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

Frankly I'm more pleased that the odious bum chinned creep Bruyneel is going to get his long overdue comeuppance.

For me, what is important here is that a clear message is given that if a team institutes a systematic doping programme then the team management can be banned from the sport. The USADA charges are not solely against Armstrong but against those in management positions, and Armstrong was a shareholder in the management company that ran the USPS, Discovery Channel and Radioshack teams hence his inclusion.

The unwritten rule previously was that if a rider tested positive then he was discarded and toed the line that he'd acted alone. Then he'd likely get a new contract when his ban expired.

Very good point, especially as there was an almost unbroken continuity of the same team management outfits getting sponsor after sponsor and continuing to practise the same doping régimes over and over.

and david millar is back.. destination: Olympics.. :-)

Sun sub-editor Schick ^

arch-architect of anti-Armstrong alliteration

Frankly I'm more pleased that the odious bum chinned creep Bruyneel is going to get his long overdue comeuppance.

This. I am worried how heavy a blow this will land to pro-racing today, in as far as audience, sponsorship etc.

Even normal people are talking about this at the coffee machine...

This. I am worried how heavy a blow this will land to pro-racing today, in as far as audience, sponsorship etc.

Everyone already thinks that all Tour de France cyclists are doped to the eyeballs, so I doubt it'll have any material effect.

I think in Europe most cycling fans already know, and accept, that Armstrong was on the juice, but it's still a different story in the US.

Hate him good ridence

Drugs though a difficult run cycling is notorious for it but only because it is such a demanding endurance sport and there is the opportunity but they are endemic in all sport so perhaps it is time to accept that and regulate rather than ban.

Even normal people are talking about this at the coffee machine...

I'm not talking about it :(

There's no comparable sporting event if/when his fall from grace is nailed. He's moved well beyond sport with his other enterprises, so really it's far more than his reputation suffering. His life will end up amounting to nothing. However his loss can be quantified, it'll be enormous.

I'm not talking about it :(
exactly

Bruyneel needs to resign now really, surprised Radioshack-Nissan aren't quietly pointing towards the door.

I don't think anyone quite understands how the Radioshack-Nissan-Trek-Team Leopard team works. I think, and I could be wrong, that Flavio Beccia owns the World Tour license, whilst Bruyneel's company, which is still Tailwind Sports?, provides the sponsors.

But I'd be stunned if Radioshack stay in after this. It's a hobby project for the CEO anyway (Radioshack are a US only brand now).

There's a distinct chance sponsors may start dropping like flies as this plays out. Cycling needs a good tour, and a clean one, to try to wrestle some attention back from this

So what if sponsor are lost? It may change the sport (for the better?) but won't kill it.

Exactly what I was thinking. The biggest events with the best riders will always take place. Whether they are paid a lot or there is a whole circus around them is another matter.

Losing sponsorship and you'll lose teams, like HTC-Highroad, rosters will be smaller, it will be harder to get a contract, we'll get even less TV coverage.

Yes it won't kill it, but it will hurt it. It's difficult to guess just what effect proving Lance is a cheat will have. That said I'm convinced he should be exposed

Losing sponsorship and you'll lose teams, like HTC-Highroad, rosters will be smaller, it will be harder to get a contract, we'll get even less TV coverage.

Yes it won't kill it, but it will hurt it.

I'm not sure how people arrive at these kind of assumptions. Stricter/more effective doping control and a 'cleaner' attitude within the sport in recent years have actually seen an increase in major sponsorship and tv coverage.

Sponsors that could never consider it in case "their" athlete turned out to be doped to the eyeballs can enter if the sport cleans up, for example.

^^Yes, this is true, but not when a 7 times Tour winner is charged, whatever current state of affairs is. There's also rumours the UCI are implicated in a cover up of a positive test in the 2001 Tour de Suisse. It's going to be very messy and it won't make the sport attractive to sponsors, either current or prospective.

^^Yes, this is true, but not when a 7 times Tour winner is charged.

Again, this seems like pure assumption based on a mythical scenario perpetrated by some sections of the press (and of course, Armstrong supporters).

If/when the case(s) go to court and result directly in a reduction of sponsorship within the sport, along with loss of media coverage, I will (un)happily stand up and say you were correct. However, it's not a prediction that I believe will be realised.

I could be argued that Lance finally being brought to account is exactly what is needed for the sport to progress and truly be seen as 'clean' and its the failure to do so until this point that has stored up issues with the way teams are managed and the sport has been governed.

If you look at Fifa and Seb Blatter it took immense external pressure for him to even pretend to take corruption seriously... The fact is that the sums of money at stake and the World Cup franchise especially is worth billions so there is even more vested interest in things continuing as normal despite there being endemic problems.

Believing that attracting more money and more sponsors to cycling will solve or heal any problems is pretty deluded if the people in charge of doing so are already selling their souls for a quick buck.

McQuaid strikes me as being even more 2D in his governance and the fact that he and Verbruggen haven't pursued Landis over his accusations of corruption is pretty damning in that respect. You can't claim to represent the sport in one regard and then disassociate yourself from the negative so easily.

So tr:dr indeed but when legweak and his chipmunk sidekick are strung up and banned i think that will present a good image of cycling that they have been pursued so doggedly and that the mechanisms within the sport exist to weed out cheats and corruption and attract new sponsors on those grounds as opposed to sweeping it all under the carpet for another 12 years when it will inevitably resurface under a different guise.

That said, i'm off to dope myself with a beer and some chicken.

I am worried how heavy a blow this will land to pro-racing today, in as far as audience, sponsorship etc.

Audiences - everybody except the rabid Livestrong fanboys takes it as read that LA and many of his peers doped, so no change.

Sponsors - as far as I know, cycling is cheap to sponsor compared with other sports, for a given level of exposure. Presumably part of this discount is a market pricing of the negative consequence of being associated with doping. Again,no real change results from formal proceedings being issued against LA and his coterie, since a guilty verdict is already heavily discounted in the market.

I'm not sure how people arrive at these kind of assumptions. Stricter/more effective doping control and a 'cleaner' attitude within the sport in recent years have actually seen an increase in major sponsorship and tv coverage.

Yeah maybe, but there are now very few doping product companies who want to be associated with the sport. It hurts.

Again, this seems like pure assumption based on a mythical scenario perpetrated by some sections of the press (and of course, Armstrong supporters).

If/when the case(s) go to court and result directly in a reduction of sponsorship within the sport, along with loss of media coverage, I will (un)happily stand up and say you were correct. However, it's not a prediction that I believe will be realised.

It wasn't really a prediction, more a danger of the fallout. While cycling fans might be well aware of Lance's doping, the wider public are not, and certainly not at the institutionalised level it was at. But Uber is right: cycling needs to expose what has happened and eliminate those involved, although my feeling is it will be a painful process.

And say what you like about the 'cheapness' of cycling sponsorship, HTC-Highroad were a successful and high profile team, and yet they a) lost their sponsor and b) couldn't find another. This will just make the process harder, and that will knock on to the pros themselves: harder to get a contract, and less money when you do.

At the end of the day I hope you're all right and this will not affect the sport adversely, or something it will quickly recover from. My instinct is it won't.

And from a UK perspective, and all the work done by the track team and Sky to attract new fans, I think this will just re-affirm what many already thought and so they will just turn away again.