but this is pretty typical of those 1% of 1% elite athletes. it’s a doper sport, always has been
No, the assholeness isn’t typical. Most bodybuilders I know are super nice guys. Chris Froome - not my favorite - but is a nice-seeming guy. Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal - super nice guys.
Same with MJ. Lebron James, Shaq, nice guys. Kobe Bryant could apparently be a dick at times because he was so demanding and single-minded on the court, but otherwise nice guy. (rape allegation notwithstanding)
Just my perception, but I generally see less assholeness at the top of sport than outside of sports.
Edit: And I’m talking purely about being an asshole here. Doping is a whole other topic. Yes, Lance came from the doping era where it was rampant, and it’s still probably pretty rampant. Not arguing that point.
I’d have to go back and check Hamilton’s book where it’s been a while since I’ve read it, but if I remember right he said that he started when he was with Montgomery. He also explained in the book how they got around the constant testing, and also tells of a tester showing up at his home for a surprise test and he and his then wife hiding in a closet until the guy left to make it appear that no one was home. He also explains how Lance tried to silence him and treated him like dirt when he was getting ready to come clean.
Edit to add I went back and checked, his second year with Postal. He says in the book for most cyclists, it started in their third year of racing pro where the first year you are a hungry pup excited about being there, the second year is realizing that everything isn’t on the level, and the third is going along to stay in the game.
Enjoyed that book. The part where he talked about fat Jan having a pumpkin head for one of the TDF time trials because he took a bad bag of blood before was hilarious, especially if you go rewatch the footage on YouTube.
As for the 30 for 30 doc, I’ll definitely watch once both parts are out so I can get them both in the free trial ESPN app.
The guy just brought up bs allegations about a guy who just died in a helicopter accident along with his daughter. Let me know if you agree as well and are likewise a #$!
Love Lance, but he still comes off as so so unlikeable. If people don’t like your character, they’ll hold mistakes over your head for life. He likes to compare himself to Arod but his character is closer to Barry Bonds.
A-Rod is just as big an asshole as Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong.
Hey it’s something new in social distance land !
Quite interesting. He obviously cooperated with this production.
Not all the same old stuff . I had assumed that running was Lances 1st success
But this depiction says swimming was his first pride .
His Armstrong name sake was an awe full jackass.
He admitted to have taken HUman growth hormone for one season . HGH used for
Body building has a very high cancer and early death rate .
EPO is a 15 billion dollar business for leukemia and other blood ailments treatment and
Was first developed by Amgen .
Jurich was on a path to win big tours but Lance became priority 1with team.
In 1999 comeback at Tour De F Lance shockingly won the prologue TT on a
light speed blade painted trek colors and decals . Was he on 650 c wheels.?
The bike looks small under a pretty small guy .
I thought it was well done. **I think it shows the passion it takes to make it at that level and he has it. **That guy had zero passion for cycling. He virtually single handedly fucked the sport. Would you say Tonya Harding was passionate about ice-skating because she had Nancy Kerrigan attacked with a baseball bat? Andre Agassi loathed and still loathes tennis, he had zero passion about the sport. Don’t equate a desire to win with passion. Two very different things.
Previously he had stated (Oprah, or somewhere else, but it is writing somewhere) that he had raced cleaned until 1995 when they got massacred at the Milan San Remo (Jalabert won IIIRC), and the team collectively decide to hit the juice
I believe the massacre you reference was the 1994 Fleche Wallonne when the majority of the Gewiss squad went off the front and TTTed to sweeping the podium.
The guy just brought up bs allegations about a guy who just died in a helicopter accident along with his daughter. Let me know if you agree as well and are likewise a pos.
we don’t do righteous indignation here. please dial it back.
I thought it was well done. **I think it shows the passion it takes to make it at that level and he has it. **That guy had zero passion for cycling. He virtually single handedly fucked the sport.
I think the sport f’ed itself. Lance just played the game better than most. Doping was going on way before Lance (I don’t believe that LeMond was clean). Had Lance been a “nice guy” his problems would have been a lot less and people would have said “well they all doped”, which is true but it was Lance’s bad attitude that really sunk him. However to say that he single-handedly F’ed the sport is just not true. Do you think that Lance just woke up one day and invented doping? Nope…he learned it from the peloton. He was just a bigger a-hole than the rest.
Having just watched the Last Dance, I felt like there were actually a ton of things Lance said that sounded almost identical to what MJ said. A lot of the willing-to-do- whatever type mentality.
What struck me was how they both absolutely thrived on proving their doubters wrong, and crushing any rival who dared disrespect them. It was so crucial to their motivation that** they would both invent slights **when they couldn’t find any real reason to be angry.
I thought that too, when Lance said that to keep himself motivated on training rides, he’d make up rivals he had to beat, much like Jordan said “Oh, I just made that up” when he was talking about the story behind some legendary grudge he had with someone
but this is pretty typical of those 1% of 1% elite athletes. it’s a doper sport, always has been
No, the assholeness isn’t typical.
There are plenty of “nice guys” at the top of their sport or profession. The top level athletes who come across as being assholes are in the minority. The vast majority of the leaders I worked for in the USAF and in education were nice people to work for and for their families and others to be around in addition to being the best at their job.
Of course, the show started with “The Boulder Story” where he covered the frat boys tab even after they gave him shit
The most unforgivable thing he did - in our eyes at home. anyway - is that Mr. Cancer Survivor/Mr. Awareness/Mr. LiveSTRONG broke up with Sheryl Crow just as she was going through her breast cancer diagnosis & treatment
Dude, you couldn’t stick around for that? That’s pretty fucking important
his stepdad Terry seemed like a real dick. He was clearly trying to rationalize it with those funky facial expressions trying to say “that’s just how I thought to raise kids”. (Lance said he beat him with a paddle)However much of an asshole Terry was, it really seemed like his mom was the enabler. Right after Terry was out of their lives, his mom discusses forging Lance’s birth certificate to get him into races. That pinpointed it for me that she wasn’t providing boundaries for Lance (Lance also mentioned she was not into discipline at all) which likely set him up for the rest of his life to think the rules don’t apply to him.Really looking forward to more from the women like Betsy and the Postal Service handler who Lance went scorched earth on.Lance is always calculating what he says, looking for a way to control the narrative. You can see every time they are in a car, the window reflects his hands which are constantly fidgeting. Almost all of part 1 was just a lead up to the time everyone really knew who Lance was, winning his first TdF. The real interesting stuff is yet to come I think.