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?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

What happened to 'we believe you'? Don't we believe the team-mates that claim they were coerced into drug-taking?

[GooseyLoosey]

I am sad about this. I have been a cycling fan for many years. I believe that Armstrong doped. I also believe that it is likely that many of the oher 5 times Tour de France winners doped - several have hinted at it. I believe that the majority of the peloton prior to about the last 5 years doped.

Riding a grand tour seems to me to be the most demanding professional sport on the planet. They cycle 100s of Km a day at incredibly high speeds often into head winds or up mountains. It is not surprising that a culture of performance enhancement deveolped.

Nothing is served in my view by raking over the coals of the drug use of yester-year. If Armstrong is stripped of the tour titles, itwould be hard to find a credible alternative to award them too. Drugged or not, he was the outstanding grand tour rider of his generation and I believe he was riding on a fairly level playing field. USADA's investigation has damaged and continues to damage a sport that has done more than almost any other to reform itself.

Enough is enough.

[ladysoandso]

Goosey - good point, hadn't thought of it from that angle. If they were all on dope then he is the still the best of the dopers.

It's the denying now that will be his downfall. He would have had to have been superhuman to be the winner amongst all the drug takers. Are they going to take away the medals of all his team mates now as well?

[NorthWhittering]

"If they were all on dope then he is the still the best of the dopers"

no he just had the most money to throw at the doping.

[NorthWhittering]

"Are they going to take away the medals of all his team mates now as well?"

many of the witnesses have already had their results stripped from them becuase of their testimony. LA would actually have suffered a lighter ban if he had helped with the investigation and would have retained 3 of his tdf wins, because of the statute of limitations.

[poozlepants]

I just read Tyler Hamilton's book and it is a really good read.
One of the points he makes and I have read in different articles is that doping doesn't effect everyone in the same way. Some riders saw huge performance enhances with EPO whilst others didn't. Riders with naturally high haemocrit levels didn't get the same boost as others did. Doping didn't level the playing field it just created a new one that Armstrong excelled in.
Some riders refused to dope and left the sport.
Some of the main allegations of USADA is that Armstrong insisted that riders on his team doped otherwise they would be dropped.

He should just give it up now-it's all a bit pathetic.

[Hanleyhigh]

"If they were all on dope then he is the still the best of the dopers"

Completely disagree, as said up thread, lots of this depends on money, which doctors you could afford, the travelling round they had to pay for to get their injections.

It also disregards the people who were hounded out of the sport because they refused to dope and the way in which Armstrong bullied others into doping.

It continues to amaze me that he still has his defenders.

[JoshLyman]

This is making me increasingly angry. He was doped up the eyeballs, which is bad enough, but it appears he also threw his weight about, threatened and intimidated people who dared speak out and used his money and influence to get his way. Despicable man.

[PedallingSquares]

USADA's investigation has damaged and continues to damage a sport that has done more than almost any other to reform itself



No, USADA's investigation has shown the world that cycling can and will find those who cheat and they will expose them, even if it takes time. This is exactly why the sport is now cleaner.

The amount of evidence against Armstrong is huge. I cannot believe anyone would suggest that the USADA should ignore that and brush it under the carpet because cycling has made a bit of an effort to clean itself up.

Armstrong continues to damage the sport by refusing to admit the truth.

[poozlepants]

I can't believe Nike are standing by him- 'Lance has stated his innocence and has been unwavering on this position'. Well that's alright then his word against a 1000 page document produced by USADA with the testimony of 11 of his team mates. Unfuckingbelievable. I hope Nike have their Gerald Ratner moment.
Nike is the sportswear for cheats and bullies. Lovely.

There also seems a deafing silence all the way over in Switzerland as the UCI fail yet again to do anything.

[PedallingSquares]

Delighted to see that Nike have now cut sponsorship to Lance.

I wonder how long he can continue to profess his innocent in the face of such evidence.

[anonacfr]

Well he's now resigned from his own charity too so it looks like he can't hide from the truth for much longer.
What was hilarious is that his lawyer demanded that the 26 ex-colleagues, staff etc. who testified against him all take a lie detector test.
However when asked if Armstrong would do the same, he replied 'possibly, maybe sometime in the future, it might happen'.

Yeah, right.

[WidowWadman]

What an absolute wanker he is.

[mayorquimby]

An absolute tosser in a morally bankrupt sport
Last night was just a self-serving attempt at a pr resurrection and he was still trying to justify his doping

[CaseyShraeger]

The Ultimate Lance Armstrong Oprah Winfrey Confessionstravaganza Drinking Game

[TessOfTheBaublevilles]

Having watched the interview, it soon became clear he isn't sorry about what he's did, he's only fucking sorry he was found out.

Wanker.

I've heard some people on the radio say, "he's admitted his mistakes, now it's time to leave him alone."

Leave him alone? Fuck that.

The guy has made millions of dollars by being a fraud, why the hell should he be left alone to live in comfort, when so many hard-working, decent and honest people are living on a pittance in America (and of course, all over the world)?

I hope his sponsors, and anyone else who gave him money on the back of his fake "success", drag him through the courts to get the money back.

[McKayz]

The man is a twat. We're a big cycling family and now I feel like I wasted so many days of my life watching that cheating arsehole.

[PetiteRaleuse]

A whole generation of children have been brought up to consider this guy a hero. He's despicable, and evidently not sorry at all.

[fedupwithdeployment]

We are going to watch a couple of stages of the TdF this summer, and DH did consider whether this would be tantamount to tacitly approving of doping. I hope it is cleaner now....I hope to God that Bradley is clean (I believe he is, but have been wrong before).

I think Lance should be presecuted for perjury and face the music generally. As happened to Jonathan Aitken in clightly different circumstances.

[LittleAbruzzenBear]

DH and I are really disappointed and disgusted with him. It also casts a shadow on cycling as a sport and if I had won the Tour, like Wiggo, or even participated, the hard non-performance-enhancing-drugs way then I would be really pissed off.

[Thisisaeuphemism]

What a scumbag. It's incredible.

[diddl]

Sad, isn´t it?

If he was so sorry I think he would have admitted it sooner.

All those who supported him-total slap in the face.

[LittleAbruzzenBear]

We bloody cheered him on at the Giro d'Italia in 2009 with DS1 who was nearly a year old then. I feel sick and let down.

[TessOfTheBaublevilles]

What really made my blood boil, was hearing him say that he didn't feel bad at any point, when winning cheating.

I suppose though, if your morality level is such that you're prepared to go to such lengths to "win", you probably lack any notion of guilt too.

I really feel for his children, I really do, to have their image of their father destroyed in this way. I can only imagine how it must feel to find our your dad isn't the man you thought he was.