CensoredCyclist wrote:
Interesting post, Slowman. But I'd like to take issue with the idea Betsy or Oreilly were great victims here. It was a private conversation with a doctor. He would have asked them to leave had he not been on heavy pain killers after surgery, clouding his judgment. Yet she went home and immediately called all her friends and told them about it. She later refused to help out when Lance was being screwed out of millions by an insurance company. I think Armstrong had every right to be angry with her. Even today she has no conscience about all the people Armstrong is trying to protect from possible criminal charges over SCA - good friends, top doctors. Not only does she view this trivial issue of what happened at the hospital as more important than the career of a great champion, she also believes none of these good people matter. That shows complete narcissism.
I think a huge part of it is the guilt she feels for effectively ending Frankie's career by refusing to allow him to dope, knowing he wasn't good enough to survive in the peloton without it. Armstrong tried to get Frankie to come back after he retired, but instead Betsy forced him to wear a wire whilst meeting his agent. Horrible stuff. For years she consistently tried to out Lance but noone else in his team, which drove even Hincapie nuts as we saw from his email in the affidavits. It was straight forward bullying.
Oh please. For starters, Tailwind Sports (did Armstrong ever own any of that?) were screwing an insurance company by making a fraudulent claim (maybe they didn't realise it at the time, but that seems unlikely). Fundamentally, if you cheat, your "career" is at risk - those are the stakes you agree to play with, as do those who agree to cheat with you (such as the doctors). At any time, anyone can decide they're out of it and maybe the rest of the house of cards will fall. If Armstrong wants to protect his fellow criminals, that's up to him, but no-one else is obliged to play ball.
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Frankie seems like a fairly honorable and simple man, but you have to ask how Armstrong ever allowed such low quality people into his inner circle. For that Armstrong does share part of the blame.
Yeah, a conscience is such a low thing to have.
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Now Oreilly. She is a more likable figure - she had a good relationship with Lance and he was only ever kind to her. This almost makes it worse that she would betray the team. She sold her story to the book and could have potentially brought down the team - all the great staff and riders within it. That was a very nasty thing to do. Armstrong's hints that they had to fire her for inappropriate behavior are really the least one could expect as blow back. I'm amazed that people believe she expected to do that without any consequences. What do you think was going to happen?
O'Reilly didn't want any active part in the doping but got pressured into it. She talked. Anything beyond getting sacked is too much, and Armstrong went way beyond that.
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Armstrong's attempts to apologise, even though he has the moral highground, should be seen as an act of great grace. Personally I would have liked to see him give a much stronger defence of his actions. I think they were afraid of the media spinning it as more bullying.
That was an apology? The only thing he regrets is getting found out. He's admitted to some but not all of the stuff that everyone already knows beyond all reasonable doubt, and arrogantly wants it all forgotten and left in the past so he can have another go at being the same old asshole, hopefully getting away with it second time around.