Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France (Page 5)

(sorry, conitnue with the thread )

amiine - 2008-07-23 8:25 PM

cythim - 2008-07-23 4:29 PM All the evidence on either side of this arguement is circumstantial. You either choose to believe Lance or believe the French press.

I didn't know all those accusing Lance were french?!?!?! Those froggies bastards; the US should take over the Tour and call it Tour the Freedom!

(sorry, conitnue with the thread )

The French press makes great coffee.  Much better than my $19.99 Proctor-Silex.

(ok, now you can continue with the thread ) 

OK im sorry if you think Lance didnt dope.  I know he was an inspiration to many but what he did was a result of drugs.  He was agreat athlete that when fueled on whatever illegal drugs he used made him incredible.  I watched many Legit bikers in this years tour de france and some other races and no one attacked standing up for 6-9 minutes the way Lance did.  There is no way you can ride like that without drugs.  I will not accept the fact that he was legit.  And we may never find out because of his "legacy"   Especially since people say "Well he did it just because everyone else was doing it."  Yea, well he still did something illegal and made riding a bike look easier then it should be on pure training good diet and 0 drugs.  Lets imagine if Ken griffy jr took steroids.. Barry who? we would be saying in reguards to the HR record.  Related or not its still the same concept.. give a top athlete top drugs you get incredible results. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHJErrp4eOw&feature=related

Don't forget that some of the best riders were not at this years Tour.  Have you seen the way Contador climbs?  He can make attack after attack and is a better climber than Armstrong.  Does that mean that he is doping too?

Also, being a champion means that you are better than everybody else and therefore able to do things that others can't.

Which of course is a ridiculous thing to believe.

The accusations of drug use are circumstantial.  LA never failing a drug test is factual.

Mark 

In reaction to everything always stating that why couldn't he have done it just because other people couldn't, I loved this quote from another person on another site:

"Why can't people just come to the realization that Lance was just that much better than everyone else .......... at covering his tracks."

Maybe this is the Tiger effect. Tiger came out and trained harder than everyone. It took the field a few years, but the field started to level back off with people eventualy catching up to Tiger. Is it not possible that Lance just raised the bar? Heck anyone who can devote themselves to there job to the point of a devorce, and loosing Cheril Crow must be prety focused

Plus I will never doubt the drive of someone who has faced death and decided "not today". I will not say it is not possible that Lance dopped, but I will say, it takes a lot to go through kemo and stay up on a trainer. Heck I do not want to get on my trainer after a night of drinking, let alone kemo.

This is a very good point.  Whilst in todays peleton all the equipment is pretty much the same in terms of performance this was not the case when Armstrong came on the scene in 99.  Armstrong and his team constantly wanted lighter, stiffer, faster equipment and constantly pushed the limits of technology.  They were the first team to make use of wind tunnel testing and they were also the first team to do extensive reconnaissance of the key stages.  During May Lance would ride mountain pass after mountain pass for hour after hour in bone chilling conditions analyzing each mountain to determine where the best places to attack were, where to hold back a little etc.  None of his competitors were doing this (at least not in the first few years and never to the extent of the USPS team).  Actually when you look at the level of commitment from Lance and his team and compare this to his best competitor, Ullrich, I don't really think it is that surprising that Lance always came out on top.

I guess that's just too simple.  People are always looking for the exciting conspiracy story so they just choose to ignore the facts.

Maybe because Basso, Pantani, Riis, Ullrich, et. al. never failed one either and two of those were still suspended from the sport and another only admitted to it more than 7 years after the fact because that is the maximum time they would have been able to do anything about it.  The other died in a drug overdose.  I could write up a whole list of others that did fail or admitted to doping THAT WERE ON HIS TEAM.

Not having a positive in a test doesn't mean anything in this sport.

No one will ever truly know the truth except LA.  He has to live with whatever he did or did not do and one day will have to explain to his kids if it ever is proven.  I would not want to be there for that conversation .........

Amazing, and I can sum it up in two lines:
Lance never failed a test
Neither did Basso/Marion Jones/etc etc etc

Gotta love type A triathletes!!!!!!

Nope - got my intro, my 2 line sum up, then my editorial (doing my part to get to page 6)

It's in Tritalk .........