Can we stop with the hypocrisy about former cycling champions?

Triathlon Forum Road Cycling
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I have a bit of a rant I need to get out of my system. I’ve been listening to a French podcast called Grand Plateau which I really enjoy, but occasionally it really bothers me when they acknowledge past champions while ignoring Lance Armstrong. The purpose of this rant is not to defend LA. He cheated and was punished. So be it. What annoys me is that the cycling community seems intent on channelling all the blame for its doping history onto Armstrong as if that will somehow expunge past sins and let them enjoy their cycling history without feeling guilty about it.

The partcular reference on Grand Plateau was at the end of a recent Tour de France where Bernard Thevenet was referred to as one of the ‘grands’ (greats) of cycling by the podcast. Thevenet won the tour in 75 and 77 and has been the main french commentator at the Tour forever. He also admitted to using all the doping products available in his day.

So here is a quick review of past TdF winners. Google the article Doping at the Tour de France wiki if you want to see all the details. Eddy Merckx. Multiple doping penalties where he was kicked out of races. Bernard Thevenet. Admitted doper. Bernarnd Hinault. Never convicted but once refused a test and was suspended. Joop Zootemel,. doper. Laurent Fignon. Admitted doping. Greg LeMond. Nothing on him. Stephen Roche. Never accused of anything early on, but highly suspected of using EPO in 92, 93 for his comeback. Pedro Delgado, tested positive for a steroid masking agent that was not yet on the prohibited list. The rest of the podium never complained because they were also doping.

Now we arrive at the 1990s. In my opinion, it was still possible to win the Tour de France before this point and be a clean rider. Once EPO appeared, that was no longer possible. So Indurain, Riis, Ulrich, Pantanti, Armstrong, Landis and Contador along with all the people that were finishing top 5-top 10 were all in the same boat. Obviously I did not include every TdF champion, but most of the recognizable names.

So what did most of these TdF champions do differently than Lance Amstrong? Not a thing. They are all equally reprehensible for cheating. Yes, we know that Amstrong was protected, so so were many of the past champions.
So why is there so much hate for Armstrong and why do so many try to blame him for all of cycling’s ills. I have a couple of theories that I believe.

  1. Clean riders dislike him for cheating. Absolutely agree and respect this, but this is the minority.
  2. The mostly European crowd REALLY hated him for beating them at their own game. LA took their system and he perfected it and he rammed it down their throats. And they hated him for it.
  3. Lance Armstrong was not a well-loved rider. In fact, he was a total a-hole who wanted to not only win, but accept all the accolades without hearing the doping criticism. So he went after people who attacked him. And he crushed them. He was somewhat humbled by it in the end, but only because he was forced to do it.
  4. He bamboozled a generation of Americans and a few others. Recovery from cancer. Founded Livestrong. Won 7 Tours. He was a freacking hero to a lot of people. And then they found out he was a cheater. No one likes being swindled and they don’t forgive you for making them look foolish.
  5. Finally, I think Europeans and Americans look at doping in cycling differently. To European fans, doping is like a foul in basketball. You do it, you get called, you move on and keep playing. (Richard Virenque being my best example of this) And you don’t nornally call someone who commits fouls a cheater. Americans have not been watching cycling long enough to understand all its history. And don’t get me started on our own hypocracy about forgiving our former players who were taking drugs to compete.

Feel free to disagree with me or offer other theories. If you don’t want to acknowlege Lance Armstrong as a Tour de France champion, by all means, don’t. But don’t talk to me about any of these other ‘champions’ either. And please don’t argue ‘that is all in the past.’ I find it equally naive to say today’s cycling winners must be clean when they are now taking down the times and records of the EPO-fueled era. Because they have better training. And their bikes are better. Okay. They might be.

Long live cycling. I’ve been doing it for most of my 56 years. I just wish I could admire its ‘heroes.’

There. I feel better.

Chad

P.S. Despite my annoyance, I hightly recommend Grand Plateau. It is a very fun listen. On Spotify. it is in French though. And I have to slow it down to about .9 speed to really understand everything.

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This is it, although the last part (he was forced to do it) is wrong and is the reason many might hate him as much as we do. He didn’t limit his bullying to those who attacked him too, some riders who were open against doping (in general) received absolutely hateful treatment from mister LA himself sometimes during races too. Just an A grade asshole.

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This might be one of the most thoughtful and articulate evaluations of Armstrong, and people’s perception of him, that I have ever seen. As a young triathlete, I loved watching him tear up the mountains. I defended him to the last possible moment. I enjoyed his return to triathlon and looked forward to what he would do. And then EVERYTHING fell apart. And I’ve given him very little thought since then. I do agree with you that he gets singled out, though, much more so than the other verified dopers.

One of the biggest regrets that I personally have regarding Lance is the absolutely immense talent that he was showing as a teen-age triathlete. Probably long before he ventured into doping, he was trading leads with the top triathletes in the world. Great swimming; incredible cycling, very good running. He may have had the most remarkable God-given gifts of any athlete that we’ve witnessed. But we’ll never know what his natural ceiling would have been, because he tainted all with the drugs. What a shame.

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^^^^This.

Yes; lots of folks were dirty, but Armstrong actively worked against those who were trying to clean up the sport (Kimmage, Bassons, Simeoni, Lemond, etc.).

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All true, but not really my point. If you are going to toss the baby out with the bathwater, you can’t pick and choose whether to toss the hands, but keep the arms, or the legs, or the nose. It’s disingenuous at best to revere someone like Indurain, but completely ignore Armstrong. Sure Indurain was as inoffensive as lamb, but his cheating was on the same level.

But I can guarantee you, if you ask a French fan which rider won seven Grand Prix des Montagnes, they will tell you Richard Virenque without hesitation. And they won’t say, “but he WAS a cheater.” Even if he was convicteed in court.

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That’s just not true. Virenque even had a marionette to his name on one of the most famous TV shows in France (Les Guignols) making fun of him (with syringes and all).

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I thought I’d logged into Slowtwitch in 2012, but the horrible format told me otherwise

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can we say that if a athelte was doped they are not a former cycling champion ? also can we say that uci should be the one that gets the brunt of the rage for covering up?

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I would go the opposite and acknowledge the doping, call them the TdF winners, and somehow hope today’s era is cleaner. Even though it likely is not, just more sophisticated.

I really get a kick out of Peacock/NBCSN basically muzzling Phil and color-du-jour from ever mentioning LA like he never existed. I mean come on that’s just silly. You don’t move on by burying the past. You recognize it and learn from it.

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This could be your problem……

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I have not run in to a lot of folks that dislike Armstrong but simultaneously admire other cheaters of that era.

But, that said, l don’t think most people dislike Armstrong because he cheated, since as you accurately point out, many other riders of the time cheated. No, l think most people have problems with Armstrong in how he treated others, like how he treated cyclists who didn’t cheat, how he treated his current teammates at the time, how he treated his former teammates, and how he treated journalists and others. It is not that Armstrong just cheated, he made cheating an institutional linchpin of his team. And other cyclists of the era just cheated and rode. Armstrong cheated and then did a whole, laced with massive hypocrisy, holier-than-thou “l am a squeaky clean cancer survivor who wouldn’t dream of cheating.” And Armstrong wrote a book about it all with just lie after lie after lie.

I think that is the part that gets people focusing on Armstrong, not the race cheating part.

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I don’t agree. Indurain or others did not use fraudulently obtained tax payers money to finance his racing or training methods.

Sorry man, nice whitewash attempt but Lance is another level of POS in my books :blush:

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Not for nothing, but no other rider in the pelotons that Lance was in never had the immense scrutiny that he got, although, based on his assholeishness he kinda brought it on….

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I had a college friend who was a low level domestic pro while in grad school. He said at Tour of Georgia Lance was a tool. Made entire peloton wait 30 minutes for a photo shoot. Bobby Julich called him out but that was about it.

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I’m sure they made fun of him at the time, but it was more for trying to act like he was clean than actually doing the doping. On their official records, Virenque is still the seven time winner of the king of the mountains; four wins before and three after the Festina Affair. All the other riders on that team just served their time quietly and returned to racing and no one talks sbout them.

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I put this in the Lance/Frodeno podcast thread.

Here is Indurain absolutely dusting 1993 UCI World Champion Lance in the 1994 TdF Long ITT. It’s not even a joke how badly Lance got smacked in this ITT by Indurain, the same Indurain who Lance beat at the 1993 worlds to deny Indurain the Giro-Tour-Rainbow triple (Indurain closes 2 minutes in 16 km in this video)

Indurain seals up that 1994 TdF and goes on to win 1995. In 1996 Bjarne Riis out doped Indurain and destroys Indurain on the snow covered stage to Sestriere and wins the 1996 TdF. Then in 1997, Telekom teammate probably on a similar program to Riis wins the 1997 TdF. Meanwhile Lance is recovering from Cancer.

1998 comes around Pantani beat the Telekom machine (Ullrich) after Ullrich gets dropped comming off Galibier down to the base of Les Deux Alpes…wait, that’s 50km of downhill and even a frozen ullrich who missed his rain jacket should be able to close on Pantani, but NO Pantani rides away.

Lance is getting back into cycling. That fall he goes to the Vuelta, and Johan who raced on Team ONCE team together.

This is the context that Lance got back into cycling. Indurain-Riis-Ullrich-Pantani are the TdF winners in succession. What program where they on?

Spring of 1999 Pantani is going on to comfortably win the Giro and then he gets thrown out on literally the last week on account of the vampires (testers) recording his hematocrit above 50 percent.

So that’s the context of the high Octane 1990s doping that Lance was getting dusted by pre cancer and which he obviously observed as the path that would be needed to win post cancer.

Just sharing my memory of the sequence of champions before Lance and that’s not even bringing up all the positive tests from champions in the 1970’s and 1980’s that were like “fouls” in the European sporting media

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LA is a TOOL. However, why do you think no one has been recognized as the winner of the any of the TdFs he “won”?

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Ben Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, June 1993
Philadelphia Pro Cycling Championships

D’Wife and I had made the trip over the bridge to see the Philadelphia Pro debut of Lance Armstrong, whom I’d heard about as a Junior National Champion triathlete. Lance had already won the first two legs of the “CoreStates Triple Crown of Cycling” in Lancaster & Reading, and was therefore poised to win a cool $1 Million as the Triple Crown winner

After more than 120 miles of racing, Lance and 2 other guys broke away from the field on the last climb up the Manayunk Wall. As they completed the finishing circuits up and down the BF Parkway, their gap on the field grew and grew. Then, on the bell lap up the Parkway, as they’re passing the grandstands, I spied Lance chatting with the other two riders

“The fix is in,” I told D’wife, “He’s gonna pay those dudes to sit up and let him win”

And that’s exactly how it went down; with Lance cruising in alone and taking the big paycheck

That’s how I remember it

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These are interesting points. As a basebally guy, my immediate analogy goes to Barry Bonds. That guy is getting the same treatment as Lance, IMO. Got caught for juicing when “everyone” was doing it.

I think some of the vitriol just comes when you’re number one, surrounded by hype, and it all comes crashing down.

The big difference with LA, though is the “swindling and looking a fool”. Bonds didn’t play up the hero side in the same way as LA, didn’t run with the huge NPO, etc. (Though, the BBWAA would have you believe he’s just as bad).

I’d argue this is applicable to my example, too. People don’t fawn over Sosa or McGwire, but they’re also not villanized to the level of Barry.

Heavy weighs the crown, I guess.

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Maybe that was the penultimate lap? Previous winner Roberto Gaggioli caused the split, which had fewer than 10 riders in it. LA and a few others bridged up.

LA soloed over the top of the Wall, from a small bunch formed on the penultimate (big, 24km) lap. He did the Lemon Hill/BFP laps on his own, right?

Across the line he had 90” on the two chasers, and 1:48 on his Motorola teammate Yates, who was the best of the main bunch.

So if that $1M Thrift Drug Triple Crown payoff did happen (ahemmmm), it was for a solo win, the stars and stripes jersey, and no one else in the camera frame.

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Had LA offered a mea culpa, shown any contrition, and apologized to Betsy Andreu, maybe he’d be on commentary duty with CVV, or in the car with Georgie and Modern Adventure Pro Cycling.

Maybe we’ll see him more this year, instead of in a somewhat obscure, post-TDF stage, race analysis role broadcast with Peacock/The Move?

And LA is no longer riding Ventum. Specialized partnered with him.