[Hinter]

I started watching Oprah's interview with Lance Armstrong, but fifteen minutes into it I switched it off because I couldn't see through my tears.

This guy was/is a legend to me. Since Channel 4 in the UK started covering the Tour de France in the 80s I have been hooked on the sport.. There are so many iconic moments to pick out - Djamolodine Abdujapirov sprinting for the line elbows flailing (since then has proved positive). Richard Virenque sweating buckets cresting l'alpe Duez to hold on to the polka dot jersey(since then has proved positive).. Marco Pantani leaving the field for dead on Mont Ventoux(since then has proved positive and in fact died from a drugs overdose, possibly connected with recreational drugs). Lance Armstrong staring into Jan Ullrich's eyes before climbing away in the Alps (Ullrich has proved positive for drugs).

For years I have stuck up for the sport in pubs, clubs and public places:

"Cyclists are all drug cheats?" my opponent would say.

"Absolutely not" I would reply. Look at Lance. This is man that fought cancer and beat it. After that he won the tour SEVEN YEARS IN A ROW. SEVEN!

Against all the doubters I would stick up for him. For every know-all in the pub saying cycling is full of druggies, I'd point to Lance, and repeat his oft stated assertation that he was the most tested athlete in the world and had been found clean every single time.

So I started watching the interview and after hearing him say yes to every accusation I had to turn it off. I will watch it entirely, but maybe in a few years. When I have stopped crying.

[Gnaw]

If it's any consolation, doping and bicycling go back to the very beginnings of the sport in the late 1800s.

[Tapper]

Funny, that Like you, I have always loved cycling a lot - and frankly, I severely disliked Armstrong's guts and considered him a fraud since his second tour victory. I mean, returning from cancer (admittedly, a very treatable variant), to go on to winning the tour seven times (when even Merckx couldn't manage that?)

And all that in an age where all the other main contenders were already caught, or were caught over the years? I mean, how could a clean guy take them all out, not once as a lucky punch, but seven times? American cycling, never overly productive, suddenly providing a dominant team? Then, there was the whole move to Vino's Astana, a very suspect team (given Vinokourov's dopage there). And the constant factor of Johan Bruyneel (former doper), who was his sole coach for most of the period - a tandem.

That is not to mention the David Walsh books or the Emma O'Reilly court case, either. There was something incessantly fishy about it all, and while no cyclist is likely to step up and admit doping (I mean, we have a HUGE scandal surrounding the Rabo-team, and all main riders deny categorically, or at the least fuzz over their own involvement) and there is of course the sense that Armstrong was just doing what he was doing to win, which meant not only being a great rider with a great team, but also a great systematic doper, that is simply no justification.

[Tattersail_]

Let them all cheat. Let them all use drugs. Then there is no unfair advantage and we would see what could be possible. If all his competitors did the same thing then there'd be some records broken...

[Khellendros]

I have never really followed cycling, but I watched both interviews. Armstrong appears a pretty unlikeable guy, I have to say. I had no problem in believing that this guy would run over anyone in his way to get what he wants.

It was clear that, at times, he knew what he was supposed to say, PR-wise, but his opinion of himself just wouldn't let him to do it. For instance, when he said that he deserves the chance to compete again - you could see that he knew he wasn't supposed to say something like that, but he just couldn't help himself. When asked which moment in all the revelations humbled him, he said that it was when Nike called to say they were pulling their sponsorship. Hell, at least he was honest in that I suppose!

It was clear that he still believes that he did nothing wrong, because everybody else was doing it too. And that he believes that he's been made a scapegoat, because everyone else received more lenient punishments (primarily because everyone else admitted to it).

He also had trouble accepting that other people were taking decisions out of his hands, which speaks of someone who has a problem with not being able to control absolutely everything and with taking advice from others. For instance, when he was asked about stepping down from the Livestrong foundation, he tried to argue that it was his own decision and that he wasn't forced into doing it, when he clearly was.


It's a difficult one. Personally, because I have little interest in professional cycling, I am not phased or impacted by his admission of doping. But it is fair to say that Livestrong has done amazing work. I think the two can be considered seperately. So yes, he was a cheat in his sport. But that has really nothing to do with the work of the charity he founded, and which can continue on without him. I don't see why its credibility should be damaged. He did a good thing in setting that up, and at least that is something he can be proud of.

[Gnaw]

Damn. Hope Hinter wasn't hoping for sympathy.

I'm sure that there is a lot of schadenfreude in the Armstrong situation currently. That will fade with time.

Armstrong is going to end up like Pete Rose: spending the rest of his life trying to convince people that he is really sorry and can I please get into the Hall of Fame.

Thankfully my 2 sports "heroes" are clean. Herschel Walker and Lenox Lewis. (Though Walker's post football life is a bit strange.)

[masan's saddle]

 379262_10151401174949628_28885486_n.jpg (21.92K)
Number of downloads: 2

[Gnaw]

masan, on 23 January 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

379262_10151401174949628_28885486_n.jpg

Reminds me of something I saw on tv awhile back about the old time baseball greats deserving pluses behind their names in the books because they did all their athletic achievements in an age when aspirin was the wonder drug, it was washed down with bathtub gin, and physical therapy was a blowjob from the hooker who served the gin.

[amphibian]

Gnaw, on 24 January 2013 - 03:34 AM, said:

Reminds me of something I saw on tv awhile back about the old time baseball greats deserving pluses behind their names in the books because they did all their athletic achievements in an age when aspirin was the wonder drug, it was washed down with bathtub gin, and physical therapy was a blowjob from the hooker who served the gin.

That was the 1930s.

In the 50s, 60s and 70s, a ton of baseball players were on amphetamines.

I'm not sure using PEDs negates athletic accomplishments. Armstrong won 7 tournaments. That's not going to go away because of drug use. He won the titles and was stripped of them, but he still won 'em.

[Macros]

I'm just happy now, I've won as many tour de France's as Armstrong, and I've never done drugs.

[amphibian]

Macros, on 24 January 2013 - 07:13 AM, said:

I'm just happy now, I've won as many tour de France's as Armstrong, and I've never done drugs.

But he won 7 of them. So... you haven't won as many as he has.

[Macros]

Also, I disagree completely with Amp.
he cheated, he won unfairly, how do you think second place feels now that Armstrongs been caught?

[Macros]

Cross post.
He didn't win, him plus drugs won.
entire teams can be stripped of championships for fielding an intelligible player. He was stripped of those titles. He didn't win. Had he not cheated he would still have them. Everything he has accomplished is suspect and as such can not be credited to him, the penalty for cheating, just as it should be.

[Tapper]

Macros, on 24 January 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

Also, I disagree completely with Amp.
he cheated, he won unfairly, how do you think second place feels now that Armstrongs been caught?

The second place was doped as well. Third to ten, usually, too.
http://en.wikipedia.....2C_1998_-_2012

Scroll down to all the pretty graphs under Doping histories of Top-10 finishers, 1998 - 2012.


@ Amp: Armstrong was stripped of the titles, so he hasn't won them for the books. Yes, the books will say that 'in the overall standings, Armstrong was 1st but was disqualified in 2012 following the USADA report', but IOC and UCI and the race organisation all took the titles from him.
He can say he won them. He can go as far to say that clearly the statistics prove that everyone else used, too. That does not make him right, nor a worthy winner, and it doesn't justify his use of forbidden substances.

What makes me feel he is not a winner is all the damage he caused others: he sued a people for defamation, in clear attempts to silence or even bankrupt them through legal costs: journalists, team mates, former cyclists, and his own masseuse when they said he had used doping.
He declared under oath that he did not use them in those trials.
He can be held (in)directly responsible for two cyclists leaving the peleton who said he couldn't be clean: one of them Armstrong even chased down personally instead of letting his team do it when he had a chance at a stage win in the Tour: no team would want a rider who was clearly not allowed to win by the peleton's patron in the biggest competition in the world.

Those are not the actions of a sportsman. A sportsman can be wrong and use forbidden substances to increase his chances of winning. It makes him a cheat, maybe a small time crook (not so small time if you look at sponsorship contracts with Nike, of course). All he does is risk being banned, and maybe play with his own health, and/or encourage others to use the same substances, but that is their choice.
Armstrong by contrast is less of a fraud and more of a criminal imho through the means he employed: he hurt a lot of people for his own good.

This post has been edited by Tapper: 24 January 2013 - 08:28 AM

[Aptorian]

Next you're going to tell me that professional bodybuilders and olympic weightlifters are actually taking steroids!

Oh noes! Jay Cutler. Roney Coleman. I believed in you!

Seriously now people. It's like a big dirty family secret that everyone knows about but doesn't talk about. Every single year leading cyclists get caught doing some kind of illegal form of doping. Every time somebody wins the Tour de France you know that this guy is on the cutting edge of modern drug coctails and ways of cheating the tests. Just accept in your heart that nobody wins a major cycling event with out having used something and you'll sleep a lot better at night.

As for the idea that we should just allow all of them to do what ever kind of doping they want to level the playing field, this is a terrible idea. Then it would become a pharmaceutical lab race to see who can develop the craziest cocktail with the best result. It would be the teams backed by the guys with the most research money that would be winning and the victims would be cyclists dropping dead on the roads because they used something insane that grew extra lungs in their thighs or something.

EDIT: Also stay tuned as Lance Armstrong finds a way to milk this new angle for all that it is worth. Most likely he will become a new proponent of anti-doping and say no to drugs campaigns.

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 24 January 2013 - 10:11 AM

[D'iversify]

Tattersail, on 23 January 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

Let them all cheat. Let them all use drugs. Then there is no unfair advantage and we would see what could be possible. If all his competitors did the same thing then there'd be some records broken...

I agree that the use of stimulants is a greyer area than is often admitted - there are many 'clean' techniques in sport (oxygen tents etc.) which are not affordable for all, and its true that some competitors have freaky genetic advantages (this is particularly a problem in women's sport where excess testosterone is not necessarily a sign of cheating but could also easily be due to 'natural' masculinisation). As long as this is not explicitly written into the social contracts of professional cycling and other sports, however, Armstrong's excusing of his actions on account of his doing providing a 'level playing field' can never be accepted (especially when his doping allowed him to win SEVEN Tour titles - hardly a level playing field, you fraud!).

[Tattersail_]

How did he dupe them? Use somebody else' blood?

[Tattersail_]

Aptorius, on 24 January 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

Next you're going to tell me that professional bodybuilders and olympic weightlifters are actually taking steroids!

Oh noes! Jay Cutler. Roney Coleman. I believed in you!

Seriously now people. It's like a big dirty family secret that everyone knows about but doesn't talk about. Every single year leading cyclists get caught doing some kind of illegal form of doping. Every time somebody wins the Tour de France you know that this guy is on the cutting edge of modern drug coctails and ways of cheating the tests. Just accept in your heart that nobody wins a major cycling event with out having used something and you'll sleep a lot better at night.

As for the idea that we should just allow all of them to do what ever kind of doping they want to level the playing field, this is a terrible idea. Then it would become a pharmaceutical lab race to see who can develop the craziest cocktail with the best result. It would be the teams backed by the guys with the most research money that would be winning and the victims would be cyclists dropping dead on the roads because they used something insane that grew extra lungs in their thighs or something.

EDIT: Also stay tuned as Lance Armstrong finds a way to milk this new angle for all that it is worth. Most likely he will become a new proponent of anti-doping and say no to drugs campaigns.

Isn't it already though? Just who doesn't get caught that year?

[Tapper]

Tattersail, on 24 January 2013 - 11:15 AM, said:

How did he dupe them? Use somebody else' blood?

There was an age where blood doping could not be traced, the only value that could indicate it, was the hematocrit value (oxygen in blood, or related to it). But, those values could vary wildly between riders, and the International Cycling Union (UCI) was unwilling to face potential court cases over people being disqualified because of their natural value being higher than the limit.
So the Cycling Union basically set a limit of 50 to it (apparently exceptionally high) as the maximum allowed value - disqualifying a few freaks while allowing everyone else to 'legally' dope without there being the proof of additional substances.

When it could be traced, riders moved to different types of doping: re-injection with their own oxygen rich blood after stages, and other means, partly untraceable stuff, like hormones (which EPO is one of).

As for your remark of the better cocktails: maybe, maybe not. For many riders, simple medicin are already forbidden: too much coffee (well, you'd have to drink litres of it, but combine espresso and a few cans of cola and you're there) or cough syrup would cause them problems with dope authorities already. Basically, the dope you need to go undetected is designer drugs/ cutting edge medicin. There's not a lot of options, but since it is too expensive to develop a test for every medicin/hormone/amino acid/ whatnot, tests are only developed when anomalies of a certain kind are found in blood/urine samples.

As for the current climate: there are several tests/indicators that can be used. One is dope tests, another other is experience. Basically, this generation of cyclists go through races at a lower average in km/h than in the last decade. The wattage of a rider is also lower when he pedals, and the time to climb well-documented colls like L'alpe d'Huez has increased significantly compared to the Armstrong/Pantani era. People are slower, period. Doesn't mean there isn't any drugs being used to enhance performance, but it is at the least less effective.

There are other factors that determine Tour victors, anyway. No matter how much doping I would use, I won't win a Tour.
Miguel Indurain for example (first guy to win 5 Tours in a row, and while it seems somewhat likely he was a doper himself, as several of his challengers have also been exposed, and he was active during the hematocrit era described above, iirc), had a massive heart with a very slow heartbeat combined with pretty large lungs compared to your average person. Basically, he could intake so much oxygen, then pump it around and increase his heartbeat by such a factor that his limits were higher than that of others, allowing him a heavier thread and a higher average speed, which came mostly to bear in time trials, where consistency is key. Others (Ullrich is notable) tried to copy this, and for a while, this was the main trait sought in multiple week competitors - people went so far as to say that the ancient 'climber' had died out.

Armstrong, on his return, developed a very light pedal tread - creating less strain on his muscles (perhaps increasing his ability to recover), more capability to deal with tempo shifts and making him a better climber than his competitors, while his length and weight ensured he'd out-speed better climbers in time trials (where body mass is a factor: most time trialists are tall guys with huge thighs and calves as opposed to the wiry, tiny climbers).

Currently, Evans is pretty much of the power/endurance type, Wiggins is the middle road, and Andy Schleck is a true climber (although one should be suspect of him - his brother, riding for the same team, has been exposed as a dope user). Alberto Contador can do it all, but has been convicted for doping use in the past (he blames a contaminated steak).

This post has been edited by Tapper: 24 January 2013 - 11:46 AM

[tiam]

Aptorius, on 24 January 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

EDIT: Also stay tuned as Lance Armstrong finds a way to milk this new angle for all that it is worth. Most likely he will become a new proponent of anti-doping and say no to drugs campaigns.

This

Appearing on Oprah, nice and contrite, will build up atleast a moderate amount of sympathy and I can clearly see him being the new poster boy for say no to drugs as he is a household name.

Also Amph- If it turned out Usain Bolt was beating all the records, going faster than science thought people could go, and all the while he was doing it he was smacked off his tits would it still mean he 'won'? Or to use a more familiar example, what if a MMA champion went undefeated for a while, yet it turned out he was on a massive cocktail of every stimulant under the sun? Would you still say he still won or would you feel more sympathy for the other, clean, fighters who were defeated unfairly by this opponent?