1)well, then Frankie could have ridden for another team. oh wait they did the drugs, too
2)however, Frankie did get a job in cycling
3) enormous amount is how much exactly?
4) I don't think Frankie would spend much money to testify (he's nothing to hide, right?)
5) what's your point?

Dude you have been a fanboy since the beginning.
Ok, I go on national T.V. as one people will listen to. I call your wife, sister and mom a alcoholic whore that sleeps with whole cycling teams (what he did to Mz. O'reilly) since nothing physical has happened to your relative and with in a year they are employed, no damage has been done........sure, you would act that way

Frankie was perfectly happy on a doping program of EPO, testosterone, corticosteroids, and who knows what else. Frankie did not refuse to get on the program. His wife decided to end his career because at that time if a rider did not dope then he was useless as a domestique at any team that needed support for a GC contender. She might as well have refused to let him train.

Frankie was not "fired." He was not offered a contract extension. Instead he worked as an assistant director for the USPS team for two years after he quit riding. Some "firing" that was.


So says Betsy but she is whack. She blames everything on Armstrong. Meanwhile, in the real world, Frankie has worked for the Rock Racing, Proman, and Kenda teams as well as worked as a TV cycling commentator.


Betsy has been at it on the Internet 24/7 for fifteen years. This is not someone who does not want to spend time dealing with the issue. In fact she appears to revel in it. Every time Armstrong is interviewed (or planning to do a charity ride), she is on the horn to find a media outlet to use to attack Armstrong. She has gone out of her way to poke the bear at every opportunity then she claims victimhood when she gets clawed.


Of course he was subpoenaed. He is a witness. He was hired by Postal in 1998. Riders were doping before Armstrong got there. He has valuable information. Everyone remotely connected to the case will get subpoenaed, so don't (like Betsy and Frankie) try to portray this as some sort of master plan of vengeance by Armstrong.

You seem to have left out that the Frankie suckered Vaughters into gossiping about doping on Internet chat so he could record the session to use against Armstrong. After that was revealed, who in the dirty world of cycling could trust the guy. He might as well have been a mafioso who was caught wearing a wire but still expected his old buddies to let him back in the rackets. After stabbing a friend in the back like that, it is not surprising that it was a bit hard to land a job in a small, inbred profession like pro cycling.

You also left out that Betsy was feuding with Armstrong for years before the SCA arbitration.

Has nothing to do with a fanboy. I'm just pointing out that the term"destroyed" being tossed around is mostly hyperbole

Its not. You would probably whine if someone falsly accused you of something at work and it cost you a dollar an hr for a year. These people did not want the public shit Armstrong caused them.
Its unbelievable all the defense of Armstrong here.

To some degree yes, but let's keep in mind as Carl Spackler said, while he was on the winning treadmill, what;s he gonna do...step up and say, "Yeah, I'm totally on the juice". Of course not....he defended and probably over the top....but I think we can objectively say, that even though his initial wins happen in the framework of the problem, after a while he becomes the problem, because in the arms race, if he's wining by being ahead of the testers or the UCI throwing test results out to keep the fairy tale alive, then he becomes the problem because everyone else (Tyler, Floyd, now on other teams, Ullich, Basso already on other teams....and all their domestiques) need to be on the full juice program to compete. Initially Armstrong gets into the TdF arms race because that's the only way to win after Indurain-Riis-Ullrich-Pantani have won from 1991 through to 1998. After a while, everyone else is in the arms race because he is winning and he can't get off it anyway, and it's not like he will step forward and say, "I sucked, I beat all these guys by doping".

So, every rider who dopes is intially doing it because the champions are doing it, and it is the only way to compete or keep a domestique job (including Frankie)...after a while once they become vets of the system be it long time domestiques or champions, they themselves are the "system" and part of the problem. It's like going to work in a dysfunctional company withe questionable ethics. Initially you are not part of the problem....but once you realize how messed up it is, if you don't get out of there or dramatically change the culture (which is generally impossible unless you come in as a senior executive), then you become part of the problem/system.

I've said before that the riders in general are not to blame....team management, sport infrastructure, the governing bodies and the money machine around any sport are the real problem....but at some point the gladiator of the time becomes almost larger than the sport he is in....if the gladiator winning is doped to the gills and it is well known, then if you are another gladiator and want to survive, you end up having to play the informal rules of engagement to fight the fight in the coloseum.

Tomorrow we will watch another set of gladiators in the superbowl....guess wtf we are really watching. Sit back and enjoy. No doubt if the Pats and Seahawks were exposed to WADA testing tomorrow if would be a gong show of positives.

look, I'm not so much defending him as I am trying to point out its not so one sided as some people claim it to be. he cheated, he beat the testing (inside help maybe) but these "victims" are not the innocents as they appear at first glance. And to be honest Frankie's wife is just as polarizing as LA

Really, can you show the millions she tried to protect?
Ok, just one point then. Do you remember what Mr. Armstrong was doing in court just before the reasoned decision? What his lawyers were saying?
That was how many years of dragging peoples names in the dirt. ........So you are saying, if someone as famous as Mr. Armstrong before the decision, for years publicly slandered you and your family, in the media, the press, at your work, it would be no big deal?

Valverde riding well in Mallorca. Super stoked about that.....

There is no shortage of blame to go around with the 'doping era'. Cycling is it's own worst enemy. The casual sports fan thinks cycling is the worst sport out there for drugs but nobody will give a second thought about the guys in the Super Bowl tomorrow as the poster above said.

I think cycling should just rip the bandage off and stop looking backwards and instead look forwards. Give everybody from the past caught doping amnesty and draw a new line going forward.

I am astounded that this situation is still being made into a black and white argument when it is so clearly Grey. It seems irrelevant if we like Lance or not. If we believe the "victims" of this "tragedy" or the Fallen hero spiel. We all got more than we lost out of this debacle and whether you want to crucify or praise Betsy, Frankie, LeMond etc. it just doesn't matter. I would venture to say that a great many of us are on bikes today because of Lance and that is a good thing. I am, admittedly, biased as I still have an old 5500 Postal Team frame in the garage but will fully admit it: I discovered cycling because of Lance and I am thankful for it.

Armstrong deserved everything he has received, both good and bad. He was dirty, everyone knew it and no one cared until his decisions caught up with him. Sponsors, teammates, coaches etc. were making millions and the United States was watching cycling above all else during the 7 TDF runs. Cancer got into the headlines and A LOT of good was done for people living with the disease.

I watched "Stop at Nothing" the other night and I wanted to feel sorry for the "victims" of this Greek tragedy but as the film unfolded I could not help but think that no one in this story is clean.... Well, except the reporter Lance embarrassed in the press conference, he seemed to actually have an honest passion to clean up a sport he loves. I guess I would have more sympathy for all of the "victims" if they were not lapping up the gravy while they were still on the train then tried to derail it when they lost their ticket.

In many ways it's like Tiger Woods and Golf. Are they good people? Not for me to say but they were, for a time, the best at what they did and it drew people into their respective sports like never before. We all knew there was a dark side and most of us simply didn't care because the sport was better with them in it.

Someone who actually gets it.

http://www.sbs.com.au/...n-doping-in-cycling#

He deserved the good...i.e.....fame and millions and millions of dollars? He DESERVED those millions......wtf

This. The UCI needs to admit the extent of the problem in the past and concentrate on moving forward. The bio passport provides a good framework for going forward if it is run independently, dilligently, and honestly. Let the results stand as they were when the riders crossed the line. Trying to juggle results by figuring out who was a good doper and who was a bad doper is madness. Can you imagine the NFL changing the results of the 2000 Superbowl because fifteen years later it found out one of the players was using steroids? No competently run sport would allow that. Yet the UCI has stood by while rogue ADAs ignore the statute of limitations and cause damage with a steady drip of old doping cases.

I think these people live in a bubble. They think chasing all these cases down somehow vindicates the sport. In my opinion, it only tarnishes the situation further because it reinforces two words: doping and cycling. That's what 99% of the public hears. They don't know all the other little subtleties that people talk about in this thread. The more you bring it up, the worse it gets.

Yes, IMO he did. Was someone else on the bike winning 7 tours? He still put the time in and beat the other riders/teams who were also cheats. I'm not saying what he did was right, he doped and is finally paying for those decisions but he did the work and earned what came with the wins. If it keeps you from having a coronary use a different word.... earned, scammed whatever... Just an opinion sunshine.

Well said, a sport can be clean if you want it to be but, like baseball, ignored the problem until they couldn't.....

Yeah, but......

His "work" amounted to spending time, effort, and money on doping and paying off the UCI. Cheating is wrong whether it's sports or the second grade spelling test. It doesn't matter whether "everyone else is doing it" or not. It's unfortunate how acceptable cheating has become to many people in sports, school, business, and daily life.

I'd be happy to see all of the other dopers in cycling (and the NFL, MLB, soccer, tennis, etc.) punished too. But there's no need to be lenient with Armstrong simply because other cyclists have managed to avoid bans.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Actually it does. If everyone is breaking a rule and the officials, the event organizers, the governing body, the teams' staff, and the sport's press are helping athletes break the rule then it is not much of rule. It matters that the governing body only made the rule to fool the yokels in the cheap seats and not only never meant the athletes to actually abide by the rule but actively aided athletes in getting around it. This is what is known as a sport that is totally fucked and going back in the past, expecting athletes to have been saints by giving up their sport so someone else could break the rule and take their place, is fantasy.

I don't disagree with you and I absolutely beleive that leiniency is not warranted either. I despise the fact that the guy who motivated me to ride is a cheat, that the bike I used to look at with pride is now a symbol for everything that is wrong with the sport. My original point is not that it was right, simply that it is what it is and we all played a part with our attention, admiration and more importnatly, our wallets.

Unfortunately the major sports would rather acknowledge the problem only when they have no choice as tacit approval provides for a better spectacle.

Currently I teach high school science. I gave a student who was cheating on a quiz a zero. The student, some of his classmates, and his parents thought that I was being a jerk "because everyone is cheating." Could be, but he was the one that I caught.

In 1984, the USAF Academy caught 19 cadets cheating on a test. The Cadet Honor Code dictated that these cadets be kicked out. The academy superintendent decided that since they probably weren't the only ones cheating, nobody would get kicked out. Maybe everyone in that class was cheating, but regardless, there was no penalty for cheating.

There are plenty of other examples of this mentality. If you feel that the "everyone else is doing it" excuse makes it OK, then we'll have to disagree.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Qoute "just an.opinion sunshine" whats the cause for that douche reply. Cant disagree without getting personal?
No I.personally deserved should.not go.with a cheat. Others cheating does.not validate his. .....in my.opinion

The douche retort was directly correlated to the bitch like statement. It's okay Kenny, even though you died in every episode you always came back..... relax.

What people will write behind anonymous keybords.

And Good on you for doing the right thing. You were upholding standards and, as a parent, thank you for doing it. I do think that the point is being missed. I don't see Arch justifying that it was okay because everyone is doing it but that the reality is everyone was doing it and the people who could have stopped it looked the other way (potentially encouraged it). The direct correlation would be you knowing that your student was cheating and because he was the starting QB looked the other way. I believe Arch is saying that UCI et al should be like you and not the one that allows it to happen.

Again, thanks for what you do. THE most important profession in this country and least appreciated.