Velocibuddha wrote:
The majority of the riders in the peloton appeared to be professional cyclists who chose to dope .... in order to advance their cycling careers. They didn't have a team of lawyers and public relations professionals telling them what to say. They didn't try to destroy their detractors. They took the cycling seriously but not the public relations.
"Hate the game not the player..."
They all seemed to say when they were caught.
We forgave them.
Lance on the other hand....
Lance said.....
"I am the game. And I am wonderful."
Lance's team of lawyers and public relations professionals - managed his entire approach to the matter. They claimed absolute innocence. Tried to destroy their detractors. Obscure the facts.
Even the charities, (in retrospect) appear to be part of an elaborate public relations plot.
In short - we hate Lance because he was
sooo much more full of sh#t than the rest of the Peloton.
Lance came off in the end as a professional doper, and self promoter ............
who was also into cycling.
This captures it best; the example I like using is to point at Indurain, as the last rider before LA to enjoy a similar run of dominance w/ 5 straight wins... Nobody who's paid any attention thinks he was clean (pretty much everyone who stuck around from the old ONCE/Banesto regime has been eventually busted or at least implicated), and yet nobody is out calling for his ass, why? All he did was show up, ride (dirty), win, keep his mouth shut, and go home. Yes, the system was rigged, and he played along, but all the while he did as little as possible to put himself in the spotlight any more than necessary as the race leader and didn't go out of his way to piss anyone off. For that, he is still celebrated as a winner.
Even LA's homies on USPS/Disco like George and Levi get a similar pass ~ Sure, they were dirty too, but they were pretty much just going w/ the flow so nobody got a hard-on for singling them out. Lance, on the other hand, reveled in the spotlight and used its glare as a weapon to demean other riders and officials, and when anyone dared to question him, his response wasn't the kind of polite evasion you'd get from Hincapie but a doubled-down 'Fuck You' where'd he'd all but dare anyone to catch him. Funny thing, human nature ~ people don't appreciate being poked in the eye like that, so he made himself a bigger target. His fanboys keep saying he got singled out; well no shit, he singled himself out by design. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I'd also point out that unlike all the other riders who were merely employees of their teams and had to face making a deal w/ the devil to keep/advance their job, Lance enjoyed vastly more pull as part owner of his team. So when we say the other domestiques are working for their team leader in the sporting sense, in Lance's case, they (and all the soigneurs, hell even Bruyneel) were also working for him in the literal sense for their actual paychecks. That's why I don't buy the argument that all the dopers should have gotten essentially equal punishment. That's like saying the FBI should treat the Mafia runner on the street corner just the same as the Don. In what bizarro world does that seem realistic?