Lance Armstrong.

[diddl]

What on earth is going on?

If he hasn´t failed a drug test, how can he be found guilty just because he can´t be bothered to fight any more?

Is it an admission of guilt?

If the USADA has evidence-where is it-why haven´t they produced it or is it all just rumour/hearsay?

[ivykaty44]

would you want to compete against him?

[cartimandua]

He competed in huge marathons (New York, Boston) thousands of people take part in. Many of them would be running for charity as they do in the London marathon. For elite athletes their times are important for things like Olympic qualification. Why should they have to give all that up for the sake of making a point about Armstrong? Who is the one in the wrong here?

[ivykaty44]

If he was allowed to compete and no one else competed - then it would surely be a hollow victory.

It wouldn't be fair for the other competitors but if they all didn't compete then maybe it would be a clear message that there is no point in racing against a cheat, it isn't impossible to call effectively a strike

[cartimandua]

He isn't wanting to go back to road racing - all that is finished. He wants to compete in triathlons and marathons, and organisers who have signed up to the USADA/WADA code of conduct won't let him while the lifetime ban from any competition lasts. While he denied that he doped during his comeback, there are dodgy blood values and USADA reckons that the chances that he didn't are one in a million.

A condition for shortening the ban is that he tells ALL the truth, which he doesn't want to do, because he could lay himself open to prosecution for fraud, and because he will look even worse that he does now having supposedly confessed all. USADA has given him until 6th February to respond to the offer to reconsider the lifetime ban in exchange for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The offer is only to reconsider, not lift the ban altogether, so whatever he does he's going to be out for at least another two years and probably longer.

Other competitors would be put in an impossible position. They might not want to race against him but if he is allowed to compete the only thing they could do is not compete themselves, which is not fair on them.

[ivykaty44]

there is a report today that says he lied int he opraph interview - well there is a surprise, lier lies now there is a noval notion.

But the doping cheif is now talking deals - if you tell us everything your ban from cycling will be lifted - but

who would want to race against him?

Surely no one would actually want to race against this man - would they?

Or am I missing something here?

[ednatate82]

After all success and retirement, he came out. He should be stripped. Also his medical condition had allowed for certain drugs to be used.

[Tanith]

I did find this amusing:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21115720

[bobthebuddha]

"it has not been part of the culture of British cycling to blood dope and take drugs"

I'm afraid that's not really true. Tommy Simpson was doped up (not the only British cyclist to be so either) and died on the Tour itself.

[TomDudgeon]

I just don't understand how he got so powerful.

[TheSmallClanger]

It's on Youtube.

[difficultpickle]

Sportsweek (Radio 4 today) interviewed Ben Johnson. Interesting perspective. He was very like LA in saying that he wasn't cheating, just trying to have a level playing field and doing the same as everyone else. He said he was picked on because he won. He really doesn't get what he did wrong and how his sport was almost destroyed by his actions. Really mirrored LA.

[DayToDayShit]

when can we watch it?

[Itsjustafleshwound]

I don't quite know where I read this but the issue with drug taking during Olympic events, is that the athletes are usually clean during the contest and instead testing should be taking place throughout the time between events. The drugs give the competitors advantages over their rivals in terms of being able to train longer and harder and recover faster.

The point of all of this even if it is 'only' sport or 'only' a race the method was flawed, the participant a bully and a liar and shouldn't stand. He is unrepentant merely sorry that he couldn't wangle his way out of the corner

[IreneR]

What I've seen and heard tends to be of the "everybody else dopes; why pick on Lance?" variety, or "but he does so much for charity!!" One guy even said that Lance's detracters were just jealous of his incredible talent...?!?!?!?!

Admittedly, I live in an area where cycling and cyclists are popular, so perhaps people have more faith in what they want to believe than what is true.

I've never paid much attention to any of it, to be honest, but having just read an interview with Kathy LeMond wife of the only American who really won the TdF Lance sounds perfectly terrible: threatening, harrassing, menacing.

I'll never understand people defending someone like that.

[AitchTwoOhOneTwo]

lol

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Just wandered onto this thread by accident as it's on DOTD

My view ? I don't really get why everyone is so obsessed with sport, so why people are so surprised and upset.

But obviously I get that drug taking does rather ruin any sport.

Did enjoy the Olympics and Paralympics but that was probably more as a national event than for the sport in it's own right.

[EldritchCleavage]

Statute of Limitations applies to perjury

Not in England. He can't be prosecuted because he isn't here to be arrested and charged. If he came to the UK (which he won't) he'd be just as liable to arrest as Jeffrey Archer was.

[coldinthesun]

Yeah thats the thing that gets me. Armstrong does not think the bit about lying under oath, bullying and ruining careers etc matters.

His flippant joke about Betsy Andreu pretty much represents the whole thing and his total lack of comprehension. He is still trying to have a cheap dig at her even now.

He is still only seeing himself as having done the same as those who got banned for 6 months at getting caught. He is still incapable of seeing the difference.

He thinks his ban is unfair compared to others, not realising his actions are just not comparable to others.

Sickening in the extreme.

[difficultpickle]

Sunday Times are suing him. Statute of Limitations applies to perjury. He says he didn't cheat in his comeback tours and the SoL applies to his earlier tours. He has been very careful in what he has 'admitted' to.

I already had a low opinion of him from what I read previously. However today's Sunday Times article (which is not hidden behind their paywall) is one of the most compelling pieces of sports journalism I have ever read.

[MadameCastafiore]

What I don't understand is how those people he sued for saying he took drugs and was a cheat can't now have him locked up for lying under oath?

Surely bringing proceedings against someone for slander or whatever it was should be illegal or at least be a criminal matter once found out that they were not lying after all.

It was obvious he was a druggie and cheating or he would have said he did not take drugs rather than always saying he had never been 'found' to have taken drugs?

[DuchessOfAvon]

ANd I forgot to add the lying under oath bit.

Off to read bisjo's link.

[difficultpickle]

Hopefully this link for his article will work.

I hope everyone on this thread reads this and I defy anyone no to be deeply moved by David Walsh's words.

[DuchessOfAvon]

Yes , I heard that interview with David Walsh too. Very sad.

On one level, in terms of the drug-taking, Lance was not doing anything differently to a lot of the peloton - Jan Ullrich, Bjarne Riis etc...

What sets him apart from those peers was:

• the imposition of that regime on others in his teams. He tries to say that he was only the Leader of the team and could not sack teammates for refusing to comply. He forgot to mention that he was a part-owner of the team and could (and did) get rid of team mates. Oprah talked of the pressure to "make the team" - she forgot to mention that these were people's livelihoods. He held power over their income.
  
• the reach in to the UCI. The fact he evaded positive tests and was able to direct testing towards his competitors as Tyler alleges.
  
• the implacable determination to bring down anyone who gainsayed him - he destroyed people's lives, he had them followed, he had their emails and phones monitored. He physically and emotionally threatened countless people.
  

He admits nothing that isn't outside the statute of limitations.
He expresses no true remorse because he had no empathy and is incapable of true remorse.
He is still attempting to control the sport, his image, his income - and to some extent, is still succeeding.

He makes my blood run cold.

[difficultpickle]

very moving interview with David Walsh on Sportsweek this morning. His son was killed in a cycling accident aged 12. Armstrong said that was the only reason Walsh went after him. Absolutely appalling behaviour from Armstrong. Jail would be too good a place for him.

[Salbertina]

Irene- so why are so many people in US supportive, do you find? Quite how he won them over I don't know.