"Did you ever take banned substances to increase your cycling performance?" - Yes
"Was one of those banned substances EPO?" - Yes
"Did you ever blood dope or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?" - Yes
"Did you ever use any other banned substances like testosterone, cortisone, human growth hormone?" - Yes
"In all 7 of your Tour de France victories did you use banned substances? " - Yes
Lance Armstrong's Confession
For the first time since cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from elite competition by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, he sits down for a no-holds-barred interview, with Oprah. For years, he's denied that he used banned substances to enhance his cycling performance. Will he finally come clean? Find out now.
Why Lance Armstrong Is Ready to Come Clean
For more than a decade, Lance Armstrong adamantly denied that he ever used banned substances—like erythropoietin (EPO), testosterone, cortisone or human growth hormone—to improve his cycling performance. Now, after admitting his guilt to Oprah, Lance reveals why he decided to finally tell the truth.
Lance Armstrong Reveals Details of His Doping Scheme
Code words. Private jets. Secret blood transfusions. For almost a decade, Lance Armstrong was involved in a systematic doping ring that spanned several countries. How did it work? Watch as Lance shares details and reveals which banned substances went into his cocktail.
Lance Armstrong's "Inexcusable" Attacks
After Emma O'Reilly, a former masseuse for Lance Armstrong's cycling team, told the media that a doctor backdated a cortisone prescription for Lance, the champion cyclist went on the attack. Lance sued Emma, even though he now says she was telling the truth. Watch as Lance reveals how his desire to control every outcome made him do "inexcusable" things. Plus, find out how he's trying to make amends.
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Why Lance Armstrong Says He Had to Dope to Win
Between 1999 and 2005, Lance Armstrong led the U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team and, later, the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team to the top of the podium at the Tour de France seven consecutive times. Find out why Lance believes he and some of his teammates had to dope in order to win.
Lance Armstrong's Reckless Behavior and Ruthless Desire to Win
Lance Armstrong opens up about his reckless behavior; his association with controversial Italian sports trainer and medical consultant, Dr. Michele Ferrari; and his flaws that were magnified by fame. Watch as he reveals how his desire to "win at all costs" and his arrogance made him willing to risk it all.
What do you think?
Probably it was better to be paid more and watch doping going on rather than be paid less and work for a small time team, so I find their arguments about he "forced us" etc a little bit crap even if he did apologise. If you don't like working for someone it is possible to quit.
As long as we let this people rule other peoples live this world sucks. They can be screened preschool and have a lifelong career as vegigardeners.
What a worthless and wasted live, Mr. Armstrong!
Dope subject is a ridiculous affair between what is banned and what is not, then methods and substances that are not banned are shitty enough to already make that sport sick. It's a one big farse. Cheating is about breaking the rules, breaking the formula, nothing else - but rules are sick themselves. The level to which this and many other sports have been pushed, is way beyond healthy arrangement. And who is to blame? Us looking for cheap entertainment and us fine with watching commercials in between, eager to get snacks and drinks advertised in many of them. It is the money of big companies wanting to advertise their products to us that fuel the development of sports. There is no other reason they do it at the end of the day - the publicity value. Sport in it's foundation is about recreation, physical, mental and spiritual improvement of one self - most professionals sports have very little to do with that since a long time.
Before anyone points a finger at Lance or whoever else, and talk what is cheating and that he/she wishes everyone was honest ad that he looks for truth in life - zoom out and review who you are. If we would practice sport more and be more active in it instead of passively watching others doing it and getting way over excited, things would look different.
The art of waking up...
What disgusts me though (as many other people have already said) is that he denied it for so long and sued people who were telling the truth. That is where it went too far. Hopefully all the court money gets returned, but once that's happened I don't see what else he did wrong now that he has finally come clean.
everyone he inspired, he has let down
You say he has achieved great things for cycling and cancer, but it was all built on a lie, so what's it worth now?
I'd rather take inspiration/hope/motivation from somebody who has integrity and honesty thankyouverymuch
The reality is, Lance DID survive cancer and come back to become one of the most dominant cyclist EVER, period. Doping changes nothing... You name a legendary cyclist, they doped. Merckx... doper. Coppi... doper. Anquetil... doper. Thévenet... doper. Zoetemelk...doper. Moser, Fignon, Yates, Roche, Pantani, Riis, Simeoni, Zabel, Zulle, Ulrich, Basso, Kloden, Beloki... ALL DOPERS. This idea that Lance somehow invented doping or invented sophisticated doping is just a joke... Look at the Festina Affair, look at Telekom, USPS was no worse at all.
Then you have a serious search to do. And even if you find that person, be never sure that some journous won't find some small poo in his closet, then blow it to a size of a jobby, then people reading about it will take it, add water and spray all over the place making sure every one has smelled it. And even if it wasn't a poo, it turned out to be a French mold cheese, it is irrelevant - the leeches and scavengers have fed on created hype
Problem with good and truth is that it enjoys silent and hidden places so it gets very little coverage... and turth is boring. Lies and can be coloured in all possible ways and give brain pasture to masses. So Instead you can try to search for good in everything around you, in every situation. Every smallest piece of it is worth it, even if it resides in a pile of crap.
But as for Lanny, still a legend in my books, just think of it like music, would the Rolling Stones be taken out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just because they engaged in a little "doping" in their day?
Oh my goodness Amerigo Zanardi from Pharma-Tec goes through! But few members of Astra Zeneca are regrouping, they reach for refreshments and we can soon expect them pursuing the runner! In the mean time we go to the pitstop where German Bayer has troubles with blood transfusion, this years TDF isn't not looking good for them, quite a bad start!
i got zero respect for cheaters.
"Shut up legs" Now that is more like it*
*Lets up Jens never gets caught or a lot of cyclists will be properly disillusioned
I never said it is good to cheat, I admit I made fun of what if... Zero respect for cheaters - please tell me what sport are you into, because all i can tell you is that if sport gets pumped enough with money, then the athletes in it divide for those who got caught cheating and those who didn't. When desire for being the best and pursue of success overcomes what is right and healthy, when money become drivign force instead of passion - all sorts of things happen. Then if it goes on for long enough, more and more are involved and the whole thing gets rotten inside out. In such sport as road cycling or football it is not an issue of: a clean guy races doped guy, and doped one wins by a fraction of a second. You have to dope and cheat to be able to keep up with being in the first league at all.
So basicaly you should have no respect to any top athlete. I like to believe those people are clean, I believed till that vid that Lance was, however this vid hasn't changed much in my attitude towards him. Who knows, what if Phelps will suddenly get caught on something else than weed? Should it take away all those incredible years of struggle to rise to the top?
It's about to what extent can you take yourself without loosing other things important to you. If winning is all there is, if fans look nearly only after the current winner (and they fkn do even in our sport) - then this is the way it is. Things are not simple, we are part of everything whether we want it or not. So if you want MTB to stay healthy, ride more, be active, don't watch it go by no matter how entertaining it is.
Every single professional athlete at the highest levels take "drugs" - this is nature of the game. It isn't cheating if the others are doing the very same thing.
As others have mentioned, Armstrong didn't create the system (pro road cycling) - he played their game and won. The bullying argument is a bit ridiculous too; when someone attacks your livelihood you have to defend yourself - if you don't you're going to get shit on. That's just how the world works.
This has never been about going after Armstrong for "cheating" - it has been a vendetta. A vendetta that has enabled a lot of people to make a lot of money. Certain people are getting very nice promotions and the extra paychecks that they bring. This has nothing to do with "cleaning the sport up" - it all comes down to money.
It seems to me a lot of people that seem to be "happy" about this situation are the people that enjoy a "tabloid dirt". They can point their finger and feel better about themselves by taking their perceived moral high ground.
3200 km in 20 days is a little too much. Out of the 220 signups maybe 10 dont dope so why crucify only one?
If I was him, I would take all this negitive and turn it into a positive. Use all the experience that he gained in professional cycling and use it to go after the corrupt UCI and finaly clean this sport up and potentialy....get some cred. back:-)
Spoken in a Rob Warner fashion " How does he sit down with balls that... oh , right ".
All this and more wil be revealed in Protours new "guide to the world we live in- who really runs planet lance" on all major news channels. also available as a paperback in all good book stores
The Fed is after him for drug offence, he will be sued his ass off by the corps that he cheated and spend the next twenty years in fear of going to jail and will loosing his money.
The evidence is overwhelming - he had to preemptively confess and he will play the blamegame and so will his ex-chumps.
Doping, cheating, lying, embezelment is wrong, everyone w i l l get caught, judicial procedure will follow. Dont fool yourself Wonky and dont be fooled by scum like Lance - this sorry excuse of a hb is still not telling the whole truth. He hasnt come clean. Fool me once, fool me twice...
I wont buy from companies financing roadteams - if the money ebbs - those excesses are a thing from the past.
As for the doping, I am somewhat ambivalent. True, it seems that doping is rampant in road cycling. Does that make it acceptable, appropriate? Does the UCI have some 'coming clean' to do as well? Do I really care enough to get bent out of shape over it? Does it create an image of cycling as a great way of life? Does the doping detract from Armstrong's wins? Did his success on the bike and over cancer enable him to do fabulous things for cancer research? My responses to these questions are varied. I admire his work ethic, tenacity, his success on the bike, his victories, the Live Strong foundation.
But I find it challenging to find much respect for the personal character he's exhibited throughout. Even this confession, which I haven't deigned to watch, has gaping holes in it according to Andreu's wife, Betsy (www.npr.org -select Listen then Morning Edition, Lance Armstrong Confesses) and he's going to see a raft of lawsuits (www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169518905/armstrongs-confession-looms-and-court-cases-await) as a result of his past actions. This is a hell of his own making.
Also bare in mind the same administration that oversaw the drug taking (and yes they knew), oversee DH, XC etc all disciplines they don't care about because is doesn't bring in the money. It's funny ho mtb has gone backwards since it's heyday and you can put it down to the Lance factor. Sponsors pulled money out and stuck it into road cycling.
The Lance story is only one part there is so much more to come out involving the UCI and Tailwind Sports it will be an interesting 12 months.
Lance Armstrong is the exception to every Rule that'd been and every Rule that'll come.
LA finally was forced to the reality one cannot eat Money. Last Fish: caught. Last River: poisoned. Last Tree: Cut.
f*ck Him & his newfound Short-Term Memory.
A lying, snitching, cheater with one testicle.
Just as I believed Lance was drug clean, now I have to have faith in humanity to not be that false and stupid, that not everyone on this bloody planet is a bigot seeking drama for his very own entertainment at the cost of someone else.
I don't give a bloody damn if you neg prop me, I will gladly go to "below threshold" sanitarium, because I am not here to find or meet a consensus - I am here to mould it, and I write it because i deeply believe that is the damn right thing to do.
Was he a cheater? Definitely but never say he did not contribute to cancer cure.
Protour, thanks for confirming to me that your a Moron.
It's Protour.
♫ Don't-feed-the-troll ♫
Sing with me guys!
Over the last five years or so, I've found myself watching less and less football, even though it is one of my favorite sports, simply because it's all turned into such a charade. There are like 40 different sports analysis shows that come on every day. Half of these show less of the actual sporting event's highlights, than they do the analysts arguing back and forth about their opinions on the games. An athlete has 7 fantastic years as a pro, has one off year, and is deemed a bust, doomed to never succeed again. I watch it happen every single year, and it's just weird. Here today, gone tomorrow. Your life's work was JUST touted as absolutely amazing, but at 26 years of age, you didn't have your best season, so your career is now over. The analysts rip so hard on the athletes, when half of them didn't even play the damn sport, or played and didn't have anywhere near the success those they talk about have. It just seems that when every professional sport is beginning to have its "cheater" exposed to the public, and the advertising, revenue and over-analysis means more than the fun of sport, maybe we've gone too damn far. This stuff used to be way more about fun, or maybe I'm just mistaken and confused....(to be continued)
I personally couldn't give a rats A$$ what the so called "professional" team sports are up to this weekend or any other. It's time to RIDE! The rest of you 'mericans can sit on your butt, yell at the TV, and numb yourselves to the reality of millions of $ being squandered on less than respectable endeavors.
That screams doping ! hahaha
I think so truthe be told Lance was using Test and EPO before they were testing for it.
bikenoob.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/smokers1.jpg?w=500
also everyone with a judgment on Lance head on over to youtube and search for Bigger Faster Stronger crack a beer or o coffee whatever and watch all 10 videos then judge the man.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApmX8Q0vqKI
wideopenmag.co.uk/news/17368/doping-hits-the-mountain-bike-scene
No rider named but lots of speculation online...
You only have to look at the times on climbs and power outputs to realise that these people, todays tour riders, are human, and not dopers.
You might also want to have a look at the advances in doping testing before you make remarks like that again.
Wiggins was asked what his response was to people—particularly on social media such as Twitter—who questioned whether the performances they saw in the Tour were free of doping.
Wiggins’ reply:
“I say they’re just f*cking wankers,” Wiggins said. “I cannot be doing with people like that. It justifies their own bone idleness because they can’t imagine applying themselves to do anything in their lives.
“It’s easy for them to sit under a pseudonym on Twitter and write that sort of shit,” Wiggins added, “rather than get off their own arses in their own lives and apply themselves and work hard at something and achieve something. And that’s ultimately what counts. C**ts.”
That is why I am not a roadcycling, cyclocross or XC fan. I don't like the scene. Come on man: SHAVING YOUR LEGS?? HAHAHA! They are all twisted, troubled people!
BTW: I don't like soccer and tennis either (Doping and match fixing!)
"Kimmage’s issue with the response is that Wiggins, who was so frank in the past about the doping question, is in a position as leader of the Tour de France where he should expect to have questions about the subject, and should be able to speak equally frankly now.
“I don’t recognise the Wiggins now, compared to the guy I interviewed in 2007 to when he was sent out of the Tour,” he said. “I can’t compare these two guys as their responses are completely the opposite. I don’t understand what has happened. I don’t know how you can lead the Tour de France and not speak out about doping, yet speak out in the past so openly. There’s also a completely about-turn from Wiggins on his response to Armstrong, when compared to his previous stance on anti-doping.
Read more: www.velonation.com/News/ID/12357/Kimmage-disappointed-in-Wiggins-and-Team-Sky-over-transparency.aspx#ixzz2ILWuUdtl
www.cyclingnews.com/news/kimmage-unconvinced-by-sky-and-wiggins
Talking about the people, the methods, the tests, the uci, and all the other things lacking from his "confession" ... now that would have been hard to watch for those who love cycling
i think what Apostt is getting at is how it was hard for us, as people, to watch what for me personally was a childhood hero admit to the lies and scandals he so desperately tried to cover up, no matter how despicable he needed to be. its sad because this is what has happened to cycling, this is what could possibly be the sports future, and that is a tragic sight indeed...
There has been plenty of evidence of LA as a very poor human being well before the past few weeks hence why I struggle to see why anyone should find this surprising/ depressing/ hard to to watch.
In recap, yes he's an ass, yes he cheated, yes he lied to the public for years and sued people for reasons he knew were wrong, but the world is better off because of it. So to all of you saying he's not a hero, I say that even despite his horrible actions, he still is.
No rider named but lots of speculation online...
singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/enduro-rider-caught-doping
The governing body should name and shame, why protect them? It saves the speculation which may well be aimed at the wrong guy.
If you believe the rumours of who the culprit is then even their employer is currently not aware. Check the bike manufacturers FB page...
Also, if the rumours are correct then this rider profited hugely from being allowed to race all 2012!
Pretty ridiculous actually.
I still think MTB needs to get the 4uck away from the UCI or any other sanctioning body that would condone this.
Lance Armstrong: One word answer please Oprah, yes or no, have you ever consumed dangerous amounts of Hydroxycut?
Oprah: Yes
Lance: Again one word answer, have you ever overdosed on carb blockers?
Oprah: Deep fried snickers
Lance: That's three words Oprah {serious face}
www.vitalmtb.com/videos/features/Exclusive-Aaron-Gwin-Interview-January-17-2013,17063/sspomer,2?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=spotlight
That's where I'm gonna have to call your bullshit mate. If you weren't taking performance enhancing drugs you wouldn't even qualify for the tour de france in the 90s because you wouldn't be good enough. So you could sit there on your high horse, but you would have no money, nobody would know who you are and you wouldn't be winning shit. You'd probably have to take your clean-non-doping-ass home to live with your parents. You probably wouldn't even be able to get a decent sponsor. I think everybody would rather win without the drugs - but that just isn't the reality.
It's a bit like somebody who has just managed to climb everest in record time and you're like "I would rather have done it using only one leg". I bet you would mate, but f*ck off could you.
But what would you say if there was something like electronicaly controlled auto-balancing suspension for DH bikes and maybe ABS for the front wheel, all adding let's say less than 1kg of weight to the bike? What if we finaly get a reliable gearbox which already comes in a form of a closed entity, and after time you find out that someone has put an electric engine inside, which as a matter of fact can come in a very similar shape - all this speculation but perfectly probable.
It's interesting that you guys think that once you're a pro you would basically start cheating until you win...
Case Study #1:
Gee Atherton f**king hates 4th. He comes 4th pretty often and doesn't enjoy it. Yet when he won the Champery World Cup in 2010, immediately after the podium he was rounded up for a drug test, which presumably he passed.
Case Study #2:
Everybody is getting spanked by Gwin at the moment in the DH World Cup at the moment and since none of his closest competitors have been banned from racing, none of them have failed the drugs tests.
Just because you guys are weak minded fools, doesn't mean everybody is - some people would rather lose with pride, than cheat.
If you were serious about competing you had to be taking the drugs to put yourself on a level playing field with everyone else. Until then your talent and how hard you train can't shine through.This is why I think Lance has so little remorse - because he did what you had to do and what everyone did. So this high horse shit about "I would rather lose with pride" is totally fair enough - and I respect you for that, but Lance wanted to be a professional cyclist and he wanted to be the best, being a professional cyclist was his dream and he wasn't about to give it up. I think it's pretty obvious why he did what he did and I don't condone him for it. I don't think it makes him a "weak minded fool" - the man has got a very strong mind. A mind that brought him back from testicular cancer to win the f*cking tour de france.
These days, I hope at least, cycling is clean and there is a nice level playing field - which is the way it should be. Regular drug tests are conducted and it's for the good of the sport. These days anybody who takes performance enhancing drugs is a cheat and should be treated as such. You have to understand that it's very different now to how it was then and understand why he had to what he did. All you've done is gone "oh drugs are bad" and given it no more thought than that it would seem.
While I agree with many of your point about Lance Armstrong, my rebuttal was focused on comments such as: "I race clean at my local races' high and mighty attitude will change" and the strong implications that cheating IS required to win.
Maybe there was a time when a person had to "cheat" to win the tour, but some of the comments came across as that cheating to win is much better than losing. I think that I can understand how Lance got himself into the position he did, through shear determination to win and in this case being "too strong minded" - however pinkbike users* implying that they would rather cheat to win than compete fairly, comes across as cheap, weak minded people.
*My blanket comment about "you guys" may have been too general, tom666's posts, although delivered in a provocative manor are specifically discussing competing in the tour in the doping era... However a lot of people just seemed to have jumped on the band wagon!
Did he affect you personally, your family, your finances?
Did his racing create great entertainment?
Did he inspire up and coming stars to train harder and race better?
Has he inspired people to be the best without doping?
Is he any different to any other doper or doctor that helps dopers or anyone for that matter that is involved in this behaviour?
Has he educated people on what not to do?
Would you like to be publicly prosecuted for all of the mistakes you've made in life?
What secrets do you have that you would fight to keep hidden?
Its easy to sit back and judge others but its a lot harder to live a day in their shoes!
No one is perfect, we all make mistakes and we all have to live with those mistakes. However, no one deserves to be ridiculed for the rest of their lives!
I have to take drug screens before i start my work so why not drug screen every rider before every race? That way there is no question about their winning race because they were screened at the start..
Who is worse?
The rider who dopes?
The doctor that enables it?
The team that hides and supports it?
The sponsors that turn a blind eye so they can get more sales?
Inspiration can be taken from anything.. Your mate does from a drug overdose so it inspires you to never take drugs.
There is good to be taken from everything in life if you choose to "focus on the positives and not the negatives"
hes a looser. he took drugs to enhance his performance to beat others that didnt take drugs. looser!
im sure if someone in a dh comp punctured everyone elses tyres so he was the only one running to win, it would be cheating. but in your effed up little mind it isnt! how about you get back to your crack pipe and stop wasting everyone elses time.
Personally, USADA has been on a witch hunt for years. Not that what Armstrong did was right because if you strip him of his wins, who would you make the award to? They're all as guilty as Armstrong was. And in my mind, if you want to strip him of his wins, then you might as well just eliminate the names of all winners from those years.
A far better approach would have been to acknowledge and accept what was happening within cycling with regard to doping and other illegal drug use, advise teams of the no-tolerance policy and announce whatever strict penalties and move on. What USADA and other doping "agencies" have done is far worse for credibility of the sport (and of their own abilities really) than what's alleged to have happened over the years. Not that it makes doping right either.
Notice I'm not defending what Armstrong did. Just noting the methods USADA used are suspect. I'd also be willing to bet that drugs are much more prevalent than USADA cares to admit.
People tend to forget that you can't avoid the consequences of your actions, money aside he was living a lie, his actions are those of a miserable person: greeed, anger, self-centeredness. Those traits aren't those of someone who experiences peace or happiness, no matter how much money they amass. We seem to be locked into a perception that money = happiness, well I don't buy into that, peace and happiness exist in the absence of suffering, and this guy has been suffering his whole life, with no way out. Only now he has crashed and burned does he get a chance to experience real happiness, and then maybe he may use that happiness to help others rather than crushing them. I wish him well.
Either way, he cheated among cheaters no different then baseball's steroid era. It's the culture and if you want to keep your job then you have to cheat. If there's someone of much lesser athleticism excelling further then a purely more talented athlete, how could the better athlete not feel the pressure to have to cheat just so he can keep his job?
He did cheat, but damn he did it better than anyone else. And after 20 years of it, got to give him props for standing up and doing an interview to come clean on all of it. I hope he does take care of the people that he has sued, and hope that in a year or more he can move past this, as we all have times in our life that we screwed. Yes, some bigger than others.
If anyone thinks taking extra HGH and extra testosterone will simply put anyone in the winning spot of the Tour De France then they are as ignorant as someone that calls him a cheat. Look in your father's drug cabinet and find his prescribed testosterone rub patches. One day you will also be walking into an anti aging clinic to pick up your prescribed HGH. This stuff simply doesn't put an athlete's career in autopilot strait to the champion's seat...
Lance is a fierce competitor and did whatever it took to win and without this mindset you cannot be anywhere near that level. The ONLY thing that put him in front of the others in those races was his attitude and determination. This is the reason we love him and his accomplishments, if you strategically pic apart his every move during his carer behind the curtains you find things that are not perfect. You cannot get to the top without pissing some people off along the way. This goes for everything else in our lives. Looks at politics: Cheaters, liars. Look at banks and banking: Cheaters, liars, look at everything that stands above the average human being. Corporations: Cheaters, liars. It's a game that is open to anyone that wants to play and if you want to live by every single rule in the book, you can stay an "average joe" and be one of the ones clapping or criticizing the ones that are playing the game.
we need more mtb news. like is there more team shuffling going on???
What I find amazing is that face that no one has said anything about sending his ass to jail. I mean the dude lied in court, lied in sports and the Olympics, destroyed people's lives and ended some of their careers. Pretty much I think he deserves jail time!
Right?
He is the visible face of a larger problem.
Let's be clear here, you could lose your gold medals at the winter Olympic freestyle snowboarding for having marijuana in your system, so what exactly does it enhance?
In the case of lance it allowed him to train harder, it allowed him to train longer, and with more intensity. What you cannot deny there is, Lance still had to train longer, harder and with more intensity, steroids and doping at an athletic level are no performance enhancers, it isn't hitting the boost button in a race car.
I do believe he was caught breaking the rules, and rightfully so he should be disqualified and have the wins revoked, but keep in mind that all the training he did is still there, his body does not run on drugs, he has the muscle memory, the cardio he had before from the doping. He could just as well come back and strait laced win the Tour this year no problem.
The drugs let you work harder, they don't do the work for you, he earned his gold.
But yeah Lance is a douche bag anyhow
You are absolutely right.
You said"I'm surprised there are so many people out there that are naive enough to be surprised by this unsurprising revelation in the first place.
If he won the races he deserves the recognition. He was competing against people doing the exact same things he was. So it was level playing field. This whole "scandal" is stupid, because it isn't bringing to light anything more than what grown adults should already know, and if you don't know; Welcome to the real world."
Im not trying to urge anyone that doping s a good thing. It's absolutely bad thing, but on the other hand he compeed with same dopers. Also, when everyone is on dope,at the end the strongest organism winning. Of course this shit went to far with ruining people careers, but come on, do you really belive in super humans? Have u ever watched TdF? do you really think it's possible to compeed with them and beeing clean?
Quote from; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong
...16!...off blood doping, and grey haired... he could still leave all of us behind.
Also; the storm butterfly effect, if he had not done what he had done, would we be at the stage in Cycling that we are now?
Doping is against the rules, yes.
he shouldn't have done it (easy to say in hindsight), yes.
But childhood heroes don't die easily.
Lance took the same things all his other competitors also took, it is a "culture" and a norm at that level of competition. Look up culture in the dictionary and put this into the perspective at which it's used in the topic of "performance enhancing drugs" in world class professional sports. All other professional sports when that much money is on the line, they all take steroids. In actual fact, Testosterone and HGH are natural hormones and typically ones his age get prescriptions for this. They are not built like machines, they do not take even a percentage of what most of the other sports athletes take, not even the same ball park. There are sports where athletes are stacking five different types of steroids at the same time. Besides the point, they all take it and they are all competing at the same level.
Thans for pointing out that it is a unique culture because that is important and if anything he stood by the clan as he should.
As for him casuing harm ya he did and ya he made some mistakes we all make mistakes. If you were in his shoes and under attack would you counter attack. maybe maybe not he did. anyone he harmed was looking to profit in some way and trying to take him down. As for the ex wife well i dont think big sports stars should get married, until there done doing th sport and done screwing around. Force fed propoganda yeep thats why i have a contrarian perspective on this and you sound like a three year old whom just tuned in to CNN
F*
At the end of the day, honesty is the best policy and although there's no excuse for how he's treated certain people, I'm sure those people will deal with it in their own way. We all mess up; it's in our nature. But how we react when someone 'comes clean' tests not only our own character, but the character of the guilty party.
who remembers now who finished second in all his victories?? and what was the return of the sponsors of that second place?
1-come clean
2 make a public apology
3 take a course or therapy etc to show that your "fixing the specific issue"
4 disappear until peoples short attention span and self interest erase the event from their memories.
5 Come back, start some foundation or charity related to your crime, look different and rebrand yourself. maybe find god.Whatever shows a moral transcendence.
6 hook up with movie stars and other idols who will support your new brand.
7 reinvented, everyone falls for the rags to riches myth, business as usual.
In the real world, athletes take drugs to enhance their preformance. THIS IS NOT NEWS!
I'm surprised there are so many people out there that are naive enough to be surprised by this unsurprising revelation in the first place.
If he won the races he deserves the recognition. He was competing against people doing the exact same things he was. So it was level playing field. This whole "scandal" is stupid, because it isn't bringing to light anything more than what grown adults should already know, and if you don't know; Welcome to the real world.
With any luck he will come forward and personally apologise to each and every person that he has burnt over the years..without that all of this means nothing..he has a lot of wrongs to undo.
Armstrong clearly took this too far, but I am very sure each and every one of us at some stage in our lives have told a lie which we wish we hadn't but found it very hard to come clean about it.
This clearly escalated out of his control and meant he had to stick with it, whether he liked it or not, until the day he got found out.
Does this mean we should all forgive him now that he has been found out and now that he has come clean? That depends on how this situation affected you.
I watch this interview and I personally doo see a man who now realises the extent of the situation. I am glad he is undergoing this process and I think for that, we should leave him be and just focus on getting the sport clean and moving on.
Should he race, competitively? No, is my personal opinion, he was part of something that damaged our sport.
Is he the soul reason this all happened? Not in a million years in my opinion and others during those years should be very grateful that Armstrong is taking the full brunt of it all.
Put yourself in Armstrong's shoes, could you go on TV and try to explain and apologies to the world? That takes courage.
We are only human.
And yes, I understand that regardless of the cycling aspect of his life, he and his Livestrong organization have done great things for many cancer patients. But the mere fact that he says "we" when talking about suing "so many people" implies a support by the Livestrong company, which it sounds like aided in his continued lying and deceit.
Lastly, he says it was impossible to win without the drugs. Nothing is impossible! With enough will, anything is possible. For anyone to even complete a Tour de France after overcoming cancer the way he did, he still would have been herald as a hero. At least he would have had his integrity and who knows what he may have been able to accomplish without the drugs. I guess we'll never know.
I am sure everyone will put me below the threshold for this but I use steroids and they are an absolute wonder "drug"! My Dr. knows about it and she can't tell me they are bad or not because she just doesn't know but for me they just make me better in all aspects from riding, lifting weights, sex and just feeling good!!! I am a 34 year old dude and don't want kids using them but guys that are old enough and in good health, why not?
To finish up my little segment, I think Lance was doing what everyone else was doing and has been doing it for years and they have to have someone to go after and call a cheater when in the end it's all a game and doesn't really matter. We have so much other things that require much more attention but get pushed to the way side because some guy "cheated" while riding his f-ing bike. Lets everyone grow up a little and move the f*ck on...
“My cocktail, so to speak, was EPO, but not a lot, transfusions and testosterone — which, in a weird way, I almost justified, because of my history, obviously, with having testicular cancer and losing, I thought, ‘surely, I’m running low,’” he told Winfrey. There you go, he actually did the world a service and made the racing fair! Takes balls …or ball!
he's basically a drug addict, the drugs he used may or may not have been addictive but the end result (winning) was.
Whilst the media continue to give him air time and paying for his interviews,
the more he'll think he's winning again.
Is there anyone you respect. I am not dumb for admiring the strongest endurance athalete on the palanet. it takes so much work to get to a level where you can race tje tour but to win it, and then win seven times. First off anyone that beats cancer good job period. Anyone who can race the tour good job lets start there because until you can have some respect your the A whole in my book
First off, that was hard to read. But if you must know, yes.. I respect many many people, and would have respected Lance had he come clean before SUING AND RUINING PEOPLES LIVES WHILE LYING!!! How pissed would you be if you tried to tell the truth about someone, then said person bullied and bankrupted you? Would you give a Sh^t he won a bike race or once had cancer? My god, have some objectivity and stop ball washing for one second and think about it. Ya, I'm the A hole.
Those saying people working for him (like Emma O'Reilly) could have just walked away but money and fame held them there, I don't think thats true or would have been that easy, this guy by his own admission was a bully, you didn't walk away from him in the late 90's and early 00's or he'd just ruin your career, you'd never work in sport again. Just sad that fame, power and money turned him into this all consuming machine that didn't give damn about anyone or anything. He should however be held accountable for this actions and especially for the those people who have been irreparable damage over the years due to his greed. I feel very sorry for his five kids.
Running, cycling, athletics, gym.... everywhere.
Is it still there.... we would be mad to think that it is not, the dopers will always be 1 step ahead of the agency.
Is having a chamber for your athletes to train in that "simulates" altitude cheating... can everyone afford these chambers.... well they sure aint fair IMO.
Was changing the entry rules in terms of number of events 1 particiapnt could take part in for the olympic track cyclists fair, as this rule was not rolled out to swimming etc....
Cycling is a joke when it comes to the big picture, stuck in its little bubble.
.
.
Now... time to pack the van for some non official trail building, uplift and riding in the morning :o)
Old badbadleroybrown, pointed me in the direction of some interesting reading hence why I'm no longer critical of Lance and his doping, a great proportion of the top riders were dirty but we're not getting ourselves in a spin about them. The fact that the minute their careers were over they sang like budgies gives good measure to their kinds of character and which way their moral compass swings.
He's was busted, now admitted it. So why the outrage? Lance was a really, really good cheat and won loads of shit, which has now been taken off him. I'm sure the money he won in countersuits will be leaving his bank in short order too.
He sued people for telling the truth about him. He sued people for telling the truth about him. He sued people for telling the truth about him.
I said it three times so you might be able to contemplate what's wrong with that equation, moron. Whistleblowing is an important public service and there are laws to protect it.
So Lance do a 360 tailwhip and shut your face.
So, can we now focus on important stuf like bonfires, beer, mtbiking??
Remember we are all human.
Lance Armstrong will continue to be an inspiration to millions.
Thank you Lance!
LIVESTRONG
I actually find it a little humorous that people are now demonizing Lance, but blissfully turn a blind eye to this behavior everywhere else in daily life. Lance was no different than any other person that suddenly became extremely rich and powerful and became drunk on that power. Why do we despise that in a cyclist, but almost applaud it in politicians?
Either that or he was working with the CIA to develop performance enhancing drugs/methods for the US Army to administer to troops in foreign war zones. I'm going to go with the latter
*all who are calling him names cannot ride for three min the way he can for an hour.
* was in a culture of elite that all did the same thing he did
*had he admitted to the use he would have thrown the rest of the racing elite under the bus and harmed the sport
*he has done more good for more people* than anyone on this thread could dream of.
*he may have harmed a few people but they were trying to harm him so that was a defensive action.
*He survived cancer and I happy for anyone that can do that.
*He put the work in to get there the whole idea that doping instead of training is something that a couch potatoe would think of. You have to train you ass off to to go that hard that long.
*Oprah was not the right person to do the interview it should have been an athlete while i like her and thik she is great she cannot keep 50 lbs off and has no idea of what it take to be a champion
as the audience watches here and sees here perspective it is much diffrent than someone who has been beat up after five days of traing and still going out to train.
+the thing with Lance that many forget it that why he is an insperation is his work ethic! Beyond that his ability to push past adversity a skill that is required of champions. So the concept that he is anything less than that is what the mainstream media has you thinking. Well i can say this to that during vietnam a lot of people were pissed off at jane fonda for here actions as a news caster and putting peoples lives at risk. maria Bartoloma on NBC had no idea what she was talking about suring desert storm.And no fluffy non athalets that cannot do one pull up or finish a spin class have a ton to say about Lance and his ethics and who he is and is not. If i was watchig CN N and Laird Hamilton was on there saying wow what a let down etc, I could hear that and repect that from him. But the main steam media going off on him. Not one of them has ever trained.
If they want to use drugs, give them their own events and lets see...
But that Armstrong....wow...what a self centred...self righteous prick!
In the end I guess we are dealing with a "junkies" sport!
his wins are legit since others were juicin' too.
and whose lives did he ruin? it's not like he caused wars or something... maybe i have no idea, i never really paid much attention to the guy
now go pedal your bike and forget this sh*t!
It's f*cking brilliant, Oprah did what UCI, USADA judges, prosecutors tried for yeaaaars! - don't f*ck with Oprah!
All you really know is he beat cancer, he won seven times, and he doped.
you make beating cancer a no big deal really with that statement alone you are not half the man he is.
As for me He not my greatest hero by any means no I just am pissed off that the people pulling the pupet strings via media and shitty hearings got there way. I am sad to see that you are like silly putty and have a mind so easy to shape, that it takes so little for you to that others were not doping. But most of all the remendous courage to get back on the bike after nearly dying of cancer. You put that down ya ok then I call you looser, mentaly you are like putty and unable to use your head, fallowing what they want you to belive. Do you know who makes EPO?
Why now?
There is more to this surely this just straches the surface.
What a Tw*t
What I've lost respect for is his character. That he did his best to ruin the reputations of those who called him on his behavior (or behaviour). I will be interested to see what the legal ramifications are for him to have knowingly, willfully and wantonly try to ruin the careers of those who spoke out.
Makes you think, Lance lovers
kill'em!
kill'em!
kill'em!
kill'em!
kill'em!
kill'em!
kill'em!
... and how can I belive in fair-play??
This should get viral. The take of some Japanese TV on Armstrong's confession. Friday's WTF
Maybe then us humble PB'ers could get up the ranks of the FMB tour
I think this woman summarized the issue quite well.
It is possible to express a public opinion about an immoral act or person and be able to "do good" in other areas of one's life simultaneously. I'm sorry if multitasking is difficult for you, although that's probably not true since you're able to build trails, jump and take self portraits at the same time.
You know nothing about me, bud. You don't know what charities I donate to, what trail work I do or anything else. Thanks for taking it to that level though, I'm sure you don't sound like a hater to everyone else.
did what he needed to do" to WIN,,,,,,,,,,,"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=haEbtHiUcBc
Pretty awesome considering how old he is! And his riding technique is good.
Pretty racist comment. The only thing we've learned is how hateful, and ignorant you are. You added nothing to this conversation, and as a "typical white redneck" , i choose to turn the other cheek, and forgive your ignorance, and forgive you.
Not going to accept insults against whites, the same way that you demand (reasonably) respect for you.
Anyway I´m not going to pay hate with hate, but with love so ..... leave apart hate and ride more !!!
"yeah, if you smoke it then i smoke it, so its legal in my eyes".....