********Why even speculate?..they guy has retired. He is done. He has put cycling on the map. Whether or not drugs were involved, he did wonders for the sport, even if it was accidentally. I do not think that doping is the way to go, but this is cycling.
I am still wondering why the media and cycling fans want to chop this guy down . I also wonder why the French hate him so bad. He has done to France as he has done to American cycling. He has brought dollars to all. French tourism has seen millions and millions of dollars, just as America’s independant bike dealers and all of their vendors have.
I think that all of us in this industry have gained from Lance Armstrong. Ask Demerley and Girard. I bet if Lance did not exsist, the science of the sport would not be where it is today. Therefore, those nice aero dynamic Cervelo bikes, wheels, and aerobars etc. would not be flying out Bikesports door as fast as they have over the last 5 or so years(this is assuming Demerley sells Cervelo!). As a matter of fact, energy gels sales have sky rocketed in the bike industry since Lance has been tagged with PowerGel.
Some say Lance is an arrogant dude. Some say he has done drugs. If he has, he has been one hell of a “lost leader” for the rest of this industry. Good for Lance!
Seriously, the French don’t hate Lance. I don’t know where you all get this from?
Maybe because of the Alpe d’Huez Time Trial when he was spat on last year? You need to realise, there were probably more non-French people than the French on the side of the road. He himself said that during Paris-Nice, the French were always great. I’ve never really heard any French people say anything bad about Lance. They all seem to admire him, sure, they’d rather that a French guy was winning the Tour, but that doesn’t mean they hate the American guy.
“I don’t give a shit. 1999? This is ancient history. What does this prove and what does this solve? What interests me now is keeping the next generation of cyclists clean and drug-free.” - Laurent Fignon
Contrast it with this:
“This is a major story. From the looks of it, the journalists did their work, but it’s also an indication that the UCI did not do its work. Why didn’t they use the means that have been at their disposal for many years? Perhaps it was, from the beginning, a fraud undertaken with the blessings of the UCI. That would certainly explain Armstrong’s arrogance and overwhelming confidence… that the whole thing has been a show.” - Eric Boyer (team manager Cofidis)
I don’t disagree with most of what you write. And short of finding body parts in his freezer, any “proven” allegation at this point is probably outweighed by everything good he has done for the sport.
It’s not whether or not he used PED’s that will affect him or his legacy, it’s the way in which he has vehemently denied it all of these years. Just ask Mr. Palmeiro how that approach is workin’ for him…
where do I get this from??? Maybe we have different tv networks and newspapers here in san diego than where ever you are from, but this is where we learn of this “dis-like.” In addition to what has been said, I have seen dozens of phrases painted on the tours roads that read like “fuck lance” and such. But I am sure that it is the American fans with their paint brushes!
Do you want him to confess to using drugs??? It is not going to happen. Furthermore, he would be stupid to announce this. I am not understanding why anyone is spending anytime on Lance’s alleged drug use in sport.
Why is no one going after Jan Ullrich or Ivan Basso? I am not saying anyone of them are clean. But why spend any of your time trying to figure if a retired or current pro cyclist is on drugs. I think I have a pretty good insight on what goes on in this sport.
We might as well be vigialantes trying to get the speeders off the freeways.
Paul, just cause a few Frenchman hate Lance that does not mean the whole country does. France is stacked with Lance fans. Just cause some Americans don’t like Mark McGuire, that does not mean the whole country hates him…
He is NOT Ivan Basso, or Jan Ullrich, and you know that. The enormity of his fame is due in part to the media’s infatuation with “his story,” but he has certainly helped fan the flames. The books, the foundation, etc. - all for an incredibly good cause - but it all works to make him far more than just an athlete - he’s now become “The Lance Armstrong.”
That’s just the price you pay, and you can’t have it both ways. His fame, fortune, overwhelming success, and magnanimous benevolence on behalf of cancer victims have worked to further elevate his lofty position in the hearts and minds of everyday people all over the world - well beyond the boundaries of cycling. Unfortunately, this means that he’s got waaaaayyyy more distance to fall than a Basso or Ullrich do.
Has he used PED’s? I have no frickin’ clue…and I don’t really care - to me it’s the nature of the beast - if everyone’s doing it, he’d be a fool not to - if that’s really what it would take to compete as a pro cyclist. I honestly don’t even feel that it would take much away from his enormous accomplishments (as an athlete).
But he’s much, much more than just a pro cyclist at this point - that’s why it matters!!
Lance being liked or dis-liked by the french was not the intended subject of the original post. If it makes anyone feel better, I would like to strike that comment from my origianl post. Let’s say that the french LOVED Lance…I still do not know why there is so much speculation on 1 rider’s alleged drug use. There are 180ish other riders in the TDF.
The French authorities don’t hate Lance, they hate drug cheats in their race. The busted Virenque and the whole Festina team fer chrissakes.
Give them a bit of credit, they are trying to clean up the tour and if they can bring down the top dog that will send a hell of a message to the rest of the peloton. Nobody is safe.
Christ, this country went bezerk when a little kid from the Dominican Republic pitced overage in the LL world series yet we have the gall to accuse the French of hysteria when the 7 time winner of their biggest sporting event has a doping cloud over his head.
If this is let go and Lance rides off into the sunset with his place in cycling lore intact, the sport of bike racing will remain a drug infested cheat fest forever. If on the other hand he is brought crashing down, he just might inadvertantly help clean the sport up.
It might to Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. Sort of like how it mattered to Roger Maris’ family when Mark McGwire admitted to using steroids.
Are you telling me and the rest of the forum that Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain were “all natural?” Maybe their families were!
Are you telling me and the rest of the forum that Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain were “all natural?” Maybe their families were!
If so, keep your mojo rising!
Oh… are you telling me and the rest of the forum that Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain were “all juiced?” You have some inside information?
Pure speculation on your part… here we call that “bullshit”
If Lance turns out to have cheated, then he is nothing and everything he accomplished would be moot*.
He is still a cancer survivor, and that is something, but if he is proven a cheat, then as a sportsman, as an athlete and as an icon, he would be nothing but crap. Cycling will be less than it was before he lifted it up, the sport would be looked at as a joke.
I am not here to try to uncover dopers, MOJO. However, if you want to use the families of past tour winners as a reason to BUST Lance, then I have to tell you that the others were probably dirty as well. Are you thinking that Lance is the first one to win the tour with the use of drugs?
Are you defending Lance and those being acused of drug use or are you saying that Lance needs to answer to the famalies of "clean winners, Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain? What is it?
If you say all past tour winners are clean, I will agree with you. if you say “clean,” I will also agree.
A GERMAN EXPERT SKEPTIC
An expert of fight antiodopage in Germany, professor Klaus Müller, evoked Tuesday his doubts about the method of analysis and the samples which made it possible to detect EPO in the urines of the Lance Armstrong cyclist. “I do not doubt that the results of the analyses carried out by my French colleagues are solid”, declared professor Müller, director of the Institute for the analysis of the doping of Kreischa to a German daily newspaper in his edition of Wednesday to appear. But the expert evokes his astonishment on the conservation of these samples of urine: “When a sample controlled avére negative, it is destroyed, as well as the sample B, in the months which follow”. According to him, a sample can be preserved to proceed to research and experiments in condition however that the person on whom it was taken gives her agreement and which the “donor” remains anonymous. However, note the owner of the Institute for the analysis of doping, “that does not seem to have occurred thus”, which suggests that the American champion cycle will be able to seize justice.
Think what you will. This is total BS to take stuff that is 6 years old and analyse it with the expectation that it will be considered valid in any way. The French cannot take the loss to Armstrong-- ever.