Lance Armstrong

[SunDeck]

I think it's just an indictment of the cycling world in general that allowed a culture to exist where cyclists felt they had to make a choice between winning and not doping. Armstrong may be the epitome of that and sure, his actions to defend himself have been reprehensible, but to me this is about sponsors, officials, coaches, promoters, doctors and everyone else responsible for encouraging athletes to alter their physical chemistry and it's not necessarily fair to put all this blame on one guy. I'm not defending him, in particular, but he didn't create the incentives or the methods to evade testing and he certainly couldn't have doped for so long without a lot of support and willingness by many people to look the other way or to live in denial.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by RedFanAlways1966

After watching the Oprah interview I think less of Lance Armstrong. No emotion and still not answering all the questions. He is not Idi Amin or Joseph Stalin, but his attitude during that interview made me think of someone who let power get in his brain and is still not willing to tell the truth nor remorseful for the lives of others that he tarnished.

In other words... I think he is a piece of crap. I know, I know... Livestrong is a great thing. Not sure if I will watch part 2 of the interview tonight. I think last night is all I can take of Lance Armstrong. Just go away.

I came out of it thinking that he's someone who wants to put this behind him with at least some of his $125mill fortune intact. He wants to get the lawsuits filed, settle out of court, hopefully have a few million left over, move on

Like you I have very little respect for him but I'm not into hero worship to begin with. I never thought he was anything more than a good bicycler and I don't rate that skill very high in society

[improbus]

Originally Posted by SunDeck

I think it's just an indictment of the baseball world in general that allowed a culture to exist where ballplayers felt they had to make a choice between winning and not doping. Bonds may be the epitome of that and sure, his actions to defend himself have been reprehensible, but to me this is about sponsors, officials, coaches, promoters, doctors and everyone else responsible for encouraging athletes to alter their physical chemistry and it's not necessarily fair to put all this blame on one guy. I'm not defending him, in particular, but he didn't create the incentives or the methods to evade testing and he certainly couldn't have doped for so long without a lot of support and willingness by many people to look the other way or to live in denial.

See: MLB 1993-2007 (My changes to your quote in bold)

[edabbs44]

Lance Armstrong, just another very recent superhuman athlete who was a fraud. Amazing how many athletes across the sporting world have been doing things in the last 20 years that we have never seen before. I'm afraid that this has the potential to be so much bigger.

[M2]

Here's my thing: it's really easy to sit on the sidelines and fault athletes for taking substances. Yet look at it from their perspective. They're constantly being handed nutritional supplements and given pills and needles, by their coaches/managers/nutritionists/team doctors. Then they get told this one's good, but this one's bad because it's way too effective. Then they get told every day that they better do everything in their power to win or the guy/team is going to win and someone else is going to take their spot. You want to win? You want to be the best? You want to look yourself in the mirror and say you did everything you could? Now tell me you'd say no to thing that could be the difference in winning for your team, for your family, for your country, that thing that's being offered to you by a doctor.

EPO is bad, but you can sleep in an oxygen tent at night. Blood doping is bad, but training at high altitude is good. Testosterone supplements are bad even though we now sell them on TV. Go ahead, sort out where the line is, aside from the finish line.

And then factor in sport of cycling, where your ride posture and pedalling motion is computer analyzed, the bike design borders on rocket science, and every day is planned out in excruciating detail right down to the time when you are going to take a crap (that's a not joke). In between stages of a major tour, riders have a veritable NASCAR pit crew working on them, fine tuning them for the next day. Nothing is left to chance. Every advantage (no matter how minute) is exploited. Every rider is taken apart, reassembled, programmed and quantified. These guys are equal part machine and human, and it's not terribly surprising they'd do whatever's necessary to make the machine perform.

Seriously, ride up a mountain sometime. Feel the kick of a 9% grade. Try to keep yourself upright and moving forward on a switchback. Get in the saddle, put your head down and ride flat out for an hour. What these guys do is preposterously hard.

I'd like to see the sport raced clean, but let's be honest that in some cases we're drawing arbitrary lines about the notion of using every ounce of science at your disposal except these things over there.

Armstrong likely won a level playing field. People may not like it when he lists doping alongside pumping your tires and filling your water bottles, but that was how they were racing. The truth is what he did in surviving cancer and winning the TDF seven times is still an amazing triumph, one of the greatest sporting accomplishments ever. What he's done to help cancer victims and promote healthier living (arguably you can trace the current biking boom to Armstrong) has had immense impact.

His sin is he's yet another example of the world being more complex than the simple narrative we so fervently desire. He competed hard. He did some great things outside of his sport. He inspired millions.

And he was riddled with personal flaws and made enormous mistakes along the way.

[Slyder]

They should be asking him to come in and show how he beat at least 500 tests so they can smoke out the rest and maybe legitimately clean up the sport.

[Johnny Footstool]

Originally Posted by M2

Here's my thing: it's really easy to sit on the sidelines and fault athletes for taking substances. Yet look at it from their perspective. They're constantly being handed nutritional supplements and given pills and needles, by their coaches/managers/nutritionists/team doctors. Then they get told this one's good, but this one's bad because it's way too effective. Then they get told every day that they better do everything in their power to win or the guy/team is going to win and someone else is going to take their spot. You want to win? You want to be the best? You want to look yourself in the mirror and say you did everything you could? Now tell me you'd say no to thing that could be the difference in winning for your team, for your family, for your country, that thing that's being offered to you by a doctor.

EPO is bad, but you can sleep in an oxygen tent at night. Blood doping is bad, but training at high altitude is good. Testosterone supplements are bad even though we now sell them on TV. Go ahead, sort out where the line is, aside from the finish line.

And then factor in sport of cycling, where your ride posture and pedalling motion is computer analyzed, the bike design borders on rocket science, and every day is planned out in excruciating detail right down to the time when you are going to take a crap (that's a not joke). In between stages of a major tour, riders have a veritable NASCAR pit crew working on them, fine tuning them for the next day. Nothing is left to chance. Every advantage (no matter how minute) is exploited. Every rider is taken apart, reassembled, programmed and quantified. These guys are equal part machine and human, and it's not terribly surprising they'd do whatever's necessary to make the machine perform.

Seriously, ride up a mountain sometime. Feel the kick of a 9% grade. Try to keep yourself upright and moving forward on a switchback. Get in the saddle, put your head down and ride flat out for an hour. What these guys do is preposterously hard.

I'd like to see the sport raced clean, but let's be honest that in some cases we're drawing arbitrary lines about the notion of using every ounce of science at your disposal except these things over there.

Armstrong likely won a level playing field. People may not like it when he lists doping alongside pumping your tires and filling your water bottles, but that was how they were racing. The truth is what he did in surviving cancer and winning the TDF seven times is still an amazing triumph, one of the greatest sporting accomplishments ever. What he's done to help cancer victims and promote healthier living (arguably you can trace the current biking boom to Armstrong) has had immense impact.

His sin is he's yet another example of the world being more complex than the simple narrative we so fervently desire. He competed hard. He did some great things outside of his sport. He inspired millions.

And he was riddled with personal flaws and made enormous mistakes along the way.

Rules. You have to follow the rules. It's that simple. Lance Armstrong thought he was bigger than the rules. He wasn't, and isn't.

[Wonderful Monds]

Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool

Rules. You have to follow the rules. It's that simple. Lance Armstrong thought he was bigger than the rules. He wasn't, and isn't.

So did literally everyone else, so who gives a damn?

[Raisor]

I don't really care about the cheating part of it.

What makes Armstrong a Bad Person (tm) are the law suits were he went to destroy people who were telling the truth.

He ruined lives.

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by Raisor

I don't really care about the cheating part of it.

What makes Armstrong a Bad Person (tm) are the law suits were he went to destroy people who were telling the truth.

He ruined lives.

Amen.

[jojo]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

I came out of it thinking that he's someone who wants to put this behind him with at least some of his $125mill fortune intact. He wants to get the lawsuits filed, settle out of court, hopefully have a few million left over, move on

Like you I have very little respect for him but I'm not into hero worship to begin with. I never thought he was anything more than a good bicycler and I don't rate that skill very high in society

A sport with a culture of PEDs use where one of its greatest athletes ever can parlay that into raising millions of dollars for charity is better for society than a version of the sport that brands itself as clean and nobody cares about it except some French people for a few weeks out of the year.