"A question for you. Lance wants complete amnesty through the TRC, right? I assume the process is something like: a) you come to the TRC and admit doping, and b) you get amnesty. Pretty simple."

this thread has two tracks: the question of the TRC, and the question of whether it's appropriate that lance's death sentence is appropriate when considered in the context of his teammates, which were hailed as heroes and given a ban consisting of a few months during what is mostly their off seasons.

at first blush, my response is that the disparity is a travesty of justice, not that lance's penalty was unfairly heavy, but that the sentence given the others was unfairly light. not just the light sentence given the others, but the praise heaped on them.

as to the other track, the TRC, i don't know. i haven't thought it through. i don't know if it would work. i think it bears considering, because, as somebody else pointed out in another thread, in the mid-2000s basically every athlete near the top in a grand tour was a past, current or future doper. i don't know if it's appropriate to just give everybody amnesty. maybe it is. alternatively, maybe it should be like the pending immigration legislation, where if you come in front the cold there's a path to citizenship.

here's what we have had over the past 9 months: a TRC for levi, george, vdv and the rest, and the death sentence for those who wouldn't play ball with the USADA's TRC. we've just had the TRC, at least with regard to one team. i guess i just think if USADA wants to have a TRC, then it just ought to announce it and do it, sportwide. if it doesn't want to have a TRC, fine, i'll accede to its greater wisdom, but then don't treat those who tell the truth as if it was a TRC (which is what they've basically done).

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Of course Lance had a chance to tell the truth before he was banned and he did not. Levi made a deal. Lance chose not to take a deal and accept the ban. That is the difference. Seems like he was treated fairly to me.

x2

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"i am singularly unimpressed with the quality of the 'apology.' (and with the form and timing of its delivery.)"

i agree with you on the timing. look, there is nobody in all of this - no athlete, no cyclist - who made an apology if his own free will. everybody who made an apology made it because he was forced to. levi, george, dz, vdv, td, mb, floyd, tyler, lance, everybody. all these guys would be living their lies today if not forced by outside pressures to make their apologies. they all lied. they are all liars. they are all cheaters. they all put their own selfish ambitions above the health of the sport, and they all watched others - friends of theirs - suffer and they all could have eased that suffering had they just told what they knew. are we in any disagreement about this? george hincapie saw what happened to his teammate frankie andreu, and his wife, and said nothing. did nothing. let it happen. never said a word. courageous george. hero george. george the role model for your younger athletes. the template of the honorable cyclist. george who is the andy pettitte of cycling. teflon george.

i've got nothing against george. george was no worse than any of these riders. but i'm having a hard time understanding why he is better. i see apologies from these athletes in writing, on their blogs, on the very day they were named as dopers (and praised while dopers) by USADA. never prior to their being outed did they say word one.

once these riders decided that they had no choice but to abandon each of their big lies, we have all had occasion to hear and read their statements. on the once hand, we read what i think are non-apology apologies, like that by levi: "I regret that this was the state of affairs in the sport that we love and I chose as my career. I am sorry that I was forced to make the decisions I made."

i regret that i was forced? yes, and al gore and the secret service tied bill clinton to a chair and forced monica lewinsky on him. clinton regrets that that happened.

here's what i think about lance armstrong. i think lance is obsessed with being the best. the best cyclist. the best doper. and now i think he's made the choice that when it comes to the current task - owning up to 15 years of doping and lying; making restitution; turning the page - i think he's now determined to be the best at that. certainly, this massive drive at being the best pointed toward the task of being humble and contrite is like asking a sumo wrestler to take up needlepoint. but i look at redemption stories like that of michael milken and i do see that redemption is possible. but it's only possible if you just flat admit to yourself and others the depth of what you've done. to that end, lance has done more than just publish a careful statement written with the help of those of whom the rider asks, "do you think this will be enough?"

accordingly, i am impressed with the effort lance is making, altho i acknowledge that he's not finished, we haven't seen it all, and it isn't going to be satisfactory until it's all finally out there.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I feel so sorry for Lance.

If USADA didn't make the deal with Levi, George etc - then we would probably still be arguing over whether Armstrong doped, he would still be CEO of Livestrong, he'd still be making Michelob commercials, and most likely have become the face of Ironman. Wasn't it worth USADA giving these guys a decent deal so that we can now have an honest conversation about PED's without the distraction of people saying "Armstrong never tested positive"? At least we're past that crap.

"Wasn't it worth USADA giving these guys a decent deal so that we can now have an honest conversation about PED's without the distraction of people saying "Armstrong never tested positive"? At least we're past that crap."

we see this tension in the criminal justice system all the time. it's never easy. but i think we just need to see transparency and justice from our system of justice, whether it's a criminal court or USADA. for example, i don't believe any of these cyclists even attempted to make the 2012 olympic team. why is that? is it because tygart said, "i don't want any of you riders sullying our nation through riding for it at the olympics."? fine. then, just say so. don't engage in your own omerta while decrying others' omerta. and please don't call them courageous. they got caught. telling the truth was preferable to going to jail. USADA was over the top in its praise for these athlete and it speaks to USADA's need for aggrandizement.

that said, yes, you're correct, there's always got to be some sort of inducement - some carrot - to persuade a liar to tell the truth. but i think in this case USADA almost entirely forgave and rehabilitated these athletes in exchange for their testimony, and i highly suspect they secretly forbade them from attempting to make the olympic team. i have a problem with secrecy, the fake praise, the light sentences, and the false dichotomy between armstrong's sins and the sins of these other riders.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

slowman you have put into words exactly how I feel about this entire saga. Further there are some unanswered questions in this that I would love to hear answers on.

Depends on if we ever find out how and what information they received from the DOJ in order to build their case. I'd certainly like to know how Tygart was tipped off of what was being uncovered in the DOJ investigation. How did Tygart have leverage on the other riders in the first place?

DId you watch the same interview the rest of did? The interview was a total fail. His performance has been universally panned as that of a merciless psycho with zero empathy for those he destroyed. Go to Google news and look up articles written after the interview. The words "quality of the apology" will not feature in any of them. Armstrong is being excoriated as Bernie Madoff on wheels, and a strong feeling that runs through most articles is that Armstrong looks far worse than he did before the interview.

On top of his miserable attempt to explain himself, he continues to flagrantly lie. It was exactly the type of interview where Armstrong's PR people gave him a carefully planned set of answers they hoped would be enough but Armstrong's reptilian-like cold bloodedness lacked any sort of human warmth that could have made the words believable or himself likeable.

The apologists are still looking for any excuse to lessen what Armstrong did. The latest talking point is that Armstrong's punishment is unfair because Zabriskie or Vande Velde or Leipheimer received a lesser sentence. This is bogus. Armstrong was not charged with simply doping like the others. He was charged with trafficking; facilitation, aiding, abetting, assisting, and administrating other riders' doping; intimidation, coercion, and bullying to further his doping conspiracy; etc. No other rider has ever been charged with the breadth and depth of doping related acts that Armstrong was sanctioned for. He personally took it upon himself to punish not only riders who had testified about doping but riders who were not doping that had spoken to the media about the doping problem.

Even so, Armstrong was given the opportunity to get a reduced sanction. Instead he attempted to destroy the anti-doping framework with ridiculous charges of unconstitutionality and lack of due process. He lost and now he is crying because, maybe for the first time in his life, the rules were applied to him. He is getting a feel for how the rest of us live and does not like it. Tough shit. He is a grown man. He made his choices. Now he can live with the outcome.

It appears that there are still those willing to take whatever bullshit Armstrong's PR people have dreamed up and promote it as though it were not a transparent attempt to excuse Armstrong.

I think the point is that Lance was almost certainly not offered even close to the same deal as Levi - ergo he can argue that he was not treated fairly.

Related to the part in bold, as I wrote elsewhere, I don't care so much about the full spilling of the beans. What I care about is that the sport moves forward. I think you, Tygart and many of us are on the same page about moving the sport forward.

The past is only the series of steps that got us here and only affects our footsteps forward if we use them in the right way.

Lance was the biggest fish of his time, he benefited greatly from the practices of his era, he gave to funding of cancer awareness/coping, but he/his generation left a mess in the sport. As the king of his generation, it is largely on him to act as the catalyst to affect change not for Lance, but for the sport and the opportunities for the next generation that come behind us. I'd like to see, not in talk, but in actions, that he is moving things the right way. Even though many say he has no credibility, he has a voice that people will listen to. Hopefully he uses it well. I actually think he will given as you said, the "all in mentality".

Dev

Oh c'mon, do you really believe any of those generations were clean? In most of the above cases, they had been busted mid-career for doping (Merckx 3 times, even kicked out of the Giro mid-race!) I think that was an extremely valid point that he made, and that everyone seems to conveniently & perpetually forget. Every year the tour speaks nostalgically as it passes the spot where Tom Simpson died on the Ventoux, and they never mention the fact that he died because he was hopped up on speed.

"DId you watch the same interview the rest of did?"

obviously you and i disagree. yes, i read the pundit reviews. i also note that none of the pundits reviewing know anything about cycling. i watched piers morgan excoriate armstrong as a criminal and a sociopath and then in the very next breath welcome one of his three favorite all time guests - because of his candor and transparency - charlie sheen. history will judge this process, not johnny come lately experts. neither do i agree with their assessments, nor the opposite assessment of those of the ilk of sally jenkins, who are blatant armstrong apologists. i don't agree that everybody did it so that makes it okay. nor to i agree that lance was the only guilty party and all the other riders victims of lance.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Hah....that Pierse Morgan interview with him and Sheen bantering about Lance was truly comical. We can definitely agree on that. I generally like what Pierse says, but hopefully his depth on topics I know nothing about is slightly more than his depth on the LA/USADA affair. Nevertheless, I'll keep watching him, but now I'll approach those sessions with more of a critical view.

Sports related drug enforcement agencies have been embarassingly weak for most of their existence. I applaud that we now have someone like Tygart - who is unafraid to go after the biggest people in sport in an aggressive manner. Talk to me if he ever punishes someone who was innocent or bullies someone who is merely telling the truth - then I will be critical of him as well.

Slowman - Even though I think you're trying to make the overriding point that the other guys got off way too easily to my reading there's a tone of "Lance is being treated unfairly" to your comments. (I don't think that's what you mean, but that's what I'm hearing.) The inappropriate punishment of Levi, George, et al can't be used to argue for a reduced punishment for Lance. Is the disparity in the punishment wrong? Absolutely. But the one they got right was Lance's. I really, really wanted to see him do Hawaii and was as excited as anybody when he jumped back into triathlon, but now I just want him to go away and I think that's the punishment he's earned. I was on the Champs Elysee in 2005 when he chastised the world for not believing in cycling and I cheered when he said those words. For years that's been a great memory. One of those, "I was really there." moments. Now it's embarrassing to admit I bought into the whole thing. That being said, I want them all to go away. The slap on the wrist for those who testified is a joke and an embarrassment. Saint George makes me sick. How none of this tarnishes him is amazing to me. ...and I'm not sure he's even apologized. Levi, Christian, Danielson... all of them. I cheered for those guys on TV and sometimes on the roads for a decade or more. Now I just want them all to go away and let us start over.

"The inappropriate punishment of Levi, George, et al can't be used to argue for a reduced punishment for Lance."

no disagreement there. but i do think we ought as a sport to consider a more nuanced implementation of competition bans. for example, i'd like to see a longer pro punishment for levi, but i think he should be encouraged to participate in his own (and maybe other) gran fondos in any way he pleases. i'd like to see us discuss differentiating between races that on the one hand are pro, or high level AG, such as AG worlds, nationals, AG worlds and nationals qualifiers, etc., versus, on the other hand, other less consequential AG races. i don't want to lose george hincapie or levi leipheimer from cycling altogether. i want them to be a part of cycling. training camps, coaching, riding, writing, sponsoring, just, i don't know that i'm ready to have them remount in a grand tour.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The question is, what kind of reduced sentence was he offered. Was he offered 6 months like George, Levi and all the rest got? Or was he offered 8 years, or 2 years? Armstrong may have been a bigger asshole than the other guys, but from a sporting/cheating perspective how is what he did any worse than the rest? Did all the rest follow the same doping programs as him? I think that they did. Tyler's book tells of occasions where several of them were in a room together getting transfusions during the Tour de France.


They all did the same thing and I think that no matter what Armstrong told USADA before the decision was made there is no way in hell he would have gotten 6 months like all the rest.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

On Oprah he said that he wished he could go back six months and have cooperated with USADA. I'd say that's a pretty strong indication that he would have gotten off much more lightly if he had agreed to testify at that point.

I have to disagree with you slightly here Dan.

While many were using, and many kept quiet, given the history, we know that the basic air was, you speak against Lance, you will lose your job, be sued, and you will be taken down.

You think a lot of people know bad thing drug dealers or Mafiosos do? Why do you think more people don't talk.

Again to me the doping is secondary to LA, I look to the lives he destroyed, the legal monster he unleashed.

In your analogy, perhaps you should have lance turning to the witnesses as he does his beating and then snarling, you say one effing word and you will get worse.

>USADA wants to have a TRC, then it just ought to announce it and do it, sportwide.

That's a good point. I just looked through the USADA athlete handbook, and there's no "So You're a Doper: Here's How To Make It Right" section. They should document what you need to bring to the table when you "come in" and what you can expect in return, which places constraints on both sides.

Again to me the doping is secondary to LA, I look to the lives he destroyed,//

I see this statement thrown around all the time, whose lives exacty did he destroy?? I see some guys who did drugs that lost their jobs, or changed teams, but they all seem to be doing fine now. We all lose jobs in the real world and have to make life changes, but our lives are not destroyed. Betsy seems to be doing just fine, doing the talk show circut and certainly has some book deal in the works. Tyler is fine, Floyd is fine, I see Frankie on tv commentating the tour, in fact they all seem to be doing better than lance at the moment. All of his ex teamates who testified agains him that were racing, are all still racing, and have kept their clothing lines, big houses, most sponsors, etc. IF he destroyed anyone's life, it is his own, and i do not see that even. He will recover from this episode somehow and move on with some sort of nice life i would guess. People were inconvienced and hurt by lance, but a lot of that was also their own doing too. But i see no destroyed lives here by any means. There are a lot of course changes in lives, but that was going to happen eventually for everyone that is a pro cyclist, and for everyone that participates in our culture today, just the way it goes. Very few of us get a smooth path through life without any bumps in the road, it is how we deal with them that sets people apart..

I have no doubt that he would have gotten off easier if he cooperated with USADA. I have MUCH doubt that he would have gotten anywhere near as light of a sentence as Hincapie, Levi, etc. if he had cooperated.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

As far as I know, being a dick is not an offense in the WADA code. His doping offenses are the same as Hincapie and the rest of the group. EPO, Testosterone, transfusions, etc.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava