Wow, Lance doped (Page 4)

Name a professional athlete that arranged to come on Oprah to "tell the truth" and lied while telling "the truth" :-)

Now please note that Canada had an athlete from Paralympic Curling banned. THIS IS NOT A JOKE

It gets better. What was his name ? Yep. Armstrong. Jim Armstrong. Google it.

I thought this article was a nice summary of the first LA interview.  

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/lance-armstrong--arrogant-and-unaware--did-little-to-repair-his-image-in-mea-culpa-with-oprah-062222144.html

A sociopathic spectacle indeed.

I think the government went after him for fraud on that, and he paid up at least some of it.

There probably are none.  But what's your point?  The fact that there is a pull to cheat in any sport, business or other endeavor does not make it right to do so (even knowing there are others doing it). 

Some would say chess is a sport (I wouldnt)...

Thanks! That made me laugh.

That's a major issue, for sure.  It's certainly a big lure.  And, eventually, a big enabler for those who have some success.  But, for many, it may not even be the primary driver.

Chess has had their Armstrong.

http://www.dailytech.com/Computer+Chess+Champion+Caught+Injecting+PerformanceEnhancing+Code/article22060.htm

edit and there is some testing in countries where it is considered a sport. I think it is to get it recognized as an Olympic sport there must be testing in place.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/ic01.pdf

Yes, I'm sure there were not all these "clean" riders looking up at the top finishers thinking they were competing on a fair playing field. Likely the only true clean riders were those that did not have the resources to cheat on this scale, or were just there for the specticle of the event with no illusions they had a chance of winning.

 I think many people admired him and made him into something he wasn't due to the fact he survived a terrible disease that devastates so many lives and gave people hope in very dark times of their, or their loved ones, lives. I'm sure if they knew the kind of person he truly was inside, that may not have been the case. I don't think all the "good" he has done does anything to change who he really seems to be. I don't think he has probably done anything including his charity work that didn't have some direct personal benefit.

Karma has a way of catching up to this type of person however.

I hear you on that one. Wait, what are we talking about here? I'm glad my wife doesn't read these forums...

I didn't read through this entire thread, but I watched at 6pm PST on oprah.com. Not sure if that helps.

I thought that too. He used the phrase "Absolutely not" then and now.

I'm willing to bet golf has some dopers. I don't think they are tested aggressively. Without making any accusations, there was one guy who was a long driver who lost a lot of muscle mass when he came under public scrutiny. If you don't test  for it, you won't find it.

FWIW,

I think Lance did more harm then good with the interview. I think his ego made him think he could win public sentiment. I was certain he was going to come clean but hearing about the way he tried or succeeded in destroying the professional lives of people (non-dopers, trainers, and therapist) who were telling the truth is disgusting. He is going to be the fall guy in an ugly chapter of cycling.

I'm not as up on cycling as a lot of folks around here...I hate watching it, but I really enjoy doing it.

 Where was LA prior to his doping operation?  Was he really just an average competitor?  If so, it's just one of many reasons why Armstrong's actions were much worse than the baseball PED cheats.  At least with Barry Bonds, before his body morphed into a 6' 2" 240 pound Hulk, he was a wiry 6' 2" 185 pound, gold-glove center fielder that hit for high average, high RBIs, and 35 homers/year.  Bonds was without a doubt a Hall of Fame talent prior to his obvious use of PEDs, which helped shoot his numbers through the roof.  What did LA do before he doped?   

btw, so many great posts in this thread.  great reading...thank you.

If you want to use a disease analogy, I don't think you can say Lance was the innocent victim who caught a virus from someone sitting next to him on the bus.

He was more like the mad scientist conspiring to infect people, deliberately seeking out new and more virulent forms of the disease, covering up evidence of the epidemic, bribing the Centers for Disease Control to allow the disease to spread, and then trying to destroy anyone who told the truth about it.

He didn't exactly win the sport of "cycling."

He won the sport of "juiced cycling."

Reading this stuff, you realize it isn't just the case of Lance took a little blue pill every morning, and everyone else was taking the same pill according to the same regimen. No, he had the most sophisticated regimen of doping that anyone has ever seen, with multiple drugs and drug combos and an elaborate system that allowed him to dope more, with less risk of getting caught/punished.

Some portion of his success is due to his excellence as an athlete.

Some portion of his success is due to the fact that he had more dope and better dope and a better doping regimen than anyone else.

Any speculation about what percentage is due to what is just idle guessing.

He will never be the greatest cyclist of all time. He's the greatest doper-cyclist of all time.

LA would likely have been a good one-day, classics, or week-long stage race cyclist. He would never have been tabbed to win a grand tour. As a comparison of their first four grand tours:

Lance Armstrong: TdF - Withdrew (1993), Withdrew (1994), 36th (1995), Withdrew (1996)

Greg LeMond: Vuelta - Withdrew (1983)

                       TdF - 3rd (1984), 2nd (1985)

                       Giro d'Italia - 3rd (1985)

Very interesting.  Thanks for the info.

X2 Mark, well played

That is way too simplistic.

He was a dominate amature athlete. He won seven tours because he out worked everyone else. He trained year round when Ulrich was getting hammered in the bar. He didn't race the grand tours, he only raced the TDF. His entire year was focused on one race. He was the first to train on the courses... now every single professional team in cycling trains the course. He had a drive and determination rarely equaled by anyone else. He paid for the best team. He always had several people that would have been GC contenders on other teams. He DOMINATED the TDF in every asspect imaginable.

And yes, that applies to doping. He applied all the same to that part too. And yes he had the best doped team presumably. I'm not making any excuses for what he did... but it isn't as simple as saying he won because he was the best doper... he won because he was the best doper and worked harder at winning the TDF than anyone else. And he had the talent to put himself in that position to start with.

And early 90s is when EPO became prevalent, and his 96 withdrawal was due to a little bit of cancer.

He also won plenty just like LeMonde outside of the TDF. At least compare apples to apples. PEDS do not make you something you are not.