Jan Frodeno Interviews Lance Armstrong. Controversial or Informative?

Triathlon Forum
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I first started therapy when D’Wife & I agreed I was spending way too much at the liquor store; I blamed the Untappd app

It was one of the first things my therapist & I addressed, to which she said “you don’t have a drinking issue; you have a competition issue”

I’ve posted my OWN definition here & there before

I think it was Warren Zevon that said: “An alcoholic knows exactly how much there is to drink in the house and precisely how long it will last”

I always figure that if I fail that test, I’m good

Lance also said that, for him, the best way he knows to get his head together, is to go for a bike ride “Not five or six hours, but two usually works” or something like that

I can also relate to that

There’s been many, many times when I’ve been cranky, or sad, or such, D’Wife will say “you need to go for a run”

Almost every therapy session begins with “how’s your running been?” or “how’s your artwork coming?”

From an old thread

Got a Livestrong bracelet when they first appeared; wore it till it snapped one day. Got another one right away, wearing it now, so technically I’m on my second one, but haven’t missed a day

My dad wasn’t a cycling fan, but he knew I was - even if I was pretty sure he was dirty around win #3 or #4 - but he became a Lance Believer when he was diagnosed with a variety of cancers, himself

He was buried wearing his; I’ll keep wearing mine in his memory

On my third now, actually; I must’ve bought a backup somewhere down the line, so when #2 wore out, I had the spare to keep going

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He did wreck my buddies life.

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First thing I don’t know about your buddy’s circumstance. Did he work for Lance/Lance’s team/Lance’s org (such as Livestrong).

People are quick to point out that leaders have negative impacts on the lives of people in their organizations. But in a free market, no one forces anyone to work for any organization in the first place. The starting point is the leader enabled the employee by offering a job. The leader created enough revenue or capital to employ the person. After that if the leader makes the employment miserable, again no one is forcing anyone to work there. In the case of Lance, no one on postal or discovery has jobs there after 1999 without Lance going and raising the capital for the team to exist. We can argue that the 1999 TdF win was doped…OK,so was Zulle riding for Banesto (Banesto was not exactly choir boys). From there, Lance and his business partners raise the capital for the team to exist and anyone who went to work there, did not raise the capital, they just worked there. The capital raised to run the team was off Lance. So if he never does that, there are no employment contracts and no subsequent firings or misery in the first place.

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I really don’t understand why many of you keep defending or justifying this dude. I mean, in any other industry, sport, professional field ..someone with his record would have been tagged as a POS :wink: ..end of story.. some of you have the right to like the guy and I respect that, but don’t understand the whitewashing need. As we said earlier, he ain’t Hitler, but ultimately a world class d bag.

And what growth? You mean the sport? I would say we are still struggling with the “everyone is probably doping” mentality, and him and his fans helped promote that opinion. If you are talking about him, he seems like the exact same as of 20 years albeit he has been put in his place and lost his power and influence to continue ruining peoples lives.

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Can one ride the fence and think he was stupid and a d-bag at one point, but accept that he can move on and do stuff if he wants? Does it have to be 100% pro LA or 100% anti LA?

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Yes, because nuance is important.

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WHo here is defending his bad acts, show me one person?? What some are doing, is defending his right to tell his own story, do you think that should not be allowed? And as for other sport or industry bad guys, come on now. Ever hear of Michael Vick, Bill Gates, and literally dozens more that have come back to tell their stories and flourish in the process..

And did you forget that he actually helped 1000’s(perhaps 100’s of thousands) of people who had cancer, or were cancer adjacent to someone? He also helped many in sport too, mostly behind the scenes. People like this are not typically all bad, and often do a lot of good. Does it balance out, not for me to decide, but certainly should be in the conversation. But ok if you want to discount that and just focus on the negative, lots do…

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lol, your yes is answering which question? That we can ride the fence or we have to pick which side we are apart of?

The comment that apparently LA fans are the one opining that everyone was doped in the sport; that’s like the most agreed upon reality of where cycling is that EVERYONE concedes in that era of cycling. Sometimes I don’t know what I find harder to digest the people who are 100% following someone or people who are 100% opposed to someone (in this case it’s Lance worshippers vs Lance haters…I generally side on the “meh” but I’m not out to go after him any and every time his name is mentioned that some seem to do…and by all means cool to feel any way you do, love or hate him; I just generally shrug at the idea it has to be absolutes).

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I’m reminded of Marcus Aurelius

“We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and not let it upset our state of mind”

But this a forum after all…opine away!

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I thought that was Vonnegut?

I looked it up; I was wrong, of course

Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people’s actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galápagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next—and on and on. Thanks

Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos

See also:

“Intelligence is the ability to change” or “change one’s mind” however you prefer. Attributed to Einstein, but not corroborated anywhere I could find

“I’d rather be a hypocrite than stay the same person forever” - Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz

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No. He did not work for him.

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geez too many details, can you just give a TLDR /p

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As for me, I was always a Lance hater, from the start. Being european, I always hoped someone else would win, and suffered many heartbreaks at the Tour. :wink:

I always suspected him of doping but impossible to say for sure. But I was always amazed by the pro Lance crowd absolutely crushing anyone who dared to say that maybe he was a doper, saying we were just jealous of his success (which I was ;-), but both things are not mutually exclusive). Either on forums, or in real life when I was in college in the US, there was an incredible “Lance is a god and can do no wrong” vibe. People repeating his arguments “I’m the most tested athlete ever” etc…

I often wonder about these people. Did they turn on Lance ? Or are they the same ones more or less justifying his actions with the "everyone doped, so he was still the best and would have won if everyone was clean” nonsense. Must have been difficult for them. I always wondered why Lance confessed. I’m sure if he hadn’t he would still have legions of fans defending him, saying he never doped, and this is all a witch hunt. He probably hoped to be allowed back in some way if he confessed.

Anyway, just to say that I choose to still hate him, and think he bears big responsabity with the “cyclists are all dopers” discourse we can hear all the time to this day. He was so big that he brought down the whole sport with him… I mean let’s not forget his first win was during the supposed “Tour du renouveau” (renewal of the Tour) after Festina fiasco almost killed it.

Listen to him all you want, think what you want. I still think he was so bad for the sport, and do not care for what he thinks. Rubs me the wrong way though thinking he can still make money off of people listening to him. I would rather he stay away from media completely, and am really disappointed Frodeno would offer him a platform.

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Could you be more vague?

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Why you got 8 likes is weird, Lance destroyed many lives, he attacked everyone that blew the whistle on him. Their careers altered course because he lied and people believed the great Lance Armstrong.

They won’t get the trajectory of the life they had back. Let’s be intellectually honest. Why people keep giving him oxygen is beyond me and it’s pretty abhorrent. But whatever.

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I’m getting so many likes because folks like you continue to use language like “He destroyed lives”.. In actuality he saved many, many lives, and made so many more livable in a real world of cancer..The rest was just bad form in a sport full of bad form, and he was the GOAT of bad form. All those people affected haved moved on and continue on with their “undestroyed” lives. Their trajectories are what ever they make of them, blaming one guy decades ago for any or all your troubles now, well just scapegoating and not taking responsibility for your own decisions and future.

Like I tell people I know who had horrible childhoods and trauma growing up. At some point you just have to move on with your adult life, and stop looking back for blame and excuses. And I would give way more grace to people that got fucked up as kids, that is a lot harder to overcome and move forward than some adults who got wronged and feel it is their lifetime excuse to be bitter and broken..

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I don’t think it is appropriate to go into personal discussions, but if you google Greg LeMond you can read what he has said publicly regarding his interactions.

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OK so now are we dragging Lemond into this ? OK in that case let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s remove the names and sports. Athlete A wins championships in a sport filled with cheaters. He wins the biggest prize three times. Five time winners before him were both busted for doping and using illegal drugs. Athlete A claims he was clean all around, but all his peers got busted. His sport was chemically enhanced from the dawn of time.

Athlete B comes along. He wins the biggest prize ones, then twice, then three times. Before his 4th round he gets busted for using cortisone but claims sores on his butt and get’s off the hook, Meanwhile athlete A is publicly proclaiming that B must be doped all around and the performances he measured while he was winning in the sport using measuring technology shows that what is going on is not humanly possible and he makes lots of noise about that.

Athlete B is sponsored by the same company that Athlete A sold his product brand to. That company. lets call it Company C has more to gain with Athlete B winning a fourth, fifth, six and seventh time. Company C needs Athlete B to continue to drive sales of the general company products because the brand tied to athlete A is small potatoes relative to overall company valuation/revenue.

What do you think company C does? Do they ask for an investigation of B and tell him to stop doping, or do you think Company C tells Athlete A to stop making unproven (at the time) noise and if he keeps messing with the gravy train, then they will terminate the company A brand inside the their company?

Replace A, B, C with Lemond, Armstrong and Trek and you can see what Trek executives would do because there were big sales at stake and at that point B is a clean athlete so why should they listen to A?

Lemond was right all along. But if his life got “eroded” (as Monty said, we can’t call it destroyed, because Lemond bikes also rode the tailwind of Trek marrketing and distribution uplifted by Lance), that was his gamble, that by calling out Lance, his financial path may be affected. That’s just life. Sometime doing the right thing has an unfair financial penalty. Is he not vindicated for his actions today? In which case the gamble he rolled with (calling out Lance in favour of clean sport) paid off.

The reality is there is no difference between Merckx, Hinault and Lance when it comes to doping. The previous multi time winners just had access to less potent pharma.

Is it more fair to say that Trek affected Lemond’s life? Lance can say all he wants but he was not running Trek. Trek also dropped Lance like a hot potato subsequently, so it’s just Trek doing Trek things. Did Lance influence things? Of course. But who started the fight with Lance? Did Lance start a fight with Greg or was it the other way around?

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Destroyed, ruined, choose a synonym that you want. He was a top tier asshole and you guys should stop giving him oxygen. He’s a blight on cycling and triathlon.

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lol ok bud, i should go buy some Wedu merch just to trigger you some more

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