His first Major event?

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Styrrell

I HAVE TO THINK ABOUT MY CHILDREN.

um, day late, dollar short, buddy.

"I think it's a polarizing topic for some people. I'm not ignorant when it comes to that," he told the paper. "I know it was an unfortunate period in our sport. When I say period, I mean 10, 15, 20 years, and unfortunately for me, I came right smack dab in the middle of that period."

However, he told the paper, he was not prepared for the backlash that followed his admission.

"The reaction and fallout was more than I expected ... but that's life. I'm a big boy. Again, a polarizing topic that left a lot of people stumped. It wasn't a pretty time. I didn't invent it. I didn't end it. My bad for playing along."

Again, trying to deflect culpability instead of owning up to his own role in promoting that culture. Fuckin attention whore is what he is.

His attitude is unbelievable. The doping was bad enough but what is more irritating is what a world-class asshole he's been since then. Strange that he forgets to mention that in the article.

Yes, it's almost unbelievable that in the few media instances he gets, he still is a complete douche.

The only punishment that could mean anything to him is the lack of mention of him in any sport related media. You see Le Tour almost deny his existence now, so he pops up with little stories right around it's running.

i don't mind you who view lance as irredeemable, and the height of bad, saying that here. what i won't allow is for you to bully those who hold a less strident view. not that it's happened yet on this thread, just, there's a bit of history on how these threads go. in my own polling i've discovered that the stridently anti-lance views are in the minority, but they are so stridently stated that nobody wants to interact in those discussions. i don't want that to happen here. you can state your view, but, respectfully.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Well I stridently apologize for freaking out. I just finished Tyler's book and that was quite a read.

I think lances appraisal s pretty fair and honest.

Oh who cares. But could anyone tell what bike he was riding? I noticed he was wearing one of the new POC helmets.

"I think it's a polarizing topic for some people. I'm not ignorant when it comes to that," he told the paper. "I know it was an unfortunate period in our sport. When I say period, I mean 10, 15, 20 years, and unfortunately for me, I came right smack dab in the middle of that period."

However, he told the paper, he was not prepared for the backlash that followed his admission.

"The reaction and fallout was more than I expected ... but that's life. I'm a big boy. Again, a polarizing topic that left a lot of people stumped. It wasn't a pretty time. I didn't invent it. I didn't end it. My bad for playing along. Again, trying to deflect culpability instead of owning up to his own role in promoting that culture. Fuckin attention whore is what he is.
I think lances appraisal s pretty fair and honest.


He is right but he is saying these things to lessen his own responsibility, not a great message for his kids that he seems to be so concerned about. He is claiming to be an innocent victim who just played along like everyone else and it is "his bad" for playing along, kind of like the kid who starts smoking because everyone else is.

What he doesn't mention is that he didn't only go along but he destroyed anyone else who dared to challenge him and then continued to stand behind his foundation to appear to be a different person.

To say Lance is providing a fair and honest response is ridiculous. He is not being fair and honest at all, he is being self-serving and trying to reflect responsibility.

he's been on a Specialized... I would reckon same

Two separate issues with Lance:
1. Doping
2. Sub-human behavior (relentless and consistent over years and years) related to his general defense of his doping.

I don't really care much about #1. He was better at cheating than anyone else. So what.

#2, on the other hand.....

seems like he doesnt have any self awareness.

at least thats the way he comes off.

Looks like he was wearing s-works shoes too

He is really no different than the alcoholic or drug abuser that destroys his family and everyone around him/her to continue their habit. H partook in the same sickness that did and still continues to infect pro cycling.

People that hate on him so emphatically are usually doing so to cover there on ass, uci, aso, former postal/discovery riders, etc. the more they hate on him the less the have to answer for their own transgressions which are just as bad in many cases.

He did not invent doping....that is a fact.

He says...'I didnt end it'....he didnt try to end it. he got caught up in it....again fact and truthful.

My bad for playing along....he admits that it was wrong. He is not claiming to be an innocent victim. He has admitted to 'playing along' and not trying to stop it.

How he treats other people...Honestly I dont care. He was a bike rider not a spokesman for the moral majority.

He came, they doped (he did not invent it) , so he so he doped (seems he perfected it and brow beat a few people to play in the system like a CEO of many companies who brow beats his employees into his vision), he won, he left, he got busted and now they are getting busted too. I'm not sure he is saying anything in this interview that is new to any of us, especially in light of stuff coming out of France today/yesterday (not that we did not know about them already).

I can understand that people hate him for doping, but personally I don't care that much if he lied or bullied, because I'm not the local morality police . He's not the first person in the world that lied and bullied. I've worked for plenty of folks who sadly have, so I understand that this sometimes come as part of being in a very competitive industry (mine is different from bike racing).....not that I like it either and in some cases I moved on to find employment elsewhere...but my industry is a shitload bigger than bike racing, so I can see how pro bikers would be trapped in a prisoner's dilemma.

What of Lance is there left to respect, from the point of view we have? Who are we? We are (were) fans. We don't know Lance. We don't talk to Lance. We don't interact with Lance. Every bit of adulation Lance has is based on his performances and they were all lies, all false. Why are (were) we even fans? Because he's better than us. Faster. Stronger. Fitter. Now, instead of thinking, how could he have done that, we can all think, well damn, maybe I could do that or Dan could do that, or Jordan could do that if we had the right "trainer", the right "preparation."

Should we respect his former foundation and what it's done? Would it even exist if he had come in 13th or 27th or 109th in all those Tours? No it wouldn't. It exists today because of his performances but it has helped many families deal with cancer and that is the shred of Lance I do respect. Even if he did it as a PR move to further his career, I respect that his foundation at least gave some people hope they could beat cancer. We can't even respect the way he's fallen because he still hasn't truly owned up to it. So tell me Dan, what respect do we owe Lance and why are you defending him?


What? This is SO wrong. Why can't you see it? Who said he invented doping? "My bad for playing along" ??? He IS claiming to be an innocent victim. That is the point of that statement. He might as well have said, "oh well everyone else was doing it so I did it too so it wasn't really wrong." What he should say is, "I was a cheater and it was wrong. Not only did I knowingly cheat, but I don't care that I cheated, I threatened people that claimed I cheated, and if I had a chance to do it all again I would still cheat."

Thank god the voice of reason +1

Interesting thing about #2 is how Betsy Andreu a couple months ago was extremely eager to give back this family photo or some such thing to Lance. It seems as though Lance kinda tried to apologize, but stopped short for whatever reason. Still given everything, the two were exchanging several messages and she was really eager to give him this personal token. With her and him at least it seems like much more of a family squabble than anything. The masseuse and former mechanic whose names I cannot recall, Lance needs to make his own amends with them personally and for all I know he may have already. With respect to teammates, I call straight bullshit on the doping. He didn't force them to dope, CVV saying he felt he needed to "get with the program" ignores the fact that he also doped while with CSC. They are men and they made a shit load of money of the Lance train and some continue to make that money. I am not going to feel the least bit sorry for them. Levi doped for the better part of 15 years and was gung ho about joining RS in the Lance comeback years. Ditto Floyd, he just couldn't get a job. None of these guys said shit about LA's bullying tactics for years either. As for the businesses harmed, meh, I suspect the controversy has been better for most, but the lawsuits will settle what needs to be settled.

"What of Lance is there left to respect, from the point of view we have?"

i'm not asking you to respect lance. i'm asking you to respect others who share this forum with you.

"So tell me Dan, what respect do we owe Lance and why are you defending him?"

this line right here, this line i'm quoting that you wrote, this is precisely what i'm talking about. this attacking of people who deign to acknowledge that other opinions exist. there was nothing i wrote that was a defense of lance. rather, it was an appeal to treat with some dignity those on this forum who differ from you. if you can't do that, then, the problem is not with those who hold a different opinion.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

After hearing Michael Barry's confession, reading Tyler's book reading the Lance coverage and now hearing the string of confessions from others, what I see is a common thread between all these dopers. They grew up, dreamed of being pro cyclists and probably had a dream based on an illusion from the grandeur of Anquetil, Merckx, Fignon, Hinualt, Roche etc.

Then like all those guys who came before them, they arrive on the scene and they learn that to keep the dream alive doping is part of the "process"

If you are Lemond, you arrived, "just in time"...and could maybe squeek out a few Tour wins racing clean against guys on "minor dope". Then in 1991, you're looking at your SRM and you're doing the same power as 1990 or 1989, and you are off the back. Thankfully your career is coming to an end and EPO (as the saying goes today) was turning donkey's into race horses, but I'd rather explain it as, "turning clydesdales into race horses". Now big guys like Indurain and Riis who could never climb that well were going to win grand tours.

So now an entire generation of riders arrives on the scene and they find out that they can go on EPO and stay in the game, or pack their bags and go home.

If you grow up dreaming of becoming a doctor, you can go to Standford Medical school, do your residency and have a good living without cheating. You can go to Wharton, do an MBA and there are plenty of jobs in the world of business where you can play by the rules and make a good living.

But what happens to all these kids who did not go to school, dream of a pro cycling career, work their tails off and arrive at the door step in the mid 90's and learn "this is the process". As we are hearing from all of them, they chose to dive in work within the informal rules of engagement, rather than quite and go home. it's not like there are 200,000 other equivalent jobs where you can make $200K per year as you can with an MBA. There are only around 200 jobs for these guys.

Guess what, they screwed up, because they wanted to be pro cyclists so bad that they had no other choice...dope and stay in the game, or don't dope and go home (well, some chose not to and could race as a continental pro in North America).

You can hate an entire generation of cyclists because they happened to grow up at the exact same time that the pharmaceutical industry had come up with a drug that helped patients who needed assist with red blood cell production produce them. That does not get LA off the hook for brow beating his peers and his teammmates. I'll leave that to the morality police to debate.

But I can see how these guys ended up doing what they did. From my position, being a professional in a fairly well paying industry where there are a several hundred thousand jobs for guys with similar intellect and creativity, it is easy to shit all over these cyclists. But if my industry only had 200 jobs, I don't think my colleagues and competition would be quite so "level headed" and would "play by the rules". Everyone would be eating eat other's lunch just to keep their salaries. We already do that at the corporate level to stay in business, but thankfully don't need to do that at the individual level.

I don't think other pro sports are that different....dope and stay in the NFL or don't dope and be cut from the team. What does the kid who dreamed of being the next Tom Brady do now as he tries out for Michigan?

I guess I don't see why he has to self-flagellate constantly to make the Lance haters happy. This is the standard line from all the dopers - "we all did it. I should not have done it". Yes he was a bully, but does he have to mention his bullying and apologise for it every time he states his position on doping? That seems unrealistic and impractical.

Now whether he has come to terms with the ethical issues of his behaviour - doping and bullying, is another question, but I can't really expect his media sound bites to be much different than those of the legions of dopers before and after him.

I'll never understand the hate for LA. He was a pro athlete. He behaved just like all other pro athletes. The majority of pro athletes are doping or have doped at some point in their career, including the so called 'good guys' in cycling (Michael Barry, Axel Merckx, Bobby Julich, etc)..
If Floyd Landis, or Tyler Hamilton, showed up at RAGBRAI, would you hate on them too?? Lets not forget, they not only denied doping, they set up foundations to raise money for their fraudulent defenses.
Lance did not force anyone to dope. Anyone could have walked away, and many continued to dope on teams that had no relation to Lance. Didn't hear any of his teammates complaining while they were making the big bucks!!

Oh, I forgot, lance is a jerk and was really mean to Betsy... Big freakin deal. Guess what, the majority of pro athletes are jerks with big egos, and most of them are gonna defend themselves when accused of cheating, even though almost all of them dope.

As for Lance not taking responsibility, what the hell do you want him to say, that he invented doping and forced it on the entire sport?? He didn't force anything on anyone, he played the game, and his teammates played the game, and as a team they did it better than anyone else. So they are all guilty of being the best at doping I guess.

I grew up watching Steve Bauer and Greg LeMond race, and I miss seeing Lance race in the TDF, made for an exciting many years of racing and rivalries. It is a pro sport, it is entertainment. I'm not using it as an education tool for my kids.

Saw recently that Laurent Jalabert was doping during his career.....what a surprise. But he will still be worshiped by the French, whereas Lance is banned from all sports for life....


Lastly, I'll break the rules here and insult a bunch of folks.... :) IMHO the haters are a bunch of hypocrites... Yeah, I bet if you were on a racing team, and you had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars on the line, and to get that money, you'd have to let the team doc give you a needle that all your teammates, and every other pro, was using.....yeah, you'd all tell them to stuff it and you'd walk away from the sport. Rigggghhhhhht..............

Apparently he was a world class a-hole all along.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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