fietsbob

Maybe he will end up just being another ex racer running a Bike shop.. and hoping the bank won't take back the inventory ,
before it can sell. .. with an Asterisk* on the record..

Dan Burkhart 

I have to believe his soul is a little free-er today.

Steve B.

I don't believe him when he denies playing enforcer to other team mates by not forcing them to use drugs. His characterization of himself as a bully would have seen him doing exactly that and so many have testified to him doing this, people who have now been vindicated.

I also do not believe his comeback to a 3rd place finish in the '09 TdF was without at least the use blood doping. I think by then he well understood the testing protocols and knew possibly that they would pick up on EPO, but cannot for a second believe that at age 37 with a 3 year layoff, he's going to place that high without PED's.

So still lying in my book and while I was otherwise happy he had admitted to his past thus far, I still see him as attempting to manage his image to the best possible light.

GeorgeBMac

I find the anti-Lance crowd a little juvenile...

Lance was simply doing what everybody else was doing -- but doing it better. Everybody was:
-- Riding bikes
-- Doping
-- Lying

.....Lance simply did it better.

I can't criticize Lance anymore than I can criticize every body else who was riding, doping and riding.

But, at the same time, I equate it to Nazi Germany:

The whole country was doing what they were doing. And, after the war many were put on trial but claimed innocence because their leaders had ordered them to do what they did. We told them each person is responsible for their own actions -- and we hung 'em. Not just the leaders.

If we are going to hang Lance, we need to hang all the rest up along side him -- riders, physicians, group executives and the people who paid for all of it: the sponsors who insisted on winning at any cost and looked the other way at the doping... To me, the sponsors are a little like the bankers who wrote $500,000 loans to nurse's aids making $20K a year -- and told her to lie on her application -- and then said: "We didn't know she lied! That dirt bag!"

But, it's easier to simply hang Lance up and throw darts at him. It makes us feel all good about ourselves.

az_cyclist

I dont agree with your Nazi Germany analogy. This is bike racing, not a political regime that led a country into a world war.

As for sponsors.... there is little evidence to suggest conspiracy on their part. Lacking a positive test or solid evidence that he doped, I gave LA the benefit of the doubt. What is different here (and we dont know about Jullrich, Contador, others who have been caught) are the lengths LA went to fight those who suggested he doped, when in fact he did, was lying, and commited perjury.

eja_ bottecchia

Indeed, confession is good for the soul!

eja_ bottecchia

Cancer is cancer, no matter who the sufferer is...Hitler perhaps being the only exception.

Make fun of the guy if you must, just don't make fun of the illness the guy has, or the effects of the illness on the guy.

boyze

[QUOTE=GeorgeBMac;15170195]I find the anti-Lance crowd a little juvenile...

Lance was simply doing what everybody else was doing -- but doing it better. Everybody was:
-- Riding bikes
-- Doping
-- Lying

.....Lance simply did it better.

QUOTE]

he certainly did bully the "innocents", "truth tellers" and "questioners" considerably better than the others!!

A Proud Juvenile

BlazingPedals

I agree with GeorgeBMac in one respect. Lance isn't the only guilty party and we shouldn't forget about all the enablers: the coaches/trainers/managers/team doctors, and even the UCI itself should all be thoroughly investigated. I'm still wondering how Brunyeel got advance warnings of impending tests so he could warn the team members. That had to be an inside job. Someone within the UCI had full knowledge and was enabling all of this.

FrenchFit 

"Lance was simply doing what everybody else was doing -- but doing it better. Everybody was:
-- Riding bikes
-- Doping
-- Lying"

I think his efforts to destroy people telling the truth, the scale of his lying, his status in the sport..that's the difference.


Why did the DoJ suddenly drop its prosecution of LA? That's the story that isn't being told. From what I've read, they had him cold. Then the DoJ mysteriously packed its bags and disappeared...in the middle of a trial? It sure appears that someone called the DoJ and ordered them to back off. Perhaps it will be seen as more piling on, but I think the DoJ's conduct needs to be investigated now; who is pulling its strings, making its decisions?

az_cyclist

not sure the UCI was in on it, or, just didnt investigate as completely as they should have.

Gerryattrick

Interesting to see how many people who previously said Armstrong didn't dope as he never tested positive for drugs are now starting to shift the argument to - even if he did cheat he was no worse than all the other riders.

There is no argument - the guy is an arrogant liar, cheat and bully who is finally getting what he deserves. I suspect that the contempt which many, if not most, now hold him in will be his greatest punishment and what he will be remembered for in years to come.

A very sad story but I hope that the marvelous work he has started for cancer patients and survivors does not suffer too badly.

GeorgeBMac

I didn't say or suggest an active conspiracy.

Rather it was a passive setup that created the environment that made ever higher levels of doping the only way to exist and survive in the environment that those sponsors created.

My analogy was the bankers: the bank execs didn't actually tell the loan writers to tell the applicants to lie on their applications. Instead they created the environment by removing the checks on income that the industry had always insisted on and then they rewarded the loan writers for writing loans whether they were good or bad.

My analogy to Nazi Germany was to point out that everybody is responsible for their own actions. If you do something wrong, you can't claim innocence by saying: "But he made me do it!".
... Basically, I equate Lance to a lieutenant or captain in the Nazi army. Sort of a middle manager. He didn't create the situation. And, while he needs to be held accountable for his actions, he shouldn't be left holding the bag for what hundreds and thousands also did.

merlinextraligh

The problem isn't the doping. Obviously a large number of riders in his era doped as well, and Armstrong shouldn't be more vilified than them for that.

The problem is his systematic efforts to crush innocent people around him for simply telling the truth.

Read Hamilton's book, the interviews with Landis, and the USADA report, and the accompanying documentation, and it becomes very clear that Armstrong is a vindictive, self absorbed, prick that was willing to destory people to save his own skin.

merlinextraligh

First, they didn't drop the investigation in the middle of a trial. There never was an indictment, and there never was a trial.

Second, its not that clear that the DOJ had Armstrong cold. Their case required more than proving he doped. It required proving that he committed a crime, within U.S. jurisdiction, for which the Statute of Limitations had not expired. That's a much higher burden.

Third, U.S. Attorneys don't like losing cases or looking bad in public. Good prosecutors win 90% plus of their cases because they choose the cases they bring. The Goverment essentially lost the Bond's case, getting only a conviction on a minor count, and got their butts handed to them in the Clemmons trial, totally botching the first trial.

In that context, a U.S. Attorney could easily decide to cut their loses, turn it over to USADA, and let USADA handle it as a civil matter.

No doubt, political influence had an effect on the US Attorney's decision, but I think the effect it had was making him consider how he'd come out looking at the end of it, and he concluded he didn't like his chances. That happens every day without nefarious conspiracies.

locolobo13 

+1

Yrs ago I was in an elevator with 2 prosecuters. They were discussing a case. They weren't discussing innocence or guilt but the odds of winning vs losing and how the outcome would effect how they appeared.

Dudelsack 

Godwin's law

Gerryattrick

az_cyclist

lol

GeorgeBMac

I agree that that IS/WAS a problem. As the bumper sticker says: "Mean People Suck!". But I think Lance is far from the only one playing that game.

The culture was rotten and that spawned rottenness of all sorts...

(And by rotten I mean: Profit / Competition / Winning was more important than ethics. So it spawned doping and lying and intimidation)

BluesDawg

I think the UCI is very dirty and partly responsible for the persistence of the doping culture in bike racing. If Lance can shed light on the doping authorities who have looked aside and allowed this to go on, there may be something more worthwhile than boosting Oprah's ratings to come from his admissions.

GeorgeBMac

The trouble with placing the blame on the UCI (or the general culture as I have done) is that it leaves people who doped & lied off the hook. I think they should be held accountable for their actions -- yet penalizing them and bad mouthing them does nothing to fix the problem.

Until the problem(s) are identified and addressed we will keep seeing more Lance stories.

I'm not saying Lance was a victim of the culture. But he was a participant -- which helped to propagate the culture.

dbg

The only part that bothers me is the vicious attacks he did on anybody who crossed him. If it weren't for that I'd probably be defending him completely.

I still think criticizers need to put themselves in his shoes (sponsers, fans, peers, money ..all demanding results that just required him to improve his body)

And I still think unequal access to technology and science is another form of unfair advantage (wind tunnels, design engineers, nutritionists, body recovery analyses, etc). At least the PEDs were available to everyone.

GeorgeBMac

And that is the part that confuses me. It feels like I'm missing something.

If PEDs were available to "everybody" -- and they were... Then why was taking them called "cheating"?
... Sure, it's breaking some rule that somebody somewhere made -- but it doesn't provide an unfair advantage. Not if everybody else was taking them.

... But NOT taking them is sort of like letting the air out of your tires before you start the race. Kind of dumb.

Old Sarge

Generally I find myself agreeing with you most of the time but this time I have to take the other side. You ask why taking them was called cheating and then you answer the question. "...it's breaking some rule that somebody somewhere made--" That is the answer. If you play a game, participate in a sport, and you fail to follow the rules you are a cheater....plain and simple. And it is a reflection of a lack of integrity and, unfortunately, way to common in our culture today. And failure to break the rules, IMHO, is not "Kind of dumb." It is evidence of a higher level of integrity than most people today are willing to exercise.

Now, I am not an expert on Lance Armstrong. All I know about him was that my son attended school with him at some point and loaned him money to buy his lunch....and never got paid back. Maybe that was early evidence of a lack of integrity.