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?

[McKayz]

Little, my Dad always said the French never liked him because he wasn't French.

I was 13 when he won his first Tour, I used to rush back from school, to watch it. Afternoons I could have been out with my mates, reading a book etc.

[CaseyShraeger]

According to Forbes he could potentially be in for some pretty massive financial penalties.

[DuchessOfAvon]

Spot on EldritchCleavage

I have done a lot of reading over the last few months, David Millar, Brad and Tyler (can you see what people got us for Christmas?!) and am about to embark on the Paul Kimmage book.

What makes Lance different is the immense reach & influence he had into the sport - that he could evade his own negative tests but make sure that others got tested. The UCI are screwed by implication. There is every danger that cycling could lose its Olympic status as result of the UCI's feeble actions - and Lance's revelations are making that all the more likely. As the parent of a keen female cyclist, wife of a passionate cyclist and a fan of the sport myself, I am furious that this despicable individual (and others liek him) may yet bring down a sport in which so many honest cyclists have worked and suffered - only to be ytterly derailed. Nicole's retirement statement was heart-rending.

Add to that, a truly psychopathic mindset about his "enemies", he must have been (and probaly still is) terrifying to those he decided had crossed him.

He is a deeply unpleasant man and I can't find enough words to describe the depths of my distaste for him.

All of this wailing is a carefully orchestrated PR campaign to mitigate his potential losses from the barrage of lawsuits heading his way.

[DuchessOfAvon]

pants - I thought I'd cleaned up all of the typos in that post and yet tis still riddled.

[PartTimeModel]

"The bullying-no, the oppression of others in this sport, the gaslighting and vindictiveness, the active promotion of a whole industry of cheating and attempts to compromise the ruling body and anti-doping structure, that's the worst of it."

^ above sums it up really well.

Plus the absolute arrogance on a breathtaking scale to SUE people and WIN - people who called him out, confronted him, tried to expose the truth. He lost count of the number of people he sued, many of them former 'friends'. It's astonishing.

[Nancy66]

He'll probably end up doing some two man show with Tiger Woods

[PartTimeModel]

In the future, whenever I can't believe someone could be quite as arrogant as they seem, I will think of LA and know it can be so.

[Naiivegenius]

Emma O'Reilly, David Walsh, Christophe Bassons, Floyd Landis, Travis Tygart, Pierre Ballester, Betsy Andreu, Frankie Andreu, Nicole Cooke

[coldinthesun]

I hope he ends up doing a decent length jail sentence. What have we got? Fraud, purgery? harassment and intimation, defamation of character?

Sadly I do not think he will do any.

[Naiivegenius]

Happily, I think he will.

[EldritchCleavage]

Reserve your seats now for the legal battle with the Sunday Times, who are suing to get back the costs and damages they paid out to him in his libel action here. Can't wait to hear the judge get the boot in (they have less time for liars, however repentant, than Oprah does).

[PartTimeModel]

[Naiivegenius]

We are all part of a culture that has put this man on a pedestal. Why? He's just a bloke who "rides a bike really quickly".

[lljkk]

I don't understand this vilification & vitriole. He was an abandoned, bullied and abused child himself and learnt a dog eat dog ethos from early childhood. Then the cancer struck and nothing could have been more unfair than that. Doping culture was rampant in pro-cycling, Kimmage himself* struggled badly with being tempted by it himself. That morality became Armstrong's norm. Armstrong needs to apologise personally to the people he harmed and to cycling fans in general, but what he says publicly means nothing to most of us.

This shouldn't be news because it doesn't mean anything but gossip. Armstrong is old news and no news. The only thing he can salvage is to try to keep the good name of Livestrong.

( *Kimmage is convinced that doping is still rampant in pro-cycling and always will be ).

[coldinthesun]

Poor little Lance had cancer and a bad childhood. Therefore it was perfectly acceptable for him to behave in this way; to ruin lives, lie, cheat and otherwise deceive others, very often those who were friends.

I think I seen this time of excuse used to justify other types of abusive behaviour...

Its still total shit however you use this argument.

[McKayz]

Its bullshit. Lance Armstrong is not the only person to have a bad childhood or have cancer. I'd say 99% of people don't then go on to decieve the whole world.

[lljkk]

I wasn't making excuses. But I can't rise to hating him and demanding he go to jail or be tarred and feathered, either. Of course we're all products of our environment (which included a norm of cheating in his, and treating other people badly). The level of anger in this thread surprises me because we've know for ages what he did, there were no worse crimes revealed in these interviews. It's no surprise that he's struggling with knowing how to confess and apologise, too.

Has all this anger been out there lurking and you all just wanted a handy target?

[coldinthesun]

He should face justice; there is a strong case to answer for serving time in jail.

I actually don't think thats lynching him or even hating him.

I also don't think apologising in the manner he has to some of his victims really does him any credit as again I don't think its about showing remorse, just and trying to gain sympathy so he gets specialist treatment and somehow gets out of being held fully responsible and accountable for the actions he's taken.

[Nancy66]

...did he have a terrible childhood? Not convinced.

Having parents who divorce doesn't mean that any child becomes a life-long liar and cheat...otherwise half the world would be.

Think you're clutching at straws there lljkk

[lljkk]

Seems to me like that whole process is in hand, of making him accountable in every way possible. It's just not a very fast process.

I still respect Armstrong but I wonder why I never liked him, such a hard-man and he made pro-cycling very boring to be a fan of. They say Indurain was very similar (bullying and so on); Miguel is probably shaking in relief that he's not the one who got found out.

[Thisisaeuphemism]

I don't see any vitriol, just a deep contempt for his appalling behaviour - he is a cheat, a liar and a bully on a massive scale. no, it hasn't been known for years - anyone who suggested it has been hounded mercilessly by Armstrong and his legal team.

Lljkk, I think it's odd that you dismiss people who don't like that.

[goldiehorn]

They cant really award his 7 tour de france wins to anyone else can they because everyone was doping at the time werent they?

It really was rife in the sport. Which is why people like Bradley Wiggins piss me off when they get oh so outraged and start publically calling people cunts and wankers for daring to suggest that team sky may have been taking drugs. Yes I can understand that if he really has not been taking drugs (and I dont think he has), then you would be cross that people were questioning your own hard work. But it is hardly a massive leap to wonder if it still goes on, and I thought that his little rant about that was uncalled for. Bradley Wiggins acheivements have been amazing this year, but he comes across as a bit of an arse.

Lance Armstrong however, does qualify as a massive cunt, for many many reasons!

[lljkk]

Maybe his first autobiography is a pack of lies, too, but he seems to describe a great many physical beatings in it from his step-dad (plus emotional abuse). His mum worked all hours (she was only 17 when he was born, I think). Bio dad abandoned him, bullied and ostracized by kids at school for long periods, it was a rotten childhood by any standards.