if Lance were just another athlete, he would have had nowhere near the same riches, fame, leeway etc. He is not even the most successful 4-5 cyclists of all time but he dwarfs all other cyclists in terms of fame, not because of his athletic success but because of his STORY.
And your evidence for this is…? Can you name a contemporary athlete with comparable success who did not achieve a large degree of fame and fortune? Many hard core cycling fans may indeed not regard LA as one of the 4-5 best, but American fans, which fuel so much of his support, pay attention only to the TDF. Seven titles in a row guarantees a lot of fame and fortune, all by themselves.
Do you really think it’s all about the cancer story? Lemond did pretty well with just three titles. If he or someone else without the cancer story had won seven in a row, don’t you think he would be pretty famous and rich as a result? Don’t you think he would have been hailed as a transcendent figure in sports? I agree with you that the cancer story has greatly enlarged LA’s fan base around the world, but it’s not as though he would have been an unknown if he had “only” won seven Tours. You don’t have to have a prominent charity to appeal to fans all over the globe. Look at Tiger Woods, or Kobe Bryant, or Michael Phelps. They do pretty well just on the basis of their athletic accomplishments.
I have no doubt without the cancer angle and the fame and success that brought to cycling, Lance would have been brought down long before he ever got near 7 Tours wins. The cancer angle was always cynically used as a shield and I find that offensive and immoral.
There are two claims here that I think you’re conflating. One, that LA used the cancer as a way of convincing fans he couldn’t have been doping. I agree with that to some extent. Certainly many of his fans trot out that argument. OTOH, that point is much less brought up than the “never tested positive” one, which is just as available to many other athletes. I could name a whole slew of other superstars who are getting just as much mileage out of that premise as LA is: Albert Pujols, Manny Pacquiao, Tiger Woods, Rafa Nadal.
The other claim is that the cancer somehow protected him from getting busted. I think this is much harder to support. Getting busted for doping, as we have all noted here, is actually hard to do. Most of his major rivals skated just like he did until after he retired. They didn’t have cancer; why didn’t they get “brought down”? After 2005 it was different, but some people argue that LA retired in 2005 just because he thought he would get caught if he raced any more. He certainly didn’t retire because he didn’t have it any more. He would have been a strong favorite in 2006, and maybe in 07 and 08.
Suppose LA never existed, or never rode at a high level. Most likely, Ullrich would have gone down as the dominant rider of his generation. He, too, would probably not have been considered by hard core fans as one of the top 4 or 5, and without the cancer story, his world-wide fan base would not have been as large. But would that mean he would be more likely to have been sanctioned? Do you think he would have been busted prior to 2006? How, if he never tested positive? And what if Puerto had never happened? Do you think he would have been forced to retire for some other reason? Why?
What Armstrong done and got away with goes far beyond the realm of just another doping cyclist and to have listen all the BS around the guy for the last 7-8 years all the while knowing he was a fake, well I just find it hard how anyone can not want to see him go down. To me Lance is the perfect figurehead of an immorally bankrupt society in which fakes can become super-rich icons based on nothing more than lies and BS.
Yes, fakes get rich and famous in some areas of life, but not in pro sports. You really can’t fake athletic accomplishment completely. Though much that LA did bothers me, I have real trouble equating him with some preacher who rakes in millions while living a life contradictory to his message. LA is a very complex character. His success was not based all on talent and hard work, but it certainly was to some extent. All the cancer charities in the world wouldn’t have helped him if he hadn’t won all those Tours. Many athletes have some charity that they campaign for. Tyler did, for example, but Tyler’s much lower profile had nothing to do with the specific charity that he endorsed, and everything to do with the fact that his results were not in any way comparable to LA’s.
I guess there are two kinds of anti-LA people, hard core and soft core. The hard core story goes like this: He was a marginal talent, who, despite never showing great promise as a GT rider, and despite cancer, was able to convince the best doping doctor in the world to take him on exclusively. Rather than, for example, Ullrich, who up until 99 was considered a far better GT prospect than LA, who had actually won the TDF at 23. Through this exclusive program, LA didn’t simply get better, he became the best climber in the world, though he couldn’t climb to save himself before that. Blood doping couldn’t accomplish that, and the hard cores refuse to entertain the idea that his body was reshaped through cancer, so apparently Ferrari had access to some other drug—to this day unknown to anyone else—that specifically increases power/weight ratio. Repeat: blood doping would not accomplish this, so forget HemAssist, PFCs, and all the rest. Not saying he didn’t use them, I’m saying they would not be enough.
As he was winning all these Tours, publicity for his cancer charity grew. He took full advantage of that, to the point that even after he retired it became a source of income that could continue to support his extravagent lifestyle. He ensured this by committing outright fraud, manipulating the income and conflating the Livestrong.com and org businesses.
I guess I’m a soft core hater. Here’s how I view it. Cancer probably helped him in two ways: 1) he lost some upper body mass, improving his power/weight ratio; and 2) he became far more dedicated to racing. He doped like everyone else, mostly with EPO and later blood transfusions. Possibly also with something like HemAssist not available to other racers. if so, both that and Ferrari’s advice would have greatly reduced the likelihood of his getting caught, but it would not turn a donkey into a race horse, and it certainly did not turn a one day racer into a climber. Remember, he still had to pass the 50% HT rule like everyone else.
Maybe LA’s cancer status also protected him from doping controls, I'm certainly open to that possibility, and look forward to what the investigation uncovers. But since all the evidence indicates that his main rivals were also successfully doping during this period, I’m not so sure that if he was protected it made that much difference. There is the Mayo story, which is very damning against LA, but nothing like that for Ullrich or Basso that I know of, who in the end were much more serious rivals, anyway. Assuming they weren't protected, it appears they were able to avoid doping problems until Puerto, which means that throughout LA's reign, they were able to dope about as much and as often as LA was. For Ulle, of course, that was most of his career.
In addition to a good but not far and away better doping program, LA had a very strong work ethic, and creative if boring new team tactics. His teammates, though not having access to Ferrari’s splendors, managed to dope themselves so well that they could outride or at least tire out many of LA’s GC contenders on early stages of the Tour, and even on the early portions of some key climbs. This was another key to his success, but it also suggests that very good doping results were possible without Ferrari’s help. As far as I know, George and all the other lieutenants were not enrolled in Ferrari's program. Yet they became monsters in the Tour sometimes. Doesn't this show that Ferrari wasn't needed for really good results? Or is the claim here that LA was passing on Ferrari's special program (not just drugs, but specific tips on how to use them) to his teammates? But if Ferrari's program was capable of turning a one day racer into a seven time TDF winner, why would LA want to pass it along to guys like Hincapie?
He began the cancer charity not because of any cynical desire to profit from it, but because like any other person recovering from the disease he was profoundly touched by it. As I noted before, many star athletes have a disease that they focus on. He certainly didn’t mind all the extra fame and attention it brought him—I can’t imagine an athlete or any other celebrity who would. It has unquestionably increased his world wide fame and income, as I said before I agree about that. And he has used that to keep himself in the public eye since he retired.
After that, the picture is murky, for me. I have seen financial statements of the charity, and they appear on the up-and-up. OTOH, I have questions about how much good the organization actually does, since it funds very little research, but mostly provides services which it seems people could probably access on their own in many cases. I think there are legitimate questions about whether all this money is really accomplishing that much. One can certainly have ethical issues with LA here. I see some potential for a lot of sleaze. The question is whether laws have been broken, and I wait to see what the investigation may come up with.
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