Official Lance Armstrong Thread: Part 3 (Post-Confession)

[ChrisE]

First, how could you possibly know? We assume that Mercx would have been just as dominant in his era if everyone had been clean, simply because he was so dominant using drugs. But this is guess work and belief, as there's no way of knowing.

Second, even if we assume the first bit to be true, and there was a 'natural order' that wasn't affected by earlier cheating, so what? The point is that the drugs of earlier eras did give improve an individual rider's performance, so individual riders to riders took them to help them win. Just like that riders in the epo era took epo in order to help them win.

You seem to be saying that it's alright to cheat and win in earlier eras because if no-one had been cheating you would have won anyway, whereas in the epo ear, the crime of successfully cheating is somehow morally much worse. I don't buy that because, let's face it, when you made the decision to cheat in either era you would have had no idea how well you were going to respond relative to any of your peers who were also cheating, and if you didn't cheat all bets were off anyway.

What you are not getting is that EPO must be worse because that is what LA did. You should shift your logical reasoning skills shown in this post to a more rage based reality.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

First, how could you possibly know?

Because despite the opinions of some, I am not a complete and utter frigging moron.

 

[Morbius]

An article today about proposed T&R commission says that only riders who have not yet been convicted will be offered an amnesty.
This means that the best Armstrong could hope for from T&R would be a reduction to 8 years. They do not discuss when the 8 years would start - it could in effect be entirely back-dated to cover all his TdF wins, in which case he would be free to participate in events immediately.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...omes-clean-about-drug-epidemic-says-Wada.html

 

[Benotti69]

An article today about proposed T&R commission says that only riders who have not yet been convicted will be offered an amnesty.
This means that the best Armstrong could hope for from T&R would be a reduction to 8 years. They do not discuss when the 8 years would start - it could in effect be entirely back-dated to cover all his TdF wins, in which case he would be free to participate in events immediately.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...omes-clean-about-drug-epidemic-says-Wada.html

If Armstrong gets a ban reduced it will be from the last date of his last race. 2010 TdF. Why then because his passport shows he doped and if he does admit to the obvious and tell the truth, ie doping in july 2010 he will be banned from then. But Armstrong is denying doping during his comeback, so will not receive any amnesty for continuing to lie.

 

[webvan]

Is he still denying it? I was under the impression that in the CN interview he didn't want to answer a question about that due to "pending legal issues"...I'll go reread.

 

[Benotti69]

Is he still denying it? I was under the impression that in the CN interview he didn't want to answer a question about that due to "pending legal issues"...I'll go reread.

I guess due to Federal law he is denying.

 

[poupou]

What did he say during Oprah interview?

As I remember, he has said he was clean during his come back because he could not lie again to his wife,...

 

[Benotti69]

What did he say during Oprah interview?

As I remember, he has said he was clean during his come back because he could not lie again to his wife,...

How do you know Armstrong is lying?

His lips are moving?

I guess it was due to SOL and Fed laws that he was afraid to admit to doping in 2009/10.

 

[RownhamHill]

What you are not getting is that EPO must be worse because that is what LA did. You should shift your logical reasoning skills shown in this post to a more rage based reality.

Yeah, I'll try and work on that. I don't want to appear to come across as a complete friggin moron.

 

[darwin553]

USADA has not done itself any favors. The six month sanctions were ridiculous. Hincapie and Leipheimer retired and barely lost a paycheck. Someone needs to ask JV if he continued to pay TD, VDV, and DZ. It would not surprise me if their paychecks were never interrupted. The suspensions were timed so no one lost any days of competition. That was the same sort of sketchy skirting of the rules that national Feds used to pull in the 90s. This powderpuff handling of those who gave affidavits gives Armsrtong a legitimate complaint that he was mistreated.

6 month penalty to out their 'boss'? I would offer that 6 month penalty any day of the week if I were USADA given Armstrong's staunch defence over the years...

 

[BroDeal]

An article today about proposed T&R commission says that only riders who have not yet been convicted will be offered an amnesty.
This means that the best Armstrong could hope for from T&R would be a reduction to 8 years. They do not discuss when the 8 years would start - it could in effect be entirely back-dated to cover all his TdF wins, in which case he would be free to participate in events immediately.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...omes-clean-about-drug-epidemic-says-Wada.html

There goes whatever slim chance T&R had of working. It need to start from the reality that everyone was doping. Punishing those who were caught more than those who did not is ridiculous.

 

[Merckx index]

The problem I have with your argument is that it sends a very clear message. It's my belief that without dope, LA would never have been known outside a very small circle of close family and friends. Dope and dope alone made him who he is as an athlete, and if he is allowed to compete, he will be paid, he will make money from it, and the message is this: doping pays, very well.

In the first place, none of us, including LA himself, knows what he would have accomplished without doping. It’s possible you’re right, but if you are, it’s likely other athletes who would have been nobodies without dope also benefited enormously. Ask RR; he seems to think Ullrich and Pantani were in that class. Should Ullrich have all his results stripped and be banned for life? Should Pantani’s results be removed? What about Indurain? You really think he would have won those five Tours without dope?

Maybe LA benefited more from drugs more than any other athlete in history. It's certainly possible, but even if he did, he has also received a much larger penalty than any other athlete in history. I don’t know of any other athlete who has had virtually his entire professional career voided by a doping sanction, do you? AFAIK, this is unprecedented. When you add a lifetime ban going forward on top of that , LA is in a class of punishment that no one else has ever come close to.

If it turns out LA also broke laws, let the federal investigation play out; maybe he will eventually be indicted. And as far as the money he made from doping, much of that will probably be taken from him by these lawsuits. But his punishment for performance enhancement alone—which is all USADA is supposed to be concerned with—surely has been served by all the stripping of titles. USADA is not supposed to be in the business of sanctioning individuals for how they leveraged their success as dopers in their life outside of sport. Many of us may resent the fact that he became so rich and famous through fraudulent means, but there is nothing in the WADA code that says penalties are supposed to be greater when athletes gain more fame from winning.

his passport shows he doped

No it doesn't. It suggests he doped. I'm not saying he didn't, but the scientist who claimed that there was a one in a million possibility that that passport could result without doping never provided any analysis to support that conclusion. The blood values were certainly suspicious, but they were not slam dunk.

 

[darwin553]

Armstrong wasted too much time fighting the process as opposed to the allegations. He never had any intention on cooperating with ANYONE. I guess he felt since he was able to scutter the Federal investigation, he could go after the USADA with the same results.

Going forward, he is calculating that any information he has will be billed to Travis Tygart. In other words, he will look to parse out bits and pieces depending on what those bits can buy him, but he wants to see the receipt in advance.

The more time he spends doing this, the less his information is worth.

Exposing Ferrari, Bruyneel, the doctors and the people like Motoman who procured the drugs will be done by either the investigating committees or law enforcement. They don't really need Armstrong's testimony.

And as much as people say that McQuaid should be outed, Armstrong's reign of terror took place under the watchful eye of Hein Verbruggen, who is now a retired old man and doesn't care one way or another what happens going forward.

The point made about the lack or worth of Armstrong's potential testimony is a good one. In the Gibney film, he remarks that the truth hasn't been heard yet. Well, what are you waiting for then, Lance?

Great post, thanks.

Lol - edited by the very person who the original poster was thanking. Could it be concocted?

 

[darwin553]

In talking about bans, posters here generally glide over the fact that all the suspensions handed down by USADA had both a retroactive and proactive component. The retroactive component is the period of time in the past during which all results were invalidated. The proactive component, which is generally and incorrectly assumed to be the period of the full ban, is the time in the future in which the rider is not allowed to compete.

To say that riders were given six month bans is like saying Contador was given a six month ban. In fact, his ban lasted two years, but most of it was retroactive. The same principle is in effect with the USADA bans. IIRC, all of the riders were given at least two year bans, including both the retroactive and proactive components, with most of the time retroactive.

LA’s retroactive component alone was more than ten years. Adding that to his current proactive suspension, and he has been banned for more than fifteen years.

I think enough is enough. Let him compete if he wants to. He isn’t going to return to pro cycling; he can’t compete at that level any more. If he wants to compete in triathlons, and the people running the events don’t prevent him from doing so with their own ban, then why should any of us care? It will give him something to do with his life. Lance Armstrong sitting around his house and moping is of no value to anyone. Given some purpose in life again, maybe he can eventually put his undeniable energies to some positive cause.

And if not, so what? Many here in the Clinic seem to worry that given half a chance, LA will return to his days of media glory, with sponsors lining up to support him again. Come on. His doping has been exposed, most people can’t forgive how he lied about that for so long—not to mention his extremely clumsy and insincere attempt to apologize with Oprah--and any who do forgive are not going to forget. And at his age, he is not going to perform so well in triathlons that, even without all his baggage, it could propel him to anything remotely close to what he enjoyed during his TDF days. Even if he were to have some success in triathlons, his results will always be tainted by the past. No one is going to take him that seriously. He is going to remain harmless.

The only argument I see for continuing the ban at this point is as leverage to get him to talk. Fine, but make him a firm offer. Come in, right now, and talk, and we will definitely lift the ban.

But I wouldn't expect much. He has nothing new or significant to say about other riders doping, stuff that has not already come out in the testimony of other riders, that is for sure. He might have some very interesting things to say about the leadership of UCI, but not only has he not said anything yet, but he hasn’t even hinted that he might have something to say—which you would expect him to do if he were angling for a deal. So I think either he doesn’t have anything very incriminating to say—things that could actually be corroborated and used as evidence—or if he does, he has decided for whatever reasons to remain silent.

Yeah let's lay down our arms - he has proved to us that he is remorseful and learnt his lesson

 

[Benotti69]

<snipped>

No it doesn't. It suggests he doped. I'm not saying he didn't, but the scientist who claimed that there was a one in a million possibility that that passport could result without doping never provided any analysis to support that conclusion. The blood values were certainly suspicious, but they were not slam dunk.

A 1 in a million chance he didn't dope is pretty much a slam dunk imo.

 

[Benotti69]

There goes whatever slim chance T&R had of working. It need to start from the reality that everyone was doping. Punishing those who were caught more than those who did not is ridiculous.

T&R was never going to work. Why would they want to expose the extent of the doping that went from the top to the very bottom?

 

[sniper]

Yeah let's lay down our arms - he has proved to us that he is remorseful and learnt his lesson

he lost 7 tdfs, lifetime ban, been ridiculized infinitely, considered bigest fraud of all times, has lots of lawsuits coming his way, etc.
believe me, he,s remorseful.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

In the first place, none of us, including LA himself, knows what he would have accomplished without doping. It’s possible you’re right, but if you are, it’s likely other athletes who would have been nobodies without dope also benefited enormously. Ask RR; he seems to think Ullrich and Pantani were in that class. Should Ullrich have all his results stripped and be banned for life? Should Pantani’s results be removed? What about Indurain? You really think he would have won those five Tours without dope?

And if he had have been caught 3 times - would you still disagree with a lifetime ban?

I look forward to you championing il Cobra's return!

Just a FYI - what RR thinks, or anyone else for that matter (ie their opinion) - doesn't really mean anything to me. I don't pedestalise.

Pantani killed himself, Ullrich scored what (close to nothing) from his win(s?), and no, Indurain would not have won any of those tours clean, IMO.

 

[Benotti69]

he lost 7 tdfs, lifetime ban, been ridiculized infinitely, considered bigest fraud of all times, has lots of lawsuits coming his way, etc.
believe me, he,s remorseful.

nah, he's regretful. He regrets making the comeback. That is all. It should've been Landis instead of Horner winning La Vuelta if Armstrong had any sense.

 

[darwin553]

he lost 7 tdfs, lifetime ban, been ridiculized infinitely, considered bigest fraud of all times, has lots of lawsuits coming his way, etc.
believe me, he,s remorseful.

Yeah remorseful he got caught and publicly outed

 

[Puckfiend]

This is from Saint Travis himself:

''Look, we're compassionate and forgiving people, and he was really no worse than a lot of the teammates that were in his team and others in the pro-peloton from that standpoint. He was the one that won, obviously. He was the one that profited the most. But we decided at the very beginning to treat all the athletes the same, including him, even though there were probably very good arguments why he should have been treated differently.''

 

[Benotti69]

This is from Saint Travis himself:

''Look, we're compassionate and forgiving people, and he was really no worse than a lot of the teammates that were in his team and others in the pro-peloton from that standpoint. He was the one that won, obviously. He was the one that profited the most. But we decided at the very beginning to treat all the athletes the same, including him, even though there were probably very good arguments why he should have been treated differently.''

Yes. they offered LA the same deal as all the others, come in a tell us what you know and get a small ban.

He refused, he took them to court, he spent liestrong millions on lobbyists to have USADA's funding removed, he fought them tooth and nail.

Armstrong decided he was not like everyone else and didn't have to talk to USADA.

So he got a lifetime ban. Now he is crying, because he didn't behave the same as the others, but now he wants to seen as just another doper!!!!!! F**K OFF.

 

[veganrob]

Being remorseful would indicate he is sorry for his offences. He is not. He only regrets getting caught. He consistently says "no comeback, no problem". No remorse at all.

 

[sniper]

nah, he's regretful. He regrets making the comeback. That is all. It should've been Landis instead of Horner winning La Vuelta if Armstrong had any sense.

agreed, of course.
but to expect anybody from that era to be genuinely remorseful about having doped, that's pointless.
look at JV. supposedly remorseful, but still takes pride from his mont ventoux record.

 

[Benotti69]

agreed, of course.
but to expect anybody from that era to be genuinely remorseful about having doped, that's pointless.
look at JV. supposedly remorseful, but still takes pride from his mont ventoux record.

Yeah and i'd rather not look at hypocrite Vaughter's thanks.