Really? A decade of journalism would seem to support the "trained harder and smarter" meme. I would challenge you to find articles discussing how overweight LA was during training camps or articles/photos illustrating a pattern of indulgent behaviors. Lots of Euro "rock star" cyclist have plenty of of such article/photos. Boonen- "I was drunk and didn't know I snorted cocaine"-really?

If you got some info-show it. Don't just be a hater.

Again, not an apologist but LA does not deserved ALL the anger that we have towards dopers. He is only the most visible part of it.

p.s. "meme' is a phrase I was hoping would be retired in 2013.

Get your checkbook ready, He's going to settle before government finally joins, because when they do its $30M plus legal fees in comparison to half or 1/3rd of that. The SCA suit isnt his biggest fear, its never being able to race again and not have all the money to fall back on.

Don't be a gullible fanboy. The trained harder crap was just Armstrong's cover story for his doping. There is no evidence that he trained any harder than any of the other contenders.

I want to hear the excuses from you fanboys for Armstrong ratting on riders who were performing better than him so the UCI would prevent them from beating him. How about Armstrong paying money to the UCI. Or spreading lies about a female employee being a team prostitute because she talked to the wrong journalist. What about suing people for telling the truth about him. Where are your excuses for those things? How about banning writers from press conferences because they had been seen riding in a car with someone on the enemies list he kept. Armstrong was in no way a rider doing what everyone else was doing any more than Al Capone was just another bootlegger or Bernie Madoff was just another white collar criminal. He hurt lots of people, and he took pleasure in doing it.

Armstrong would only be on the hook for part of a judgement. He owned roughly 10% of Tailwind. If the government obtained double damages (triple is possible) then he would owe about $6M. The other owners, who are very well off, would not have a problem paying their share.

Word on the street is that Armstrong took out an $8M loan against one of his houses. Maybe he is hurting financially and needs to find a way to start earning again.

Quote:

Why believe anything he has to say?

Remember those people who said FL and TH had to be lying about LA because they had lied before so it was impossible for anything they ever said to be true? Will they apply that same logic to LA from here on out? I doubt it.

Not a "gullible fanboy", just wanting to put this all in perspective. The invective from the absolutists has got to be tempered by sensible reasoning about the doping situation. Al Capone killed 100's of people and Bernie Maddoff robbed tens of thousands of people of their lively hoods and forced elderly people to have to bag groceries in their Golden Years. Doping is bad and should not be tolerated but...

Lance Armstrong was a cyclist who doped. And he intimidated people from revealing that he doped. Floyd got busted. Hamilton got busted. Now, Lance gets busted. Lance is just more well known.

If you want to get into the "harm" that he caused other people then that is an esoteric argument that must be balanced against the "help and inspiration" that he has provided to people. I choose not the think in those terms as I find it difficult to really comprehend his actions in those terms. Has Justin Beiber hurt our youth or helped our youth. Hard to quantify.

And... How is he the most evil doper in the world? He had exponentially more to lose than Floyd or Hamilton so why wouldn't he put pressure on them to keep quiet. Human nature. Our heroes/villains are no different than we are. Just more well known.

I would imagine that all dopers have people who know that they dope and put pressure on them not to reveal that they dope. For LA, the scale is the only difference not the behavior. It's all the same.

Perspective is the key. The anger that I, you and others feel towards dopers/LA is displaced anger about the the entire situation of doping (and disappointment about LA). But LA deserves no more or no less disdain that the 100's nay 1000's of other cyclists/athletes that have doped. His was just on a much larger scale (TdF, etc.) than others.

I take First Endurance PreRace. Am I a doper?

Not really. I can name at least half a dozen people he got directly fired from employment because he wanted it that way, some of whom it has drastically affected their lives. I can name another dozen plus who he shortened their careers or he made their life a living hell. Probably a lot more than that if I thought about it a while. Lance didnt cure anyones cancer. Were the people who read his book all really going to just give up after their cancer diagnosis? Please, that's just ridiculous. There is no balance. Let's say Lance Armstrong never existed; would cancer still be killing millions of people? Yes. Would we be missing some new cure we have now? Oh wait, LS doesnt fund research. If LS never existed, other charities would have taken it's place in the food chain. In fact, much of the best stuff LS does (navigation, etc) actually came from the charity that Doug Ulman founded BEFORE he went to LS. Plus, Justin Beiber has not threatened people who are living a good life within the rules (at least as far as we know, maybe he's satan with ellen's haircut), Justin Beiber hasn't broken countless laws and defrauded companies and government agencies (all of whoms money comes from us) out of millions. Justin Beiber hasnt worked to use his charitable efforts to hide his poor quality singing.

To top it off (jokingly) the hollywood starlets Beiber dates are age appropriate.

ironpsych wrote:

if we operate under the assumption that he has been doping free since leaving cycling (the first time) he would be 6-7yrs removed from doping.

You are funny.

Doping allowed Armstrong to train much harder for two decades. That undoubtedly has a long lasting physical and psychological effect.


I would have no problem to move on if Armstrong would come out with a full confession. But he should never ever be allowed to compete again.

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Again, I choose not to think of LA's career in terms of "harm" or "help". Perhaps you can come up with dozens of examples in which LA directly harmed others (personally I don't buy it) but intimidation is not harm. FL, TH all got busted on their own. And yes, LA never cured anyone's cancer but could he have inspired some to be as active as possible (i.e. increasing their enjoyment of life) prior to dying from cancer. Possibly. But this is not the argument to be made.

LA was a doper as were 1000's of others. He needs to be treated no differently than all the others. We are all disappointed/angered when famous people are found to be less than heroic and their wings burn.

Personally, I think if we are going to dig in the dirt we should look for info/witnesses to Eddy Merckx's and others amphetaminePED use. We should peel back the shiny sheen of all cycling achieivements in the context of full disclosure. I mean, if we are going to rip the band aid off, let's expose the whole history of doping in cycling, warts and all. It's all the same.

Astericks for all I say. Except for Garmin of course. :)

On top of the benefits of the training benefits from all those years; the blood profiles from at least one of his two years during the comeback show a huge likelihood of blood doping. And if he was doing it during his "I want to show my kids I can win when everyone knows for sure im clean" period, why would he stop doping during triathlon, where he was rarely tested? im all for him being able to enter whatever charity rides he wants, but never again should he be able to line up in a timed event.

"intimidation is not harm"

Really?

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Lance should be judged by his actions in the sport and by the sport's rules. He was a cheater over years, and like a lot of other cheaters he got banned from all sports for life (I am here talking about sports sanction by international bodies).

By the way, not everybody cheated. Trying to justify cheaters by saying everybody cheated, well it does not hold up.

Why do you continue to ignore Armstrong's actions beyond consuming drugs?

Again: trafficking, bullying, threatening, committing fraud.

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Journalists got fired because Lance didnt want them working for papers/magazines, and those magazines needed lances access. former teammates lost broadcast jobs because he told the network he wouldnt talk to them. Thats not intimidation, thats the loss of livelihood. And thats nothing compared to what he did to Mike Anderson and a Emma O'Reilly.

He is treated differently because hes more than a doper, he's a pusher, he's a supplier, he's an enforcer. If I had my druthers, Hincapie would have gotten 2 years or 8 years as a reduction from the lifetime he should have gotten because he too was supplying Lance and others.

This is the problem right here: you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Merckx got popped THREE TIMES while he was racing, and the 3rd time he freaking admitted to doing it. We don't need witnesses, we already have them, plus admission from the man himself. Merckx is no hero, he doped so often, who the hell knows how good he was without the sauce? Some of us already look at the cycling achievements in the light of what we know to be true, and not just what we want to see. Feel free to join us.

Yes. Let's not have false idols. If you are going to tear down the walls then lets tear them ALL down. LA is singled out due to his celebrity (which has been very, very good for cycling and triathlon) but if we as athletes/fans really want to "start from scratch" then we must demand honesty/integrity from ALL of our sports heroes.

Perhaps all medals/titles really should roll down to Jens Voight. Although.... who knows.

Race clean.

Or we could legalize the drugs that give us the performances we want.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Seems like you are leaning towards a doping mentality: take a substance to enhance performance.

From the product description:
"developed to provide endurance athletes with a potent mental and cardiac jump-start prior to races or workouts. The Pre-race formula provides all the necessary ingredients needed to increases mental stamina, increases time to exhaustion, increases maximum workload, improves mental clarity and increases oxygenation of muscles. "

Given the ingredients of that stuff, I am more likely to question your MD than call you a doper.

Powder (Capsule supplement facts below)

Use Directions: Mix one heaping scoop into EFS Energy drink or your favorite pre-exercise drink. Consume 30 to 45 minutes before exercise. Begin use with one half the recommended dose to assess your tolerance. Improper use may be hazardous to a person's health.

Supplement Facts
Serving Size: 1 scoop (4800mg) or 1.5 tsp or 6cc or 6ml
Servings per Container: n/a Amount Per Serving%DVL-Taurine3000mg Citrulline Malate bonded 2:11000mg*Quercetin350mg*Neuro Stimulant Proprietary Blend: DiMethyl Amino Ethanol, Caffeine Anhydrous**, Metabromine, Catechin570mg*Malic Acid (from Citrulline Malate)300mg*
*Daily Value Not Established
**Provides 200mg Caffeine.

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CAMPAGNOLO GRAN FONDO NEW YORK

Wow! Are you calling Rapp a doper now? http://firstendurance.com/...iathlon/jordan-rapp/

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The Rolf Workshop: Alignment-Nutrition-Movement http://www.therolfworkshop.com Muscular rebalancing exercise videos at: http://www.therolfworkshop.com/blog

Wow! Are you calling Rapp an idiot now?

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Doping is bad!!!!! The more existential question in what is a PED... Caffeine? Taurine? Beta- Alanine? Because I choose to take high doses of "natural" substances does that mean I should be DQ'd from results as a doper? Excellent question. So far, the consensus is.... NO. Do I have a "doper" mentality. Possibly. Am I a pragmatist. Definitely.

All I know is that the six IPA's I've had tonight while discussing this topic are PDD's (Performance Dis-Enhancing Drugs).

I have a feeling my swim in the morning is not going to be as fun as I thought it was going to be. :-(

LA is a player in the game. Not the manufacturer of the reality.

I hope that he does come clean. I've heard one to many a fanboy say "I won't believe it until Lance says it's so..."

They still won't believe it. The conspiracy theories will be insane.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

As a cyclist, I'm glad he's gone from my neck of the sporting woods, though I feel horrible that Triathlon may get him back. Let's just hope that the IOC and USADA stick to their guns regardless of any "heart felt confession" he may make in an attempt to be relevant again.

This is the crux of should be the issue of he admits to it. The "WHY"?

As mentioned in the NYT article, he could lose millions upon millions of dollars, I also see no upside. He could never get back what he can potential lost by "resuming he athletic career" in earnings, endorsements, etc. Just keep quiet

There is certainly still some backroom/closed door talking about LA/cycling/doping, but to the rest of world the topic dies a very quick death in the media cycles each time it appears and quickly forgotten. (though the same few posters on ST will continue, as evidence again in this thread, to beat the proverbial horse about the nonsensical minutiae of this topic further and further into the ground)

I completely agree and this also goes for other athletes such as David Millar.