I've noticed that several posters here have expressed frustration in trying to persuade the Armstrong Army that LA deserves to be sanctioned. The simplest way to avoid this frustration, of course, is simply not to engage, but for those who want to, anyway, here are a few suggestions. Maybe others have some more.
1) Show some empathy. Chances are that you, like most LA critics, were once a big fan of his. Chances are you were thrilled and inspired by his victory in the 1999 TDF. Point that out. Explain that no, you didn’t suddenly become jealous of his success. Your interest in the sport, maybe kindled by LA himself, led you to listen to others more knowledgeable about it than you, including people with inside information. You began to hear stories about LA doping, from people who had no obvious ax to grind, no particular reason to lie about what they were claiming. These stories are what gradually changed your mind, sometimes despite enormous resistance to giving up the fairytale aspects of the comeback. Though you wanted to believe in him, your intelligence and open-mindedness demanded that you accept the evidence that he was not clean.
One of the most credible and powerful types of argument in any debate, IMO, is from someone who was once on the other side. Many people once believed LA was clean and honest, who have since changed their minds. Is there anyone who once believed LA doped and lied about it, who has since come to believe he is clean and honest? Hello?
2) Point out the parallels with Jerry Sandusky (I did that on this forum a couple of months ago, and received a warning for my trouble. Since then, though, many others have pointed out the same thing, including at least one mod. So apparently it’s now safe to express that point here now). ALL the evidence against Sandusky was witness testimony, by people who had much to gain by lying (book deals, civil suits). So the case against LA, which is based primarily on witness testimony, but does include other types of evidence (positive if not official tests; blood values; and more), is probably actually stronger than the case against Sandusky. If you took away the witness testimony, there would be absolutely nothing against Sandusky. If you took away the witness testimony against LA, there would still be a great deal of evidence against him.
You could also point out that Sandusky apparently got away with his predator life for at least thirty years, before the law finally caught up to him. Why? Because his victims were afraid to come forward, or weren’t believed when they did. Sound familiar? Suggest that anyone who thinks Sandusky is guilty and LA isn’t simply is not being rational or consistent.
3) One of the most effective ways to argue with someone is to take their side of the case, and show that it leads to problems. Grant the LA supporters their premise that all the former teammates testifying against him are lying—about Lance doping. They are not lying, however, about their own doping, because no one in his right mind who didn’t dope would tell USADA investigators that he did dope, right? So we have the following situation. Clean Lance was surrounded by teammates who doped. Did he know this? If he did, and didn’t tell anyone, he was surely guilty of cheating, because he himself would be the first to admit that his team was a key factor in winning all those Tours. This would also be inconsistent with the strong, outspoken stance he had against doping, including warning UCI officials about possible use of artificial oxygen vector use, and donating money for a Sysmex machine. Pretty sleazy of a guy doing that to overlook doping by his own teammates, no?
OTOH, if he didn’t know his teammates were doping, why not? LA is known to be a very hands-on guy, obsessed with details, and certainly very careful about picking his teammates. Would men he picked to ride in front of him really be able to dope without his knowing about it? And would his judge of character be so flawed that so many of his hand-picked lieutenants would turn around and lie about him to just to get a better deal from USADA? Seriously?
4) Some of the LA supporters, or people claiming to be neutral on this issue, will acknowledge that he doped, but argue that “they all did it”. This argument, too, can be turned against itself. If they all did it, all adhering to the code of omerta, then they must have felt there was nothing really wrong about doping, right? It was just another form of preparation, like training rides, or wind tunnel tests. But if something is approved, there are no limits to it. There are no rules against how many hours or miles you can ride to train, of course, or where you can ride, or what kind of equipment you can use during training. In the same way, if doping was generally approved by the peloton, it would be ridiculous to think there were any unwritten rules against how much or how well you could dope. Like every other form of preparation, the idea was to find ways of doing it better than everyone else. Any rider accepting omerta would also accept this principle.
So the “everyone did it” defense strongly implies a culture in which finding a better program or a better substance than everyone else was tacitly approved. It essentially guaranteed that doping would not level the playing field, but would incite riders to find new ways to make it less level.
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