So what do you think of Lance Armstrong?

bigmck · 04 Sep 2012

I am a sports enthusiast but not a hard follower of biking. The TDF has had so many people involved with PED, it is unreal. Anyone that wants to compete to a high degree is forced to take drugs because all of the others do. It would be foolish to think that Lance was one of the few that did not take PED. He has done a great job at coming back from cancer and is a great role model to follow, but you have to be realistic about his biking. If it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck..........

SIW2 · 04 Sep 2012

I meant that it has not caused me to lose any respect I already had for his accomplishments.

Although not an enthusiast, I cannot ignore his amazing achievements.

I haven't really been following this story.

Never understood what the sports doping thing was for.

If it is true that most or all of the US team were doing it for years - then it seems likely most the other teams were doing it too.

So what.

Perhaps some substances might be dangerous - who knows - driving fast is dangerous too - they don't stop the F1 drivers from doing that.

pincushion · 05 Sep 2012

I think it is all a bit sad when, as said, they often feel compelled to use drugs when they know others are using them too so it is not a clear cut issue and I don't think Lance was any worse than others in this respect. Eddy Merckx, one of the greatest of all TDF riders apparently used drugs but never tested positive at the TDF -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping...Tour_de_France

Drugs are just part of the problem - the whole industrialisation of competition with more advanced technology in costumes and appliances is making it more unfair for those nations who cannot afford all this. Why should a winning time be the most important factor? Perhaps we should get back to basics and ensure that it is the competitor alone who is the winner (naked as in the old days! and all using the same equipment), but again those with the time to train and backing will presumably come out on top. Not that easy to ensure complete fairness but it must be better than the current direction sport is heading.

spencer1 · 14 Sep 2012

I was in Barnes & Noble and browsed a copy of the recently released, The Secret Race. Turns out this book is hard to put down! I bought it, and finished reading it in two days. Tyler Hamilton goes into great detail about pro cycling's doping and corruption. The book includes extensive footnotes by co-author Dan Coyle. Of course, Armstrong's army will claim The Secret Race is a novel, pure fiction (at least the parts about Armstrong!). But, I think Lance is starting to look ridiculous with his doping denials, especially since many of his teammates have confessed. I do sympathize with Armstrong a bit. It's much harder for him to confess because he is Lance the Legend. Then again, the longer these denials continue, the more he appears to be Lance the Farce, IMO.

JimJoe · 14 Sep 2012

Lance Armstrong passed all the European anti-doping group drug tests, which the US anti-doping committee ignored. I think they are just jealous.

Note, I'm not a fan of bicycle racing.

pparks1 · 14 Sep 2012

I'm a fan of cycling and have paid very close attention to all of this. Without a doubt, cycling is probably the most guilty sport when it comes to doping. These races are just far too long I guess for people to compete naturally.

If Lance was taking performance enhancing drugs, he did a much better job of hiding it then anybody else. And what about the person who came in 2nd close behind him, obviously if he was that close to the front of the race, he too must have been doping as well. Tons of other riders have been caught, suspended and stripped of titles. Somehow Lance managed to never fail a drug test.

At the end of the day, I still have all of the respect in the world for the guy. If he was doping, he was doing it along side everybody else. If he wasn't doping, then he beat every other person who was doping.

pincushion · 15 Sep 2012

pparks1 said:

I'm a fan of cycling and have paid very close attention to all of this. Without a doubt, cycling is probably the most guilty sport when it comes to doping. These races are just far too long I guess for people to compete naturally.

If Lance was taking performance enhancing drugs, he did a much better job of hiding it then anybody else. And what about the person who came in 2nd close behind him, obviously if he was that close to the front of the race, he too must have been doping as well. Tons of other riders have been caught, suspended and stripped of titles. Somehow Lance managed to never fail a drug test.

At the end of the day, I still have all of the respect in the world for the guy. If he was doping, he was doing it along side everybody else. If he wasn't doping, then he beat every other person who was doping.

Where is the logic for this statement? Guilt by association? He might simply have been better. As for not failing tests - he apparently did early on although the evidence was deemed inadmissable. Perhaps we should just wait for more information to come out?

pparks1 · 15 Sep 2012

pincushion said:

Where is the logic for this statement? Guilt by association? He might simply have been better. As for not failing tests - he apparently did early on although the evidence was deemed inadmissable. Perhaps we should just wait for more information to come out?

The logic in my statement is that people "assume" Lance must have cheated because he won this race. It's not like Lance won the race by 7 hours and was leaps and bounds beyond the next competitor. Lots and lots of riders were close, Lance was consistent and won when he needed to and avoided accidents and crashes. That's what put Lance Armstrong on top.

I'm unaware of Lance failing early drug tests. How much time do we need to wait for the evidence to come out? Considering that Lance Armstrong won between 1999 and 2005 and it's now 2012...it seems like all of the information should really be out.

I put this on FB, shortly after the news broke about Lance refusing to spend the rest of his life fighting. This puts a bit of reinforcement to my statement about why 2nd place was probably cheating as well.

Jan Ullrich, who won the Tour title in 1997, will now be recognized as a 4 time winner of the Tour and will be recognized as winner in 2000, 2001 and 2003. Or will he??? Seems odd considering he was stripped of his 3rd place finish in 2005 for doping, and then banned in 2006 for alleged doping, and in 2012 was stripped of everything from May 2005 onwards.

bigmck · 15 Sep 2012

Jan Ullrich, who won the Tour title in 1997, will now be recognized as a 4 time winner of the Tour and will be recognized as winner in 2000, 2001 and 2003. Or will he??? Seems odd considering he was stripped of his 3rd place finish in 2005 for doping, and then banned in 2006 for alleged doping, and in 2012 was stripped of everything from May 2005 onwards.

The above makes about as much sense as Penn St being stripped of their football wins for the last ten years (?). They try to act like the games never happened. It is just crazy.

pincushion · 16 Sep 2012

The logic in my statement is that people "assume" Lance must have cheated because he won this race.

USADA seem to believe they had sufficient evidence from all those who have provided evidence against him and who were in or involved with his team at the time. As has been commented he apparently, like others probably, found ways around the drug testing so no positive tests, apart from the 1999 suspicious one and 2009 and 2010 -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong

In June 2012, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) charged Armstrong with having used illicit performance enhancing drugs, based on blood samples from 2009 and 2010 as well as the testimony of other cyclists.

A 1999 urine sample showed traces of corticosteroid in an amount that was not in the positive range. A medical certificate showed he used an approved cream for saddle sores which contained the substance. Emma O' Reilly, Armstrong's masseuse said she heard team officials worrying about Armstrong's positive test for steroids during the Tour. She said: "They were in a panic, saying: 'What are we going to do? What are we going to do?'". According to O'Reilly the solution was to get one of their compliant doctors to issue a pre-dated prescription for a steroid-based ointment to combat saddle sores. O'Reilly said she would have known if Armstrong had saddle sores as she would have administered any treatment for it. O'Reilly said that Armstrong told her: "Now, Emma, you know enough to bring me down." O'Reilly said on other occasions she was asked to dispose of used syringes for Armstrong and pick up strange parcels for the team.