Lance Armstrong - to be stripped of his titles

[michaelden]

he's the pablo escabar of cycling, good to some but exploiting others... oh and fewer deaths

 

[michaelden]

Sorry I would have been a little more convinced if he owned up to this at the time, this is nothign more than a PR attempt which IMO failed miserably. As others have said he comes across as exstemely arrogant and is only sorry that this all came to light, he diserves all he gets and should NEVER be allowed to compete in ANY sporting compititions again IMO not even an egg and spoon race.

a PR attempt that Oprah has condoned. makes her no better than a pimp in my eye

 

[AW?]

Oprah is horrible and a complete hypocrite according to my mother who read her book. She's had numorous abortions yet is anti-abortion and has had shows devoted to it, along with other things.

 

[spurs]

Does anyone know if he was taking drugs a) before he got cancer and b) during his comback?

Do we have any idea how performance is improved by by taking drugs?
Also wasn't a lot of the cycling world taking drugs at that time?

thanks

 

[AW?]

Does anyone know if he was taking drugs a) before he got cancer and b) during his comback?

Do we have any idea how performance is improved by by taking drugs?
Also wasn't a lot of the cycling world taking drugs at that time?

thanks

Both.

Well he said himself he couldn't have won 7 tours without them in the interview.

Yes.

Watch the interview on youtube.

 

[Andy]

yeah he said he was before but afaik he was average at best before the cancer, i did read how the cancer stripped and chemo stripped away all the fat and disused muscle on his body and he became built for cycling from it.

 

[AW?]

Do we have any idea how performance is improved by by taking drugs?

I think they use younger peoples blood for tranfusions because it produces more oxygen to the body or brain. They use various different thngs to dope. Like he says in the interview, everybody had their own cocktail. Obviously his worked pretty damn well.

 

[OmarsComing]

 

[Mustard]

Ouch

 

[Mustard]

He cheated and he ruined a lot of arguments over the greatest ever sportsman but I hope he doesn't do something stupid.

He didn't kill anyone.

 

[yawa]

Hopefully The rest of the cheats during that period won't be forgotten about and Lance seen as the only cheat.

 

[RichieS]

Do we have any idea how performance is improved by by taking drugs?

More oxygen transported to muscles during activity so able to push them harder for longer and also speeding up recovery to enable powering through the mountains day after day.

 

[nightgoat]

Does anyone know if he was taking drugs a) before he got cancer and b) during his comback?

Do we have any idea how performance is improved by by taking drugs?
Also wasn't a lot of the cycling world taking drugs at that time?

thanks

He said he stopped doping in 2005 and didn't dope during his comeback.

 

[spurs]

He said he stopped doping in 2005 and didn't dope during his comeback.

i read something on the bbc saying he had a test which indicated there was only a 1 in a million chance he was clean.

 

[nightgoat]

1999 - 2005, yeah, something like that. He claimed he didn't dope in the two Tours he rode after coming back from retirement. Whether or not anyone will believe him is another matter, though.

 

[AW?]

Why would they? He's the biggest bullshitter in the world and he was was clearly lying in the Oprah interview about quite a few things. I mean when you think about it why would he be completely honest? He probably doesn't even know how to be he's led such a fucked up lie of a life.

 

[beats1]

He's definitely trying to take the edges off of things but fuck me who wouldn't? Not sticking up for him but i'm really shocked he's being as honest as he is.

I disagree, I think its PR exercise and the fact he wasnt surprised by the questions but held back alot tells me he knew some of them especially the moment when he said "well thats a very good question Oprah without even being surprised

All things considered he still admitted he'd dope, and I'm still in shock i've got to say. Just felt so weird hearing him admit stuff. Got to feel for his mother considering his past etc and growing up, but it's hard to believe anything now, not that I think he made up stuff about being poor and the whole one parent family thing but I dunno. Not getting to the point here but you know what I mean.

He couldnt not admit tbh, for years when there was hard evidence, he proved the sad truth we all know, that the rich can do whatever they like, he had hard evidence stacked against and he just wielded with his power and money and quashed now, there even he couldnt control and you can tell he is upset that he has lost the battle of fighting the truth instead of conning millions of people and cheating to win

He came across as a massive **** in that interview. he wasn't sorry, he was sorry he got caught and in true American style, he danced around questions and tried to jazz up his long winded answers.

Agreed, the fact he ruined peoples lives because they were telling the truth and sued them and won because he was who he was just makes think that if he got bankrupt tomorrow it would be karma, that said this culture of suing to hide the truth is in all sports tbh

Does anyone know if he was taking drugs a) before he got cancer and b) during his comback?

See this is one of the issues with the whole situation, because Steroids are given to some cancer patients to help them get stronger as the body becomes weaker depending on the amount of treatment used, so if he admitted to taking it then, then no one would have a issue the problem is he was taking it before and after the period he was fighting cancer

Do we have any idea how performance is improved by by taking drugs?

His performance is improved by his body becoming stronger and better by the blood transfusions, EPO and steroids. With the posts above showing why and how these make him stronger

BUT the reason why people call for a life time in sport like the BOA is, studies show once you have taken performance enhanced drugs you will always have a advantage of taking it then those that never took it, due to the muscle memory

This is why in most sports(not football iirc) the they are supposed to drug test randomly at any time during the breaks of your competition, e.g. Jessica Ennis and other olympic athletes have to tell WADA a time during the day when they free for a random drug test and they have to keep that window open all the time iirc. Also they can turn up at any time and often do to drugs test you. this is to stop people taking drugs and then stopping before the competitions begins. Even this isnt enough as there are still ways around and people are questioning kids in training camps as they may be exposed to this at a early age then stop once they hit adulthood

Even Lional Messi is known to take growth hormanes as he was too small in some sports this would be unacceptable and Lance armstrong did the same thing to get a advantage, In certain sports its unacceptable whereas others it isn't.

Also wasn't a lot of the cycling world taking drugs at that time?

Yes they were many who got caught but they may of been riders that werent doing it and they were stripped of the glory because they may of had integrity and even Lance did deny that if you didnt dope, you would get cut off the team as he was the part owner

Also he made millions of dollars of the back of his success and has a net worth of $125 million, that could of be made by someone that didnt cheat

He said he stopped doping in 2005 and didn't dope during his comeback.

1999 - 2005, yeah, something like that. He claimed he didn't dope in the two Tours he rode after coming back from retirement. Whether or not anyone will believe him is another matter, though.

they had a big crackdown in the sport in 2007 iirc or might be 2009 but as he said, he wouldnt of been able to get away with it after that but as mentioned above he was still at a advantage in the those two later tours

 

[AW?]

After watching the interview again today I had a slightly different take on it to be honest. At the time I was really struggling to take it all in from the shock of just hearing him admit stuff. It was really really weird for me.

Of course it was all PR, i mean he's friends with Oprah which tells you all you need to know about the bloke, well that and George Bush. I know he was holding stuff back but it was still so strange hearing any truth from him considering how much he's lied.

Round two in a bit. More of the same and a bit of crying I reckon like has been reported. I don't expect any revelations in terms of dropping any higher powers involved in the shit.

Whatever happens he's finished, surely?

 

[worcestersauce]

Just joined this thread so I guess most stuff has been said but just got the impression that he was talking in the third person like it was himself but another himself, a few times he used the term "that guy" like he's not that guy now.
He basically admitted nothing that he wasn't banged to rights for already.
I heard something interesting the other day, apparently he went from Triathlon to cycling around 1993 and came last in his first race but his improvement was so exponential that he won his first Tour de France stage the very next year, the youngest man to do it,
The person saying this was making the point that he was a great athlete anyway. Hmmm I wonder.

 

[Kendall]

He cheated and he ruined a lot of arguments over the greatest ever sportsman but I hope he doesn't do something stupid.

He didn't kill anyone.

Neither did Madoff.