Given how doping was systemic throughout the sport, I don’t really understand the logic behind why he’s taken the fall so hard. I understand how he’s taken the fall, just not the logic behind it in comparison to others within the sport. Hell, on Mt. Ventoux stands a monument to Tom Simpson, who died during the race because of his doping. Pantani is still regarded as a hero. Ulrich wasn’t stripped of titles. It was everywhere. But as for why he’s taken the fall, it’s a combo of the following, in my opinion:
He was brash, brazen, consistently a “fuck everyone” attitude. He burned bridges with the same frequency and carelessness that the rest of us take a leak. You can’t make enemies with his consistency and not have a weakness exposed and turned on you.What he did in the sport itself wasn’t supposed to happen with a North American, dominating the biggest race on the calendar as he did. He was apparently more well-accepted and regarded in France than one would think, but still wasn’t really liked. Nonetheless, it wasn’t the UCI that undid him.His comeback rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Landis, the only other person ever to have a TdF title stripped from his epic 2006 race (man, he was whiskey fueled!), wanted a spot on Team Radioshack when Lance came back in 2009. Lance put a stop to that, which pissed Landis off, and Landis went postal (see what I did there?), initiating the whistleblower investigation.U.S.A.D.A. wants to prove a point that “Americans are clean and better than that.” It’s BS, really. Lance’s teammates were given fake suspensions – 6 months suspended from competition during their normal off seasons…so just like any other off season for them. Lance was the face of it all, profited financially the most. USADA has already banned him for life from any WADA types of events, U.S. Postal hasn’t lost any money from L.A.'s doping, sounds like U.S. Postal actually did quite well from their publicity, and the only reason U.S. Postal may be in a financial bind now has much more to do with changes to how people do commerce & the regulations imposed on them than it does with a fringe-sport athlete that the vast majority of the public doesn’t follow enough to have a clue that U.S. Postal was even a sponsor let alone the details of a lawsuit against him.Allegedly, the doping program he was a part of was unfair because it was more advanced, more technical, and far superior to all of the other programs out at the time, run on a team-wide scale, highly organized in a way that was different than individual athletes doing their own doping. At best, that argument against L.A. seems dubious to me.
It’s really a joke. Lots of people profited and won’t be returning their earnings; Trek wouldn’t be the company they are without L.A. It’s also funny to me that the most esteemed cyclist in history, Eddie Merckx (whose brand of bike I’m about to go for a lunchtime ride on), was booted out of a Giro for doping & I believe temporarily banned a second time…yet he’s still loved almost universally and invited to be the face of many UCI events. Indurian is still a god in Spain. Vinokoruv almost certainly purchased races, not an uncommon practice at one time, and UCI now turns a blind eye to his involvement in Astana. And on and on and on.
I don’t like the attitude L.A. comported himself with, don’t like that even in his now seemingly more humble state he still seems to want to come across with the arrogance of being “the man,” don’t like that the sport was fueled by doping, but if you have high level sports you’re going to have doping. I just don’t see him as being any more guilty in that respect than anyone else was. Guilty of being the biggest asshole in the sport? Absolutely. But that’s not what the lawsuit is about.
I didn’t really pay close attention to the Lance Armstrong drug saga. He’d been a hero and the whole drug thing was kinda demoralizing. I’d have to say tho, that I never really understood why the powers-that-be went after him so hard. Educate me pls.
Maybe the International folks (UCI) didn’t like him?
Maybe the US folks wanted to demonstrate their commitment to clean racing?
Maybe I’m wrong in my perception that the aggressiveness of the pursuit of him was unusual?
Your thoughts?
For those of you that might be angry types by nature and see a dark cloud everywhere, I do not “troll”, I do not deliberately try to stir up trouble. Ever. So pls can we skip that drama?