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

Page 191 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Aug 13, 2009
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Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon

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No one remembers Michelle Smith as a winner of 3 Olympic golds from Atlanta 96 even though she technically still has them.

Her name is referenced for one thing in the sporting world.
 
Armstrong will eventually get credit. The UCI refusing to give the wins to the second place finishers helps him immensely. USADA overplayed its hand and the lifetime ban will look progressively more ridiculous as time reveals more about what his competitors were doing. You cannot have a seven year stretch with no winner. That is an acknowledgement that the whole era was rotten. It extends for a decade before Armstrong and a it is still going a decade after. Everything will be put in context.

What hurts Armstrong is that he was too greedy. If he had stopped at five like Indurain then he would be lumped in with the other five-time winners, who all used drugs. Seven is such an outlier that everyone looking back will have to deal with the issue of his results being way out of line. His lack of other GT wins, even attempting to win another, plus lack of racing other than the Tour will also hurt his legacy. No one will want to put him above riders like Merckx and Hinault, so they will have to explain why he is not as worthy.

The one who is likely to be screwed is Landis.
 
Feb 4, 2012
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BroDeal said:
Armstrong will eventually get credit. The UCI refusing to give the wins to the second place finishers helps him immensely. USADA overplayed its hand and the lifetime ban will look progressively more ridiculous as time reveals more about what his competitors were doing. You cannot have a seven year stretch with no winner. That is an acknowledgement that the whole era was rotten. It extends for a decade before Armstrong and a it is still going a decade after. Everything will be put in context.
Still there's the issue that, even if others were using, Armstrong and his teams were album to 'use more' without getting caught. Whether this is due to the genius of Ferrari or UCI leadership looking the other way, remains to be seen. But isn't just a little interesting that Landis, Contador & Hamilton got caught only after they were no longer riding on Lance's team?
 
Aug 13, 2009
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BroDeal said:
The UCI refusing to give the wins to the second place finishers helps him immensely.

The ASO did this, not the UCI. It is their race, they can do whatever they like.

Most in the cycling world want to pretend Wonderboy never existed. He has burned most of the journalists and they have written him off. His goal is not to get cycling fans, he admits he does not care about them, but to farm another crop of suckers.

Targeting journalist with limited knowledge of the sport and his actions to paint himself as a victim might sound like a good idea now but I can't see it working
 
Mar 18, 2009
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Netserk said:
If a noob asks who won the 1994 Tour, everybody will answer Indurain. I can't see why that should change in 30 years. He and all the others mentioned here will for a large part always be remembered as Tour winners. Rightly so.

I agree, but don't agree. Public perception is everything, and that's the card LA is playing (and has played since he knew the writing was on the wall). He will be remembered as the winner of those 7 TdFs, but most of us here know that his argument that it was a level playing field is BS. So while I agree that he will likely be remembered as the winner of those tours, I don't agree with the "rightly so". The reason he won those tours was because of his response to EPO and blood transfusions, as well as having his team doped for the only goal of winning him those tours. He was never a good enough climber or TTer to win any stage race without the juice. The playing field was not equal - he knows it, we know it, but the general public, and particularly his fans, do not know it.
 
Jun 19, 2009
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elapid said:
I agree, but don't agree. Public perception is everything, and that's the card LA is playing (and has played since he knew the writing was on the wall). He will be remembered as the winner of those 7 TdFs, but most of us here know that his argument that it was a level playing field is BS. So while I agree that he will likely be remembered as the winner of those tours, I don't agree with the "rightly so". The reason he won those tours was because of his response to EPO and blood transfusions, as well as having his team doped for the only goal of winning him those tours. He was never a good enough climber or TTer to win any stage race without the juice. The playing field was not equal - he knows it, we know it, but the general public, and particularly his fans, do not know it.

Remembered by whom, exactly? Very few Americans really think of him as anything but an asterix now and a reason to ignore our ridiculous sport. Not sure who's going to perpetuate the illusion that he was a stronger man among his doped peers except him. How's that working for Pete Rose in a sport everyone in the US knows?
That Europeans would give further life to LA's "legacy" seems laughable.
 
Jun 19, 2009
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BroDeal said:
Armstrong will eventually get credit. The UCI refusing to give the wins to the second place finishers helps him immensely. USADA overplayed its hand and the lifetime ban will look progressively more ridiculous as time reveals more about what his competitors were doing. You cannot have a seven year stretch with no winner. That is an acknowledgement that the whole era was rotten. It extends for a decade before Armstrong and a it is still going a decade after. Everything will be put in context.

What hurts Armstrong is that he was too greedy. If he had stopped at five like Indurain then he would be lumped in with the other five-time winners, who all used drugs. Seven is such an outlier that everyone looking back will have to deal with the issue of his results being way out of line. His lack of other GT wins, even attempting to win another, plus lack of racing other than the Tour will also hurt his legacy. No one will want to put him above riders like Merckx and Hinault, so they will have to explain why he is not as worthy.

The one who is likely to be screwed is Landis.

USADA overplayed their hand? For an agency you and many others felt had no prayer of making a case and no authority to act they seemed to have played their hand nicely.
Now your a critic of the backend strategy....priceless.
 
poupou said:
Who won the 100m in Seoul?

Carl Lewis - Johnson cheated so he didn't win diddly! The record book should assume Johnson wasn't even there, a non entity, a nothing, just as if he false started!

The interesting question is what kind of doping programme was Lewis on? No proof, NO asterisk on the record book that Johnson won and Carl gets the gold by default, regardless of the speculation about Carl.

Should be the same for all of LA's TDF "wins" Second place gets the money and the gold medal and if it can be proved second place doped in that particular TDF it goes on down the line etc.

The official record books must assume the caught dopers did not exist in the race.
 
Oldman said:
How's that working for Pete Rose in a sport everyone in the US knows?

The Pete Rose analogy is good.

USADA did an excellent job of getting the story retold in the media in a way that everyone but the blinded faithful immediately understood. Though, we'll be lucky if the scale of the fraud will be described in detail on a wikipedia page 10 years from now. But, like Pete Rose, there's a few words to describe the corruption that will last decades.

I'll remind everyone Thomas Bach said Armstrong stays banned forever. USADA won't entertain it, the IOC won't consider it and therefore Cookson knows he's got to keep Wonderboy at a distance.
 
BroDeal said:
Armstrong will eventually get credit. The UCI refusing to give the wins to the second place finishers helps him immensely. USADA overplayed its hand and the lifetime ban will look progressively more ridiculous as time reveals more about what his competitors were doing. You cannot have a seven year stretch with no winner. That is an acknowledgement that the whole era was rotten. It extends for a decade before Armstrong and a it is still going a decade after. Everything will be put in context.]

The real context is this:

1. Armstrong cheated - he loses and gets no credit for diddly squat! It is as though he wasn't even there. Unless it can be proven second place also cheated, he gets the title, the money and the entry in the record book.

2. The USADA penalty was totally appropriate for the most intentional, organized and cynically organized conspiracy to cheat. That LA should get any reduction is absurd,

That is context!!!!!:D
 
My opinion: The vast general public considers Lance to be yesterday's news. He did his disastrous confession session on Oprah, and that's that. It's like.. "Lance Armstrong? Oh, he's the bully bicycle racer who cheated and lied and finally got caught. But he's only sorry he got caught!"
 
Jul 6, 2010
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RobbieCanuck said:
Carl Lewis - Johnson cheated so he didn't win diddly! The record book should assume Johnson wasn't even there, a non entity, a nothing, just as if he false started!

The interesting question is what kind of doping programme was Lewis on? No proof, NO asterisk on the record book that Johnson won and Carl gets the gold by default, regardless of the speculation about Carl.

Should be the same for all of LA's TDF "wins" Second place gets the money and the gold medal and if it can be proved second place doped in that particular TDF it goes on down the line etc.

The official record books must assume the caught dopers did not exist in the race.

I disagree.

Leave them in the record books with a big-@ssed asterix by their names, with as much information about their malfeasance as can be provided for in the footnotes.

Let history remember their names, and let history record their shame and cheating. Use them as examples (explicit or implicit, "pulling a Lance" etc.).

Quietly trying to have them fade into the background does nothing for clean sport. Long term socio-historic public shaming is what they deserve, and is what the organizing bodies of sport have earned.

Trying to ignore the fact they existed is a form of bureaucratic omerta...
 
RobbieCanuck said:
The real context is this:

1. Armstrong cheated - he loses and gets no credit for diddly squat! It is as though he wasn't even there. Unless it can be proven second place also cheated, he gets the title, the money and the entry in the record book.

Unless you are prepared to present evidence that nearly everyone who placed in the top ten was wrongly convicted of doping then this statement is so divorced from reality that it appears idiotic.

RobbieCanuck said:
2. The USADA penalty was totally appropriate for the most intentional, organized and cynically organized conspiracy to cheat. That LA should get any reduction is absurd,

We now know that USADA was not even going to suspend most of the witnesses. That was only changed to six months of off-season suspension when some found out they were not getting the same deal. The difference in treatment looks ridiculous, especially when Tygart keeps claiming he would have treated everyone the same. "Talk to me and get no ban. Don't talk and get life." There is no proportionality there.

Give up on the most sophisticated doping program public relations con. There has been nothing to show that Postal's program was much different than T-Mobile's or Kelme's or Liberty Seguros' or Rabobank's or ONCE's or TVM's or Festina's or... In fact, Postal confining the high octane stuff to a handful of riders who were doing the Tour looks rather conservative. Tygart cannot even keep track of which doper was the most sophisticated. Just last month he was telling everyone that A-Rod, with his piddling HGH plus IGF-1, was on the most potent doping regime ever. He apparently forgot that his own agency, just a few years before, busted a lab making its own undetectable steroids.
 
What hurts Armstrong is that he was too greedy. If he had stopped at five like Indurain then he would be lumped in with the other five-time winners, who all used drugs. Seven is such an outlier that everyone looking back will have to deal with the issue of his results being way out of line. His lack of other GT wins, even attempting to win another, plus lack of racing other than the Tour will also hurt his legacy. No one will want to put him above riders like Merckx and Hinault, so they will have to explain why he is not as worthy.


Not trying to cause a stir w/you my friend.....but:


Indurain(unfortunately) has never been proven to have doped, or has he?

Hinault? I'm still trying to find when he did, as I honestly don't know, has he, and if so, when?



The rest is pretty spot on.
 
Aug 13, 2009
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BroDeal said:
Give up on the most sophisticated doping program public relations con. There has been nothing to show that Postal's program was much different than T-Mobile's or Kelme's or Liberty Seguros' or Rabobank's or ONCE's or TVM's or Festina's or...

What other teams did transfusions in 2000? Telekom did not start them till 2004. Few teams brought EPO to the 99 Tour as they were scared of the police. The Retro testing made this clear. USPS hired Motoman.

Fuentes had a guy with dementia and a former MTB racer doing his transfusions while USPS had a UCI dope tester perform theirs. Kelme/Liberty/Once's programs were more risky, largely because Johan stole all of their good doctors.

And of course there was protection from the UCI. Even Jan said it was the most surprising part of the case. The UCI worked hard to kill USADA's case. They told Matt White not to talk, the spewed endless nonsense in the press, pushed out silly "Independent" reports......meanwhile they pursued Ullrich for 6 years and 2 trips to CAS
 
zlev11 said:
where's Joseba Beloki been? he should be trying to claim his 2002 TdF title. or maybe he doped and he knows it so he'll gladly pass it on to Rumsas. oh, wait. who was 4th in that Tour?

Maybe not. Rumsas will have to pass it on to Botero who will have to pass it on to Igor Gonzalez who will have to pass it on to Azevedo who will pass it on to Mancebo who will pass it on to Leipheimer who will pass it on to Heras.

Out of the top ten, six riders were on teams using Dr. Fuentes, two were using Postal's doctors, one was using Dr. Lienders, and one was using his stepmother.
 
Race Radio said:
What other teams did transfusions in 2000? Telekom did not start them till 2004. Few teams brought EPO to the 99 Tour as they were scared of the police. The Retro testing made this clear. USPS hired Motoman.

Riis was doing transfusions years earlier. Everyone quickly adapted to having others carry their dear. Postal used Motoman. Others used their wives and girlfriends.
 
Aug 13, 2009
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BroDeal said:
Riis was doing transfusions years earlier. Everyone quickly adapted to having others carry their dear. Postal used Motoman. Others used their wives and girlfriends.

No he was not. When Hamilton lied to Riis and told him he had never taken a transfusion Riis lied back and said he had used transfusions in 96 in an effort to get Tyler at ease with the idea of slamming a bag of blood.

What Riis forgot was Ex-Telekom soigneur Jef D'Hont took notes of Riis' program in 96, said he used twice the EPO and HGH of the other riders on the team, something he would not have needed if he was taking transfusions.

Lots of teams having doctors, only one of them had Hein in their back pocket.
 
JMBeaushrimp said:
I disagree.

Leave them in the record books with a big-@ssed asterix by their names, with as much information about their malfeasance as can be provided for in the footnotes.

Let history remember their names, and let history record their shame and cheating. Use them as examples (explicit or implicit, "pulling a Lance" etc.).

Quietly trying to have them fade into the background does nothing for clean sport. Long term socio-historic public shaming is what they deserve, and is what the organizing bodies of sport have earned.

Trying to ignore the fact they existed is a form of bureaucratic omerta...

I agree with your concern, but please note I am referring to the Official Record Book of ASO or the TDF organizers. There are a myriad of record keeping sources that can raise these points. Besides which an asterisk requires an explanation and most official record books simply don't have the space to detail the extent of your concerns. Anyone who knows cycling will know the truth.