I genuinely can't think of another champion with as little class over the years. From Merckx to Hinault to Lemond, Fignon, Roche, Delgado, Indurain etc etc, not one has shown as much ignorance and arrogance as Lance - to the press, to his compatriots and to the fans of the sport. Lets leave out the doping for a moment and focus on just one specific example. Look at the way he tried to diminish Sastre's 08 win, basically saying that the race was of a poor standard ('it was a joke' apparently)- so he not alone gets Sastre, who never did anything to Lance and is a guy who has served his dues, with that comment, but the whole race. Classy. And CVDV did not escape either, "Christian's a nice guy, but finishing fifth in the Tour de France? Come on!" And the reality is that with the way Alberto is winning since Feb of this year, last year and the previous year, he is showing real class in how a champion rider should behave and carry himself. Unlike Lance who appeared out of nowhere each June. That's not a cyclist, that's a tour de France rider. There's more to cycling than July. I wouldn't even say Alberto is a favourite rider of mine, but he handled himself well last year, and did absolutely nothing wrong, in the face of intimidation from within his own team. That 'war of words' was started by Lance during Paris Nice of last year, perpetuated by Lance during the Tour, and carried on further in the Autumn in conjunction with JB. Alberto - in fairness to the guy defended himself by stating the issues he experienced with the wheels.
Classy work by Lance also to castigate a whole nation of people - saying that the French anti-doping movement was a 'witch-hunt'. Also stating that he feared for his safety. "It's a strange climb ... long but not very steep, so you can keep 30, 40, 50 guys, and they can take shots at you from the back.” What a load of absolute tripe. But he used the French to feed into this myth in America that the French are jealous. Funny how they had no issues with Lemond, Indurain, Riis, Ullrich and Pantani. "I'm thinking of returning, as it's the best way of pi**ing the French off."
Lance, during the soccer World Cup, said that the 'French players tested positive for being a**holes'. To the Lance fans this seems to be hilarious. Again, what exactly did the French soccer players do to Lance?
He has called David Walsh a 'f***ing little troll', 'I hate that guy', 'gutter journalism'. Le Monde is 'tabloid thrash' apparently. By the way, to Walsh's credit, he replied that he didn't hate or dislike Lance, and that he even understood why he doped. Said that Greg was drunk during the phone call, thus adding fuel to the fire that Greg had a drink problem - something which seems to have been started by the Lance PR machine.
And it's true what one poster above has said. The Lance fans just keep batting away every shred of evidence which could be construed as negative, with not one bit of logic. Doping - no conviction they say, witchhunt, jealousy, Greg is jealous, people trying ot make money off my name, Betsy has an axe to grind, samples were spiked ("There's a setup here and I'm stuck in the middle of it,”) he lost weight, changed cadence, Ferrari tested body fat, changed focus.
Scumbag - all top sportsmen are this way.
Scumbag - look at his upbringing and his father
Womaniser but pretending to be the loving husband - good for him to be able to get these women.
Bullying other riders - all champions behave this way.
Profiting from cancer awareness - entitled to make a living ("The riskiest thing you can do is get greedy." (See picture below) I think most people would agree that 2m dollars for less than a week is greedy (TDU), but the Lance fans seem to have a different moral compass.
And the final one, when all else fails - Why don't you save your energy from hating Lance so much and get off your fat a**es and ride. The intellectual equivalent of telling someone to look over there and to run off in the other direction.
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