Lance Armstrong... greatest doper there was or ever will be

Oh it was the Ashenden piece, FFS I'm a twat.

So in addition to being an arsehole LA personally kicked off the doping arms race in the 00's with the end result that when 21 year old neo-pros can die in their sleep it's described as "natural causes" and not even an autopsy takes place.

That's why I give a shit.

Yep.

I nearly puked when I saw him interviewed on telly where he basically said that he kept the two vials deliberately because he knew what he was doing was wrong used them as his method of coming clean and turning himself in.

Yeah well, he's not claiming to have dipped his cock in holy water and cured aids whilst saving the entire human race from their own bodies and then set up a profit making foundation to help subsidise his private jet, so I'm happy to accept that he's at least done the time for the crime, had his titles stripped where applicable and has been publicly humiliated to boot. Too bad that doesn't happen across the board... maybe if he donated some cash to the UCI for a new bubblegum machine in the staffroom or something...

Plus, he's a hipster at heart so you know if he wasn't on a proteam he'd be in Shoreditch riding a rad fixie with spok and blogging with his gf.

*brolove

So in addition to being an arsehole LA personally kicked off the doping arms race in the 00's with the end result that when 21 year old neo-pros can die in their sleep it's described as "natural causes" and not even an autopsy takes place.

Not sure if serious, or parody?

If this is a serious point it gets to the core of the problem I have with Armstrong-hating.

First, I would question the assertion that the Tour had decided to 'go clean' in 1999. The evidence for that seems partial, following on a decade of blood doping by the pro-peloton. It seems implausible that there was any consensus to clean the sport up and it is certain that doping was happening on teams other than US Postal. Pantani, for example, was juiced to the gills pre and post 1999. To suggest Armstrong was the cause of that is wrong.

Second, if Armstrong was doping and others had gone clean, one response would have been to ostracise him rather than to compete on his (doped) terms. Of course the deeply ingrained culture of doping and omerta, which far predated Armstrong's success, precluded that. It is plain that Armstrong was first a product and later an exponent and enforcer of the doping culture, but to suggest he created it is wrong.

The problem, as I see it, is that Armstrong has become a proxy for the entire culture of doping in professional cycling in the late 90s and early 00s. In that analysis, Armstrong becomes directly responsible for the deaths of neo-pros. Yet the doping culture was far broader than Armstrong and to lay the blame solely at his door is to let every doctor, DS, cyclist and soigneur who played a part in propagating that culture off the hook. It would be great if Armstrong came clean or was successfully prosecuted, but it wouldn't solve the far broader problem that existed and still exists.

That's really well put, T-V.

Coincidentally, I just found a TDF video from 1999 knocking about at work, just reading the names in the GC... There's no way the same attitudes to doping exist these days, but I wouldn't like to put a definitive timescale on it, it's more of a gradual process which isn't yet complete.

If the sport if to prosper and reduce the damage done, we almost have to accept that it's not necessarily useful to apply today's sensibilities to the tour riders of decades past.

I liked Ulrich though. He was a heiffer, drank whole microwaved pots of nutella after a stage and liked the ladies. Pantani, Vandenbrouke, smashed races apart and loved the ching. They were cheats but they were flawed and they had charisma. Ditto Merckx or Simpson or most anyone else you care to mention.

People like flaws as it can make them human, trying to be an all-american messiah and preaching down to everyone is going to earn you enemies even if you aren't a dodgy cheating bastard to boot.
Plus armstrong comes across as a juiced up alligator with a deformed medulla oblongata and even when he's trying to look nice by setting up his cultish foundation you still wouldn't piss on him to put out flames as his body language still just screams 'cunt!' and it comes across as an extremely cynical media exercise to divert attention from the real man behind it.

+1

No one cares that he was on drugs, he's just a cunt and for that reason no one likes him.

Is that a fair summary.

Der Kaiser insisted on ported 12" subs for the TMobile party bus. Loved a bit of low end reinforcement he did.

Ha - awesome lounge pose

No one cares that he was on drugs, he's just a cunt and for that reason no one likes him.

Is that a fair summary.

mmm.

Man rides. Lots of doping going on, he isn't super good.

Man gets cancer.

Man comes back, wins everything. Juiced to the fucking gills.

Man does best Yankee Jesus impression, dates corny singer and makes millions.

Man gets caught doping, pays off the UCI, keeps paying banned Doctors for 'training plans' and keeps winning.

Man alienated everyone and anyone who might have a problem with this.

Man sets up foundation and sells millions of wristbands to cancer sufferers, their relatives, kind hearted, well meaning people.

Man uses reflected publicity from this to his own personal financial advantage.

Man uses status to destroy anyone that infers he might be a cheating cunt and that he admitted doping when getting a nut lopped off.

Man continues bad-ass-but-holier-than-thou campaign to end of career, winning record titles along the way and reaming the sport for all he can muster.

Man retires. Ex-luitenant and team-mate wins TdF in his place. Gets caught doping.

Man continues to be a prick even when retired.

Man unretires, still behaves like a cunt. Alberto cries a little bit.

Man realises he's not got the juice anymore and retires properly. Alberto sniffs his fingers. Floyd spits his dummy out.

Man finds it harder and harder to escape the fact that he's going to get caught. Everyone faced with jail spills beans. Man pays off Senator, case dropped.

Man counts money and doesn't give a fuck anymore.

The End.

No one cares that he was on drugs

I think most people do. If they didn't, that would be resignation/acceptance to ongoing cheating. No way back once that happens. Besides, someone deserves to be made an example of, so it may as well be him. He's no victim in any of this - what he's very good at is canny media manipulation, cover-ups and lies. He's like a crooked CEO, and his entire status is based on a sham of his own making.

Ha - awesome lounge pose

From the doping thread:

It just goes on and on...

apparently Johann Bruyneel was served with a subpoena when he arrived in Cali for ATOC.

He's no Big Mig, or Eddy Merckx but damned good all the same

If only Merckx and Lance raced in the same times.. There's some racing I'd like to see

it would be a fair fight as they were both dopers :)

Merckx was a junior boxing champion.

So what? Armstrong has given us silicon bracelets.

How's he going to use that in a fight? As a makeshift catapult?

He will use the weight of his hubris to suffocate us into submission.

Boom!

I thought for a minute this would make Jan Ullrich 'the most winningest tour de France athlete' in history. But I was wrong, he would be tied on 5.