thehog said:
If only Bock called I could have offered him a donation.
Justin O'Pinion47 minutes ago
I said it for part two and I'll say it again here; good interview. There are some of you on this forum who will never be happy, no matter what Armstrong does or says. Once a liar and cheat, always a liar and cheat.
There are some people who may never forgive him, those that were directly affected by his bullying and rough tactics. Fair enough. There are yet others, perhaps cancer survivors themselves or family and friends affected by cancer, who may arguably feel betrayed by Armstrong as well. Fair enough.
At the end of the day, Armstrong is just a (very) flawed individual who was a very good bike rider. You can argue until you're blue in the face about how good he would have been had he never doped, or lost all the weight when he was ill. He got better, most cyclists improve in some manner the more they ride and the better they apply training techniques. If you took away the HGH, Coritsone, steroids, blood tranfusions, EPO and heaven knows whatever else the pros were using, the best pros still would (likely) have been the best pros. Dr. Ferarri helped some, sure, but he helped many, many pros. Geez, he was helping Pozatto, Scarponi and Kreuzinger (three big names in the CURRENT road ranks) until very recently. Why is this allowed to happen and why are they still riding? Scarponi just signed a new contract at Astana! Pozatto is on Merida commercials as the face of Lampre during cycling coverage on Euro Sport. You guys that want to hate, you should hate a lot more than just Armstrong.
I can't think of a heck of a lot of top pros (and/or domestiques) who didn't have some cloud of suspicion over them. Please don't say Indurain for the love of Pete. Carlos Sastre (although he was at CSC) and Oscar Freire (dispite what Rasmussen has to say) are two of the only top cyclists from the last generation (or generation and a half if you go back to the Jalabert, Zulle, Laurent Dufaux days - all dopers) who haven't really been implicated in some way.
The new generation, well time will tell. I want to believe riders like Cancellara are riding clean. I sure hope so because he's frikin awesome. There will be a test down the road for whatever drugs the cheats are now using that are ahead of testing procedures. God only knows what ill-health aspects might follow as well.
Your outrage towards Armstrong may be well justified, but there are a lot more cards in the pro cycling doping deck, from team management to lowly domestiques, who did the same thing and profited in one way or another. The riders who got railroaded from the sport, like Filippo Simeoni, will never get back what could have been a solid career and palmares had the field been level. That is the sadest part here for me; lost dreams - while yet many others had to cross the dark line to pursue theirs.
Frank Schleck gets welcomed back by new the Pro Tour team title sponsor Trek team who unceremoniously dumped their bread and butter for ten plus years when it didn't suit them anymore. What kind of message does that send? We'll trade the supposed king of doping for a lesser celebrity star doper. Trek is sending the wrong message with the Frank Schleck hiring.
Did Armstrong deserve what he got? Absolutely, and he admits as much in the interview. He has to sit at home and wallow in his own self-pity. But hypocracy is well evident and although I think Armstrong got what he deserved in the end, I think he has been treated far, far worse than other doping cheats. Keep it to the doping topic,and the affects it has had on cycling, and keep the man out of the equation, as hard asit might be for some people.
The reckoning had to start somewhere, and it started with Lance Armstrong. Just don't forget everything else that goes along with it.