Lance Armstrong to be charged with doping?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary

oh, so civil discussion is out the window is it?!

Your arguments are patently ridiculous, the notion that there is a conspiracy against Lance is laughable at best and truly pathetic at worst.

Any other cyclist would have been pursued just as vigorously if they happened to be successful at the same time as Lance.

People like you are the ones that legitimize athletes taking drugs and cheating, explaining it away and poo pooing those that actually, you know don't have a sliding scale about right and wrong.

Sorry, your "hero" was a cheat and a fraud - glad that he's getting called out.

now go cry, wearing your Liestrong wrist band, at your altar of Lance Armstrong, a proven cheater on the scale of Marion Jones and the Balco/Festina fiascos....

you lose

I wasn't trying to be uncivil, just slightly ironic.

Armstrong was never my hero, in fact I despise him, he was the first cyclist to train exclusively for the tour and ignore the classics, had Mercx approached the tour the same way he would have had 9 or 10 wins.

I also don't think it is a conspiricy, I think any slight investigation into any pro cyclist will find drug use, Armstrong is just a big scalp, no more no less, the reality is Lance is being persued because he is famous and american, which gives the USADA the ability to go after him, they have no authority to persue any non american.

For the record I think the fair approach would be to either invalidate all previous tour winners and admit the level of accepted drug use within the sport or leave it all alone, I have a problem with screwing one guy over when he was engaged in no more than normal behaviour in his chosen sport.

You mention Festina, the team leader and ackowledged ring leader got a 9 month suspension from the sport for his part in the worst drug scandel the sport had dealt with, unless you count the poor ####### below who died of an amphetamine induced heart attack in 1967, 9 months is a season, no more, he was free to return to the sport after that. Cycling as a sport loves to dope, I suspect will continue to dope, it has been at the core and fabric of the sport for a hundred years.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I wasn't trying to be uncivil, just slightly ironic.

Armstrong was never my hero, in fact I despise him, he was the first cyclist to train exclusively for the tour and ignore the classics, had Mercx approached the tour the same way he would have had 9 or 10 wins.

I also don't think it is a conspiricy, I think any slight investigation into any pro cyclist will find drug use, Armstrong is just a big scalp, no more no less, the reality is Lance is being persued because he is famous and american, which gives the USADA the ability to go after him, they have no authority to persue any non american.

For the record I think the fair approach would be to either invalidate all previous tour winners and admit the level of accepted drug use within the sport or leave it all alone, I have a problem with screwing one guy over when he was engaged in no more than normal behaviour in his chosen sport.

You mention Festina, the team leader and ackowledged ring leader got a 9 month suspension from the sport for his part in the worst drug scandel the sport had dealt with, unless you count the poor ####### below who died of an amphetamine induced heart attack in 1967, 9 months is a season, no more, he was free to return to the sport after that. Cycling as a sport loves to dope, I suspect will continue to dope, it has been at the core and fabric of the sport for a hundred years.

alright. Peace brother.

I probably reacted a bit harshly to what seemed to be a tone a little too patronizing...

now, while i agree that Lance was doggedly pursued because of his name, by the same stretch, drug enforcement agency want to catch big names, not only in cycling.

Because it is the big names that make others want to cheat. People see them flaunting the system, not getting caught and getting millions of dollars as a result...The one guy i wish they had caught was Carl Lewis...

but with cycling, they could catch a hundred domestiques and it wouldn't do a thing if guys like Lance or Pantani or Contador continued to win and win big.

I don't think Lance was pursued unfairly - he became a global celebrity, made tens of millions of dollars...all from the doping...

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary

alright. Peace brother.

I probably reacted a bit harshly to what seemed to be a tone a little too patronizing...

now, while i agree that Lance was doggedly pursued because of his name, by the same stretch, drug enforcement agency want to catch big names, not only in cycling.

Because it is the big names that make others want to cheat. People see them flaunting the system, not getting caught and getting millions of dollars as a result...The one guy i wish they had caught was Carl Lewis...

but with cycling, they could catch a hundred domestiques and it wouldn't do a thing if guys like Lance or Pantani or Contador continued to win and win big.

I don't think Lance was pursued unfairly - he became a global celebrity, made tens of millions of dollars...all from the doping...

I guess were we see things differently is in what constitutes cheating, I do not really think of doping as cheating in cycling.

In this I see cycling as different from any other sport purely because doping was normal in the sport from the begining, in other sports PED's have been a recent phenomana as opposed to cycling were they have always been an accepted part of the sport.

Drug use was expected by the teams, the sports governing body did its best to colude with the teams to keep its use under wraps in order to schedule inhuman courses and put up faster times.

Within this culture I dont blame individual riders at all and, as such, see the amount of time and effort that the USADA has put into building a circumstantial case against Armstrong when everyone that follows the sport knew full well he was using, as was all of his compatition, as completely pointless, I actually see all of the other disqualifications as pointless as well but at least they failed a blood test, in Armstrongs case he hasn't even failed a test, therefore why bother?

Catching or not catching Armstrong, especially by a US body that has no say as to how the sport or tour is run, will do nothing to clean up cycling, that will only be acheived by the sport itself and the use of stringent testing.

[afc wimbledon]

I will add this as a corollary, why bother cleaning up cycling?

What is the point of taking a sport that has always used drugs, I can see the arguement for hockey or Baseball, they were clean and the encroaching drug use has been individual and piecemeal, therefore unfair, but in cycling the drug use has been universal and used on a team level, therefore it can't be considered an uneven playing field.

Personally I prefer drugged cycling, the inhuman performances, Sean Kelly riding a 1000 miles with a broken collarbone etc, what we think of as the tour de france is a product of drug use, without drugs no one would think to ask riders to climb 3 or 4 catagory climbs a day ending at alp de huez or Ventoux

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I will add this as a corollary, why bother cleaning up cycling?

What is the point of taking a sport that has always used drugs, I can see the arguement for hockey or Baseball, they were clean and the encroaching drug use has been individual and piecemeal, therefore unfair, but in cycling the drug use has been universal and used on a team level, therefore it can't be considered an uneven playing field.

Personally I prefer drugged cycling, the inhuman performances, Sean Kelly riding a 1000 miles with a broken collarbone etc, what we think of as the tour de france is a product of drug use, without drugs no one would think to ask riders to climb 3 or 4 catagory climbs a day ending at alp de huez or Ventoux

Why clean up cycling? Say you were a young promising cyclist and the only way to get into the top echelon would be to take drugs. Would you like to risk your health and morals to do this? I'd say some wouldn't, so a possible great athlete sees his career go down the tubes while those who do spend the rest of their life hiding their acts and paying for it with their health. A crappy outcome for all concerned.

[NBC]

Originally Posted by Rerun

Is golf the only professional sport left where cheating is actually despised? ... and being honorable is the norm?

I don't know. European golfers and fans loved Seve and he was a cheat.

I think that snooker and darts are still above board. Whether or not one classifies them as sports is a different matter.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by NBC

I don't know. European golfers and fans loved Seve and he was a cheat.

I think that snooker and darts are still above board. Whether or not one classifies them as sports is a different matter.

I don't know if using lager qualifies as cheating other than getting your date to imbibe but Canadian snooker player Bill Werbeniuk needed lots of lager to calm his nerves.

Bill spent several successful seasons in the top 16, but his story is a sad one - the gallons of lager he drank before, during and after matches were to control an hereditary nervous disorder that caused his cue arm to tremble. He made the highest break of the 1985 World Championship - 143, but from the mid-1980s a steady decline in form set in, which coincided with a substantial increase in his alcohol consumption. He even made headlines by acquiring a medical certificate which approved his lager-drinking, and offsetting the cost of the booze against income tax as a necessary overhead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lanc...plain/A1032058

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by NBC

I think that snooker and darts are still above board. Whether or not one classifies them as sports is a different matter.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if anti-anxiety and ADD related meds are commonly used even in sports like those.

I think its naive to think there isn't a culture of drug use across all sports - nothing "crept" into baseball in my opinion, other than nosy enforcement which brought attention to it.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Wouldn't surprise me at all if anti-anxiety and ADD related meds are commonly used even in sports like those.

I think its naive to think there isn't a culture of drug use across all sports - nothing "crept" into baseball in my opinion, other than nosy enforcement which brought attention to it.

Just about to say this. These drugs and Beta Blockers are already common in sports like the Biathelon, which invovles rifle shooting, I don't know why the same drugs wouldn't be used in snooker or darts. Guaranteed it's been tried at least once.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Wouldn't surprise me at all if anti-anxiety and ADD related meds are commonly used even in sports like those.

I think its naive to think there isn't a culture of drug use across all sports - nothing "crept" into baseball in my opinion, other than nosy enforcement which brought attention to it.

I think what brought attention to baseball was that players who could hit maybe 40 home runs were now consistently hitting over 60 dingers a season. You didn't have to be nosy to notice.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I think what brought attention to baseball was that players who could hit maybe 40 home runs were now consistently hitting over 60 dingers a season. You didn't have to be nosy to notice.

I think it was more about guys like Brady Anderson who went from a career 15 hr a year guy, to 50 in one season.

Or even clemens who was pitching better at age 42 than he was at age 32.


i read a quote about Armstrong today which sort of sums it all up for me...

"His whole story kind of falls into the category of, sometimes good people do bad things, or, conversely, sometimes bad people do good things," said Stan Teitelbaum, author of "Athletes Who Indulge Their Dark Side." "In a way, it's the 'Whatever Syndrome.' There used to be a strong sense of indignation at things like this. How could my hero be this way? But when we the people, we the public, get disillusioned so many times, we shrug our shoulders and we just say, 'Whatever.'"

The guy has cheated and lied, of that there is no doubt. That being said he has dome yeomans work for countless others as well.

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I think what brought attention to baseball was that players who could hit maybe 40 home runs were now consistently hitting over 60 dingers a season. You didn't have to be nosy to notice.

Or the size of Barry Bonds head.

[Azure]

It is easy to prove doping with cycling because the doping is way more likely to provide a huge benefit to the cyclists, but that argument isn't as easy to make with baseball.

No amount of drugs with improve the intangibles it takes to be a great baseball player. They can help it, but at the end of the day either you have it or you don't. Jeter is a great example of this. He isn't big by any stretch, but he's been a damn good player for years. He just has it.

Hockey on the other hand is to me a lot more prone to doping. Not sure what the NHL doping protocols are, but I'd imagine if they can't catch cyclists, they probably can't catch hockey players either.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by NBC

I don't know. European golfers and fans loved Seve and he was a cheat.

I think that snooker and darts are still above board. Whether or not one classifies them as sports is a different matter.

Any sport where smoking and drinking don't affect your game isn't a sport

[sevenarms]

Originally Posted by kirant

Any sport where smoking and drinking don't affect your game isn't a sport

Guy LaFleur.

[The Goon]

Two breaking stories now:

1)Nike terminating the contract of Lance Armstrong;
2)Lance Armstrong stepping down as head of Livestrong.

Both are developing.

[Regulator75]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...Canada+Alberta

[Baron von Kriterium]

Allegedly, Nike paid the head of UCI in 1999 in order to cover up an Armstrong positive drug test. The amount was allegedly $500K. This was testimony from one of Armstrong's mechanics. Take that for what it's worth, but many of the affidavits from other team members suggested money was sent to UCI's Verbruggen during the Tour de Suisse.

More fallout: Matt White fired from Cycling Australia, Bruyneel fired from Team Radio Shack-Nissan, and Leipheimer fired from Omega Pharma Lotto.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/repo...trong-positive

[Northendzone]

wonder if sportchek is going to have a clearance sale on livestrong stuff?

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by The Goon

Two breaking stories now:

1)Nike terminating the contract of Lance Armstrong;
2)Lance Armstrong stepping down as head of Livestrong.

Both are developing.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/17/news...ong/index.html

"Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him,"