high red blood cell counts. It was assumed that they were taking EPO

So the sport had 2 problems. Cheating with a drug they couldn't detect. Athletes dieing in the process

A pragmatic approach was taken. A cap was put on red blood cell limits. If you went over it was just a 2 week ban until things returned to normal

This I think reduced or eliminated the deaths but was seen by many as a nessage that EPO is OK if you stay within the limits

Thats from my memory of the media at the time. Please point out the effors

Since then

Witness have come forward to say Lance Doped and we have the B sample scandal.

Again from memory. In order to validate new EPO tests labs were allowed to test old tour urine B samples. Lots of these were found to contain EPO. Some one then did some clever digging and showed that some these anonymous samples came from Lance Armstrong

No idea exactly how true the b sample bit is

But in summary Armstrong's critics claim

He passed the first time as EPO couldn't be detected
When they checked the B samples with newer technology he failed

So by the standards of most of you on here who are saying that he couldn't have been better without cheating that means that Usain Bolt must be guilty as he is so much faster than all his competitors.

Maybe he didn't get caught because he didn't cheat

For me the most telling interview I've heard was with a sports scientist who said that this year professional cyclists including Wiggo, are putting in performances which are merely credible after 10-15 years of incredible. Says it all really.

Luke - your hero has denied the world of the opportunity of your "fair trial" by declining to defend the claims, because he's a bit tired of it all.

You think that makes him innocent?

Given his resources, I can't see why anyone who could defend his reputation would do this.

Actually, I think you are right to compare it to criminal proceedings.

If you don't mount a defence then you effectively admit guilt.

So by the standards of most of you on here who are saying that he couldn't have been better without cheating that means that Usain Bolt must be guilty as he is so much faster than all his competitors.

Maybe he didn't get caught because he didn't cheat

Crap argument, Usain Bolt is presumed to be competing against clean athletes and is the best of them. Lance was known to be competing against doping cyclists and was better than them.

Qui tacet consentire videtur!

There is an old motor sport saying....." You must be cheating because I am and you are still faster than me!"........

The PM takes large bungs from the building industry and then just happens to provide enhanced planning regs to favour more building. nothing happens to the PM.
The Met Pol Commissioner takes thousands in gratuities from a company suspected of multiple criminal activity and the investigation is left at just a minimal of prosecutions. The Commissioner resigns but otherwise gets off scotfree.
Numerous MPs swindle the country out of hundreds of thousands of pounds and most of them just get to pay it back with no hint of prosecution.

ON AND ON AND ON THE EVIDENCE HITS EVERYONE IN THE FACE DAILY

IT IS A VERY CORRUPT WORLD....

That's why he got away with it.

SO if you see corruption...... DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. If enough folk engage these mothers then things might get better. If everyone does nothing, things won't get better

So which body or bodies have actually banned/revoked LAs TDF wins then?

is it the USADA or UCI or both?

Whoops double post.

So which body or bodies have actually banned/revoked LAs TDF wins then?

is it the USADA or UCI or both?

At the moment, USADA (acting, so they claim on the authority of WADA).
The whole thing is still a mess. UCI could still feasibly refuse to acknowledge the sanction citing jurisdiction rights.

As others have alluded to above, the whole trail to catch a cheat has to be watertight, from the moment the athlete is notified that s/he is required for anti-doping to the final pronouncement on that sample. More numerous and advanced tests are great but they're rarely done due to time and money constraints. He was able to get off a lot of the early stuff (eg B-sample retrospectively testing positive for EPO) on the grounds that one finding is not proof - it's an "adverse analytical finding" and requires back up. In this case, it wasn't possible to back it up so the test is invalid no matter what it shows. So technically, it's not a fail and his claim that he has not failed a drugs test is true (for that particular example).

Landis managed to find a whole load of holes in the testing process to get him off some of the accusations and delay the proceedings by months. Same with the lab - the "leaked information". Labs shouldn't leak, if they do you can easily get around the legalities of it all by claiming sample spiking, breach of privacy/trust etc.

Agreed Billyboy, in a nutshell 'All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing'.

[img] [/img]

Qui tacet consentire videtur

Ecce! In pictura est puella, nomine Cornelia.

I am intelligent enough to not have to use multiple question marks and believe he's clean. I will believe this until a proper trial with evidence has proven otherwise, which is the mark of a civilised society, no?

I'm with you on this one. And I don't see what right the USADA has to claim to have stripped him of his titles. Smacks of arrogance on their part.

I'm with you on this one. And I don't see what right the USADA has to claim to have stripped him of his titles. Smacks of arrogance on their part.

They feel their right comes from the fact that LA registered with them and agreed to abide by their code.

Also, why all the talk of a 'proper trial'? Now that the Federal investigation is closed there will be no 'proper trial' just potentially a number of sports tribunals.

Spin - Member

They feel their right comes from the fact that LA registered with them and agreed to abide by their code.

So is there any truth to his allegations that they're not abiding by their code?

That was kind of my thinking. The USADA are actually out on a bit of a limb here. The vast majority of testing was governed and administered by the UCI right? LAs TDF wins were effectively given by the UCI. So surely the UCI are the only body with the authority to revoke any of LAs wins or right to compete.

Without a UCI endorsement of this USADA judgement its pretty much toothless right?
The news were presenting it as an actual ban and making relatively little of any need for UCI endorsment of the ruling...

I'm not sure it will actually stick TBH... What am I missing?

I heard that the UCI have signed up to the USADA Code, which gives them jurisdiction? Interesting to hear what UCI and ASO say though.

So is there any truth to his allegations that they're not abiding by their code?

I don't know. What we're all waiting for is the UCI to look at the info that USADA is required to present them with under their agreement and then comment on the case.

Might be a while.

That doesn't all come down to the UCI though. Frinstance, just wading through his statement...

"USADA has lodged charges over 17 years old despite its own 8-year limitation."

"As respected organizations such as UCI and USA Cycling have made clear, USADA lacks jurisdiction even to bring these charges."

"The international bodies governing cycling have ordered USADA to stop, have given notice that no one should participate in USADA's improper proceedings, and have made it clear the pronouncements by USADA that it has banned people for life or stripped them of their accomplishments are made without authority. "

All seem very fact-based and easy to refute if untrue.

I am intelligent enough to not have to use multiple question marks and believe he's clean. I will believe this until a proper trial with evidence has proven otherwise, which is the mark of a civilised society, no?

BTW this is clearly what LA wants lots of people to do and believe as it was his only way of being able to keep the myth going. Clearly he does not fancy his chances in court and clearly he wants you all to think it is because it is a witch hunt and not because they actually have any evidence against him and of they did they all sang rather than do time so they are all liars etc.

The only reason there is no trial is because he accepted [ by refusing to contest] the claims not that he wants you to think this it was just so weighted against him.

Imagine it was a AN Other person using this to deny a crime. Why would anyone support them?

When I read the "charge" letter:

it seemed to me that doping was the least of the guys worries, and that USADA must have some testimony / evidence that he and some testing/governing body conspired to cover up test results.

And the "drug trafficking / administration to others" allegation - that's a bleak movie script right there.

USADA has lodged charges over 17 years old despite its own 8-year limitation."

"As respected organizations such as UCI and USA Cycling have made clear, USADA lacks jurisdiction even to bring these charges."

"The international bodies governing cycling have ordered USADA to stop, have given notice that no one should participate in USADA's improper proceedings, and have made it clear the pronouncements by USADA that it has banned people for life or stripped them of their accomplishments are made without authority.

If they had ordered them then they would have but clearly they dont have the authority so an interesting choice of word to add weight to his claims

I imagine LA wrote a rant and a lawyer changed it for legalese that is neither fully accurate nor an actual lie

the original epo tests were actually crude tests to measure and monitor the red blood cell count of cyclists. a measure of something like 50% was deemed abnormal and an indication of epo abuse.
these tests were carried out with a blood sample and a centrifuge.
the tests were easily manipulated and riders often had fair warning of the test. simply drinking vast quantities of water could alter the haemocrit count.
careful planning of epo useage could allow a rider to peak at the right times.
the wheels falling off the armstrong bandwagon is of no surprise. you don't have that much success without making a few enemies. and by all accounts he is not the nicest of guys to cross should you differ in opinion.
its been well documented his treatment of riders like Simeoni, Basson, LeMond and journalists like David Walsh, Jeremy Whittle and Paul Kimmage.
pretty much his entire US postal team has been implicated or admitted to doping. riders like Landis, Hamilton, Andreu and speculatively Hincapie.
LA has been the dark enforcer for the peloton's omerta for whatever reason. some might say to protect the peloton and cycling itself. others might say to protect his win at all costs mentality.
maybe LA got to big for his own boots and this is payback. his lack of defence, a queue of witnesses waiting in the wings and technology having finally caught up with his same repeated rebuttals.
cycling desperately needs closure on this dark chapter.

mudsux, totally agree and eloquently put.

Say, for the sake of arguement, that Armstrong didn't dope and was clean when he won the TdF.
How does he prove that now?

As he turned down the change to face his accusers in a trial I very much doubt he ever will or can - I ignore the fact you cannot prove a negative.

One of the claims was he failed a Dope test in the tour of Switzerland so i suspect he wanted to avoid that being discussed as I imagine he will repeat his mantra that he has never failed a test [ he has but he got a retrospective med cert- i wonder of that broke their own rules of ]

[i]As he turned down the change to face his accusers in a trial I very much doubt he ever will or can[/i]

I didn't ask how he [i]can[/i], but how [i]would[/i] he.

How [i]would[/i] he prove it?

If he cant he wont
Sorry if that was unclear
You cannot prove a negative so he cannot anyway irrespective of this case.

Right, so what's the point of him carry on with this trial?
So they can prove him guilty?
Why don't they just do that anyway without him?

I really don't care if he's guilty or not, but I find it weird that so many people [u]know[/u] he's guilty without being privy to any evidence of that.
So produce the evidence USADA and then we'll ALL know.

To try and answer the question originally posted:

1. Earlier in Lance's career, the assumption would be that the main drug of choice would have been EPO. As described above, there was no test for the presence of the drug itself, only a test for elevated red blood cells. So riders could use EPO with impunity as long as they kept below the red cell limit set by the UCI. This could be done by careful management of your EPO dosing, or diluting your blood by drinking water or using a plasma injection in an emergency.

2. When a test for EPO was introduced, the best organised dopers generally moved to autologous (self) blood transfusion. Extract your blood during the early season, and store the red cells for use in competition. Transfusion of the stored cells would have the same effect as using EPO. Again, there was originally no test for self transfusion.

3. It has also been suggested that Armstrong manipulated the bureaucracy of the testing process to avoid positive tests (by obtaining a TUE certificate for exemption on medical grounds, or by using his financial and personal influence to suppress the results of testing.

The assumption is that these were the main techniques used by Armstrong if he doped. I don't know enough to comment on how tests for other substances could be countered, or how riders avoided detection of autologous transfusions when a test for this was introduced.

Interesting article on how often Armstrong was actually tested here:
http://www.cyclismas.com/2012/07/the-legend-of-the-500/