zebreaux

I think Lance was a monster competitor. Still is. That’s why he doesn’t just quietly slip out the back door and assume a low profile. But he really should. He did some good things and some bad things. I wouldn’t care to watch him on tv but I bet he’d be real interesting to talk to. Wouldn’t buy a bike from him though.

Miele Man

Many people will agree with this part of your statement: : "I think Lance was a monster".

Cheers

Maelochs

Back in the day, I heard a quote form a journalist to the effect that Lance was the sort of guy he'd like to drink a beer with ... but not two beers. I doubt I could sit through half a beer with him enjoyably.

I am sure he'd be just a domineering and demanding in conversation as in every part of his life---self-centered, needing attention, demanding agreement, attacking alternate understandings .... I've listened to some of his stuff, and he knows what he knows .... he actually did race a lot for a long time and learned a lot.

So have other people, and those other people didn't deliberately ruin everyone who had once befriended them to get their own ways.

Your call.

Rajflyboy

yes

zebreaux

I think y’all might have misinterpreted the point of my Reader’s Digest Lance Armstrong comment. To be more blunt; I’m not a Lance fan. He ruined himself and a lot of other people because of his cut throat competitiveness . He’s a liar and a thief. I wouldn’t drive across town to have a conversation with him. The main point is that he should have been long gone by now. Shame on him and shame on the people who keep paying him. He’s like the pedophile that keeps hanging around across from the elementary school. “Just go home.”

zebreaux

Maybe I was trying to be too subtle. It’s just time for him not to be related to sports anymore. Kind of like O.J., turns my stomach a little bit. Let it go.

Bassmanbob

I can forgive him for doping... everybody did it.

I can forgive him for lying about the doping... everybody did it.

I can't forgive him for ruining those people's lives who told the truth.

I can't forgive him for not apologizing to those people he trashed.

Koyote

Since no one answered this: no, there were no rules against doping when Simpson died. 'Course, back then, doping often meant Strychnine and Gin.

ups

I like his podcasts. They are all about him, but it's his podcast. I really like hearing the stories of the other riders and the inside information George H brings to it.

chadtrent

I liked them. Sure he cheated. But he has a perspective of the sport from inside the peloton that none of us have.

OBoile

Thanks!
Based on this, I don't see how one can compare Simpson with Lance. One cheated, the other just did something that was very risky.

Rajflyboy

George H is the worst one of the entire group. He gets off virtually scott free from his drug abuse.

canklecat

Technically, I think Simpson's death (attributed in part to substance abuse -- combining alcohol and speed -- exacerbated by the idiotic restrictions back then on water, and heat) occurred after some bans on doping. IIRC, amphetamines had been technically banned the year before. But usage continued for years, with changes to skirt lab tests.

Jacques Anquetil was the last great doper and libertine. He was brazen about it and told everyone that nobody can endure those grueling grand tours without something to boost energy and dull the pain. And he probably scattered more DNA among villages along the TdF route than any other cyclist. Somewhere out there are hundreds of kids with Anquetil's DNA.

And the stuff used by many cyclists right through the Merckx era was barely helpful compared with testosterone, blood doping, EPO and stuff like albuterol. Athletes were just as likely to kill themselves as to get any real benefit from booze, strychnine, arsenic, coke and speed. But steroids and EPO upped the whole game to the point that PEDs really did matter.

Regarding Armstrong's persistent appeal to at least some folks, well... that's just the era we're in. Most sports now involve at least some trash talking and manufactured controversy to sell tickets and help participants market themselves. That's been part of boxing for years, so to me the cycling controversy seems mild. And now it's widely practiced in politics internationally, with many world leaders adopting the braggadocio and bluster of pro wrestlers, while their sins are forgiven by their constituents. It's just the whole zeitgeist, not a Lance thing. He just happened to coincide with the rising tide of that sort of personality.

Rajflyboy

good stuff

Koyote

Interesting perspective. I would add that this boastful attitude among public figures is usually in inverse proportion to their actual accomplishments.

canklecat

Usually true. Boastfulness often seems to be overcompensation for lack of ability. Sort of a truism, like "all bullies are invariably cowards."

But since Muhammad Ali changed the game, we're seeing more athletes who can back up their brags. In many cases, including Ali, they weren't necessarily braggarts by nature. They just added it as hot sauce on top of their skills, to promote themselves above the crowd. And in Ali's case, there's enough movie footage of him "backstage," so to speak, to show that he was usually low key and seldom confrontational in ordinary conversations and even in many interviews. He was just playing the game to sell his brand. If Ali had survived to participate on social media, I doubt we'd see a rash of ill considered blurt posts from him.

Sugar Ray Leonard at his peak had unshakable confidence, but wasn't arrogant despite how it sounded at times. I was an amateur boxer during that era, had sparred with one of the best amateur light-welterweights of that era, one of the few to give Leonard some trouble, and realized very early on I'd never be at that level of skill. So when a reporter asked Leonard, at the final national Golden Gloves tournament of his amateur career, how he thought he'd do, Leonard confidently replied "I expect to win here." And he did. To me, that didn't seem like arrogance. It was just a fact. He was head and shoulders above everyone in the world in that weight class.

Cyclists are often socially awkward, even misfits, especially in the US. Before Lance Armstrong we were the odd ducks, the Cutters. Sure, a few had a knack for appealing to fans with charisma. And Merckx had the suave good looks and quiet charm of a European movie star. Anquetil was aloof and oh-so-French (although even the French, apparently, found Maitre Jacques a bit too aloof and detached), good looking but not relatable. Greg LeMond was a good looking scrappy kid who wore his heart on his sleeve and a chip on his shoulder, veering from confident to arrogant, occasionally even a bit petty, with a short fuse for reporters who asked stupid questions. He was more like the prickly, demanding Hinault than even LeMond would care to admit, and he had the ability to back up his demands and expectations.

Armstrong's charisma, confidence and occasional arrogance clicked with a broad audience in the US, and annoyed the French, which Americans liked even more since it confirmed our stereotypes about those snooty French. I doubt cycling would be so popular now in the US without a Lance Armstrong. When I resumed cycling in 2015 I was surprised to see that cycling had become relatively mainstream. Armstrong did for US cycling what Tiger Woods did for golf. Good and bad.

But now trash talking is the norm and many athletes, to borrow a phrase Ali borrowed from someone else, write checks with the mouths that their butt's can't cash.

Koyote

canklecat : If you've not seen it, look up a movie called "When We Were Kings." It's a documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle. I'm not even a boxing fan, but it's a great film about Ali and (to a lesser extent) Foreman - and it's also about race in the '60s, African politics, music, etc. The film came out 20 or 25 years ago.