Official Lance Armstrong Thread: Part 4 (Post-Settlement)

[Chris Gadsden]

Why..boycott..If you see the job Gianni Bugno has done..equivalent of letting Jeffery Epstein run a home for troubled girls..if it was up to me..Lance would be the spokesperson for the new cycling union..a real union. The kind were the riders get paid. I try w all my strength to listen to Armstrong about bike racing and have it not make sense. But it does.
I see Armstrong as recovered \ recovering..

Meh, I don’t think he could survive the pay-cut.

 

[86TDFWinner]

lol - "believers like you"

no

Lol! "Believers like you"? YES! You are a Wonderboy believer & And its blatantly obvious. That's ok though, admit it & move on.

 

[Aragon]

...move on.

+1
I think you should follow this advice and nor getting excited about every "irrelevancy" that the "most irrelevant of irrelevants" cyclist does in his life.

 

[86TDFWinner]

+1
I think you should follow this advice and nor getting excited about every "irrelevancy" that the "most irrelevant of irrelevants" cyclist does in his life.

Lol! Nothing to get excited about, least of which him. If everyone else moves on, I can too.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Lol! Nothing to get excited about, least of which him. If everyone else moves on, I can too.

I was curious why I couldn't place you, given your distinctive style, but I just quickly glanced at your posting history. Honest question: do you only follow the sport so you can wallow in its filth?

 

[Oldermanish]

So... boycott Patron Tequila and PowerDot, or nah?

Drink better Tequila at a better price. After all, it's tequila, right?

 

[Merckx index]

Bruyneel: LA was the best of his generation, would have been with or without PEDs.

Tell me what changed in cycling after Lance? Nothing.”

Well, the passport. The amount you can get away with has decreased.

“The problem is that USADA claimed this was the biggest doping system in the history of sport. Saying that is total crap!

Agree.

“Lance didn’t do more than the others. I would even go so far as to say that he did less, especially compared to the riders who were caught in Operacion Puerto with Dr. Fuentes – riders like Mayo, Basso, Ullrich, Hamilton, who were Armstrong’s chief rivals.”

I don't buy that.

Bruyneel claims Lance Armstrong would have been the best of his generation 'with or without doping'

'Lance didn't do more than the others' says US Postal manager

www.cyclingnews.com

 

[BroDeal]

I don't buy that.

Why not?

Lance was not freezing his own blood. He was not using other people's blood. He was not using artificial hemoglobin. He was not using HGH during his Tour run. He was not on the cornucopia of drugs that riders on teams like Liberty Seguros and Kelme were on. I don't think there is any question that Lance was using a subset of the drugs and doping techniques being used by other riders. This matches Dr. Ferrari's philosophy of using the minimum necessary of what actually works. When Floyd had his program dialed it came down to a couple of units of blood for the race and EPO with an anabolic during training. That is certainly less than what was being used by riders on Spanish teams.

After 1999, Armstrong also had the luxury of focusing on the Tour and the confidence plus track record that he could win it. No other rider was in that position except possibly Ullrich. Everyone else needed to hedge their bets. While Lance could use just the doping needed for the Tour, other riders had to go full rtard for other races in addition to the Tour. Hamilton is a great example; he was top fueled for the Ardennes, the Giro, the Tour, the Vuelta, the Olympics. When Armstrong had basically hung up his bike after the TdF, his rivals were trying to save their seasons at the Vuelta or the world championships, and doing that while fully jacked.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Lance was not freezing his own blood.

Doesn't Hamilton suggest he was?

He was not using other people's blood.

Not many were.

He was not using artificial hemoglobin.

Actovegin.

He was not using HGH during his Tour run.

But he did use HGH.

But let's not let facts get in the way of opinions.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Well, the passport. The amount you can get away with has decreased.

Hard to accept this given the volume of words spilled in the last few months on the drugs driving faster climbing times.

 

[Breezy1985]

Why not?

Lance was not freezing his own blood. He was not using other people's blood. He was not using artificial hemoglobin. He was not using HGH during his Tour run. He was not on the cornucopia of drugs that riders on teams like Liberty Seguros and Kelme were on. I don't think there is any question that Lance was using a subset of the drugs and doping techniques being used by other riders. This matches Dr. Ferrari's philosophy of using the minimum necessary of what actually works. When Floyd had his program dialed it came down to a couple of units of blood for the race and EPO with an anabolic during training. That is certainly less than what was being used by riders on Spanish teams.

After 1999, Armstrong also had the luxury of focusing on the Tour and the confidence plus track record that he could win it. No other rider was in that position except possibly Ullrich. Everyone else needed to hedge their bets. While Lance could use just the doping needed for the Tour, other riders had to go full rtard for other races in addition to the Tour. Hamilton is a great example; he was top fueled for the Ardennes, the Giro, the Tour, the Vuelta, the Olympics. When Armstrong had basically hung up his bike after the TdF, his rivals were trying to save their seasons at the Vuelta or the world championships, and doing that while fully jacked.

Can't believe there are still people out there like you who swallow his crap.

"The most sophisticated doping program in sport" is how his drug use was described in the report not good but not as good as Kelme

 

[Mayomaniac]

Can't believe there are still people out there like you who swallow his crap.

"The most sophisticated doping program in sport" is how his drug use was described in the report not good but not as good as Kelme

Kelme was just over the top, just throwing s*** at the wall and hoping that some of it would stick.

 

[BroDeal]

Doesn't Hamilton suggest he was?

Did he? During a lot of conversations with Floyd, he never suggested to me that Lance was freezing his blood. That does not even make sense. At the very time Hamilton was working with Dr. Fuentes, a doctor who got his start doping athletes with other people's blood and who asked clients if they had family members with the same blood type, Floyd was sitting in an apartment watching over Lance's blood sitting in a regular fridge. There is no indication that Lance was using more blood or on any different blood doping schedule than the other riders. In fact the only riders who tested positive for homologous blood doping were clients of Hamilton's doctor. There may be a bit of projection going on there.

Not many were.Actovegin.

Good catch but we don't know how many riders were using Actovegin. It was not banned at the time.

But he did use HGH.

Not after 1996.

Since you are so particular about facts then let's hear some about how Lance was doping more than others.

 

[BroDeal]

Can't believe there are still people out there like you who swallow his crap.

"The most sophisticated doping program in sport" is how his drug use was described in the report not good but not as good as Kelme

I can definitely believe there are people like you who are incapable of independent thought and mindlessly accept the word of someone spinning the story for his own self aggrandizement despite ample facts to the contrary being freely available. Years before USADA itself busted a doping ring manufacturing its own undetectable designer steroids; no cycling team has ever been accused of something that sophisticated. Did not prevent Tygart from lying to the public about Postal. The cyclists in the Armstrong affair told Tygart the other teams were doing the same thing Postal was. Did not prevent Tygart from writing the affidavits without that information in it then portraying Postal as being unique.

 

[Oldermanish]

Bruyneel: LA was the best of his generation, would have been with or without PEDs.



Well, the passport. The amount you can get away with has decreased.



Agree.



I don't buy that.

Bruyneel claims Lance Armstrong would have been the best of his generation 'with or without doping'

'Lance didn't do more than the others' says US Postal manager

www.cyclingnews.com

He wasn't even the best physically gifted rider on some of his teams. He was more willing to do whatever. He also had deeper political resources not available to other teams, let alone other riders.

 

[Oldermanish]

Can't believe there are still people out there like you who swallow his crap.

"The most sophisticated doping program in sport" is how his drug use was described in the report not good but not as good as Kelme

Perhaps not as excessive as Kelme. I can't remember if it was Kelme or Liberty Seguros that had riders almost falling over during stages and departing with "stomach ailments" and knee injuries; but widespread programs do not equal sophistication.

 

[Oldermanish]

But we're giving air to another media cycle if y'all are concerned with that. I apologize in advance for chiming in on this tired mobius.

 

[fbjim]

The most sophisticated part of the USPS program had less to do with the drugs and more to do with political clout. Nobody was going to fall on their ass and move mountains to conjure up a positive for someone who ticked off looks up Wikipedia Santiago Botero

 

[Swamp Holland]

I had a close friend who used Lance's story as inspiration and source of strength to fight their Cancer. They fought it off the first 2 times. The last fight was not as successful. I was happy to have shared those memories with my friend during those tours 1999 etc. It was a good distraction.

 

[Cookster15]

Bruyneel: LA was the best of his generation, would have been with or without PEDs.



Well, the passport. The amount you can get away with has decreased.



Agree.



I don't buy that.

Bruyneel claims Lance Armstrong would have been the best of his generation 'with or without doping'

'Lance didn't do more than the others' says US Postal manager

www.cyclingnews.com

This sums up my opinion on Lance. No way was Armstrong the best of his generation with or without doping. This is simply Bruyneel attempting to preserve his battered reputation.

I believe Lance was a highly driven athlete. He left no stone unturned but this extended to doping. It turned out he was better responder to O2 vector doping than any of his rivals. He also managed to manipulate the testers to avoid when he was glowing. No way was he better than Jan Ullrich for example.

It is also obvious to me that the passport slowed the peloton even if it has flaws. The passport is still a deterrent and reduced the level of boost they could get away with post Lance.

 

[Swamp Holland]

I can definitely believe there are people like you who are incapable of independent thought and mindlessly accept the word of someone spinning the story for his own self aggrandizement despite ample facts to the contrary being freely available. Years before USADA itself busted a doping ring manufacturing its own undetectable designer steroids; no cycling team has ever been accused of something that sophisticated. Did not prevent Tygart from lying to the public about Postal. The cyclists in the Armstrong affair told Tygart the other teams were doing the same thing Postal was. Did not prevent Tygart from writing the affidavits without that information in it then portraying Postal as being unique.

Tygart was bitter for some reason I don't understand.

 

[Aragon]

Tygart was bitter for some reason I don't understand.

There was some animosity between the two (LA and TT), but my reading is that because the USADA inquiry is a rare look by the authorities into the doping culture, Tygart only got confused by the magnitude of the individual facts, and thought that his "Ulysses" described something totally 100 % unique with its hundreds of footnotes and thousands of pages of supplementary material.

The inquiry was unique, the subject necessarily not so. The inquiry into Mr. Bloom's day in the year 1904 was unique, his solitary vices in the beach necessarily not so.

There can also be public choise/ bureaucratic reasons. Of course anti-doping crusaders -- who can have also a real shortage of money -- must show also that they are effective in saving souls (ie. destroying "the most sophisticated doping program) of the most evil people ("monsters who coerced children into doping use").

 

[Oldermanish]

There was some animosity between the two (LA and TT), but my reading is that because the USADA inquiry is a rare look by the authorities into the doping culture, Tygart only got confused by the magnitude of the individual facts, and thought that his "Ulysses" described something totally 100 % unique with its hundreds of footnotes and thousands of pages of supplementary material.

The inquiry was unique, the subject necessarily not so. The inquiry into Mr. Bloom's day in the year 1904 was unique, his solitary vices in the beach necessarily not so.

There can also be public choise/ bureaucratic reasons. Of course anti-doping crusaders -- who can have also a real shortage of money -- must show also that they are effective in saving souls (ie. destroying "the most sophisticated doping program) of the most evil people ("monsters who coerced children into doping use").

Gotta love using Joyce as a translator. It took him 7 years to write it and then it was banned as pornography by many. Hate the messenger.....

 

[BroDeal]

Tygart was bitter for some reason I don't understand.

Tygart is very religious. His right hand man is too, maybe even more so. Tygart was genuinely offended when Lance publicly dismissed the role of god in his recovery.

Beyond that, Tygart was convinced he could bring the governing body of cycling down with corruption charges, leading to a landmark case and publicity for himself and USADA. He was targeting something that did not exist. The idea was put there by the likes of Betsy Andreu and Vaughters. They had an infantile view akin to something you would see in a Hollywood movie, like secret cabals and furtive phone calls with money being passed around under the table and rivals being targeted for positives. Tygart bought into it. This is the reason he was willing to go outside WADA rules, to go beyond the statute of limitations, to take away victories that occurred before WADA even existed, etc. He thought Armstrong would break and give up the UCI with stories of paying people off. This is also why a deal was never struck; Tygart was after something Lance could not give him.

Tygart apparently never considered his beliefs in a conspiracy could be better explained by Adam Smith's invisible hand. It does not take guys in trench coats smoking cigarettes in the shadows. It only takes the stakeholders knowing which side of the bread is buttered then acting in their own self interest. Verbruggen did the same for other riders, like Luc Leblanc. that he did for Armstrong. In fact he is on record as saying he did not see the difference between getting a TUE before testing positive or afterward. Verbruggen dismissing a positive for a corticosteroid was not a unique act that would prove a conspiracy; it was just business as usual.

 

[BroDeal]

This sums up my opinion on Lance. No way was Armstrong the best of his generation with or without doping. ....I believe Lance was a highly driven athlete.

Funny thing. I once asked Floyd why Vaughters and Tommy D were not very successful. They both had the numbers in testing. They had the potential to be great. What happened? With no hesitation he responded with "focus". Those guys could not concentrate on training the same way Lance and Floyd could. It is day after day, week after week, month after month of being singularly focused on the goal. That is what I think the difference was. It was not some secret drug or special doping regimen; the same things were available to everyone else. Floyd and Lance were very talented bad ass mofos who were driven to a degree others were not.