An excellent link PS!
"Very good history" is a bit of an understatement - and it seems there are more bombshells still to be let loose.
Can't wait . . .
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Sport
Lance latest
(115 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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The sheer audacity of the man...
"
Lance Armstrong
Hey Montreal - anyone want to run tomorrow? Meet me at the Monument to Sir George - Etiene Cartier. 6pm! 7.5km loop.
"Posted 11 years ago # -
He's a brand, and he will get people turn up to that. Just because he's been found guilty until proven innocent by an anti-doping branch that has no authority over world anti-doping or world cycling (neither of whom have stripped him of his titles) doesn't mean he should never appear in public again.
Don't get me wrong, I don't actually like the guy, and I think he more than likely was doping (in a way that beat the testers at the time, like a lot of cyclists at the time), but he's not actually been found guilty of anything at all, and USADA have released none of the hard 'evidence'.
I'm struggling to see why he shouldn't go on a public run and invite people along... (yes it's arrogant, but as stated, loads of people will turn up and the arrogance will be proved justified, and Livestrong may get itself a few more dollars in the jar).
Posted 11 years ago # -
?...by an anti-doping branch that has no authority over world anti-doping or world cycling (neither of whom have stripped him of his titles)
All of the regional ADAs have duristriction over their athletes. Look at the Contador case, it was the Spanish authorities who imposed the punishment on him (in relation to the TdF)WADA or the UCI can question that punishment, as they did in the Contador case for being too lenient. After the CAS hearing, the case was handed back to SADA for punishment, and they stripped him of his TdF victories and banned him. Armstrong also tried to argue that USADA didn't have duristriction, and this was thrown out by a judge.
and USADA have released none of the hard 'evidence'
They can't, as this is still an active case.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I find it hard to believe anyone still looks up to him.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I did find myself reading between the lines in his autobiography and thinking I wouldn't like him in person. How's the audiosoup?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Like WC, I don't think Armstrong's denials have much credibility but I'm also finding the claims of a massive conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of world cycling, focused solely on the protection of Lance Armstrong quite incredible. When I see stuff like this I'm put in mind of vultures or hyenas. Something that comes along after the kill and picks over it seeing what scraps it can get.
I was Lance’s personal assistant for two years, during the height of his racing career. Do I think he cheated? Yep.
What do you mean, do I think. You mean you don't know? His PA at the height of his racing career doesn't know if he doped? I'd have thought that what a PA doesn't know isn't worth knowing.
But I find this tale of Betsy Andreu interesting.
That year she and Frankie both gave depositions saying that in 1996 they heard Armstrong tell doctors in an Indianapolis hospital room that he’d used EPO, human growth hormone, cortisone, steroids, and testosterone.
Great. He told a doctor. It'll be in his medical records because a doctor would record that. It's in there, right. Or perhaps the doctor is also part of the mega-conspiracy that protects Lance at all costs.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think there's a version of what's going on that pertains inside cycling and another outside. Phil Liggett also insists that Lance is the victim of a conspiracy though one aimed at discrediting him. The omerta around the issue of drugs was described by Paul Kimmage. He was vilified for writing Rough Ride. The cosy bubble of cycling doesn't seem to want to deal with the truth about drug abuse. How far and wide that bubble extends I don't know. But seven years of drug testing incompetency certainly pushes the bounds of credibility.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The more I read, Lance most have been doing something.
There is also a Kimmage defence fund after the UCI have placed a lawsuit against him
Great article in Sunday Times yesterday, here is a sample, full link here for those with access.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/sport/cycling/article1131795.ece
I remind him of the people who told the truth and had their careers cut short or their characters assassinated. The idealistic young French rider Christophe Bassons, driven out of the 1999 Tour de France by the leader of Hamilton’s US Postal team, Armstrong. Bassons’ crime was to tell the truth about doping.
“I kind of knew what was going on with Bassons and knew it was in my best interests not to talk to him. Looking back, it was wrong, same with Filippo Simeoni in 2004.”
When the former US Postal soigneur Emma O’Reilly spoke honestly of her time as Armstrong’s masseuse, he made scurrilous and untrue allegations against her character. By the time O’Reilly’s story was made public, Hamilton had left US Postal but still he didn’t stand up for O’Reilly. “I didn’t know about the personal stuff that Lance brought up. If I had, I would have backed Emma 100%.
“Emma was the best soigneur I ever had. A great, great person, you can see it in her eyes, she’s the salt of the earth and everyone on the team knew that. When she came out with the doping stuff about Lance, I couldn’t be seen to support her but I knew what she was saying was true. And I liked it in a strange way: ‘The asshole’, I thought, ‘is getting some heat’. I kind of felt he deserved it.”
The Armstrong portrayed in The Secret Race has few redeeming characteristics. “Everything in the book is the truth,” Hamilton says. “Obviously he’s got some great qualities. If he was leading by five or six minutes going into the last week of the Tour de France, he would be in a good mood and could be very funny.”
A story of how Armstrong chased and beat up a motorist is far from amusing. “We all have our darker side, a lot of mine is in the book and I felt it was fair to share some of the stories about Lance. Sometimes he went way beyond where the majority of people would go. In that incident with the motorist, if I had done what he did I would feel bad for that guy for the rest of my life.”
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago #
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The lead up to bringing out a confession is under way
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-said-to-weigh-admission-of-doping.html?_r=1&Posted 11 years ago # -
'The Secret Race' by Tyler Hamilton was compulsive holiday reading for me. Helps to explain why back then 'it wasn't about the bike'.
I'd like to think that it was better now but some of the old characters are still around.Posted 11 years ago # -
Matt Seaton's analysis here strikes me as pretty sound:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2013/jan/05/lance-armstrong-ready-confess-doping
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago #
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Which strategy is he going to try - the Bill Clinton 'smoked but didn't inhale' or a 'weeping, self-flagellating throwing himself on the mercy of the court' tactic?
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I injected, but I did not inhale."
Posted 11 years ago # -
I quite like the idea... The drug abusing father on one sofa, the ex wives on another, kids in an anti room. Maybe they'll get free counselling?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Interview by Oprah, I imagine many probing, difficult questions then...........
Posted 11 years ago # -
Would have been better on Jerry Springer. "Come on out Paul Kimmage!" Lance leaps up fists ready. George Hincapie tries to separate them. Lance swings, misses Kimmage but lands a blow on Tyler Hamilton who falls into Kevin Livingstone's lap. Simeoni comes out from behind the curtain and all hell breaks loose.
Posted 11 years ago # -
A game for next Thursday:
Posted 11 years ago # -
Ha ha, I would definitely watch Tom's version.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@rust - have you the original link for that bingo card please?
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think this is it:
http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/740387_10151330209458427_740015787_o.jpg
Posted 11 years ago # -
"US cyclist Lance Armstrong apologises to Livestrong staff"
Posted 11 years ago # -
I caught the last 5 minutes or so of Today on R4, which was discussing the upcoming apology. It was a bit silly in that it kept trying to compare it to (religious) confession but the priest made some good points. the one that sticks with me is that it is only really confession if he personally apologizes to those who he wronged. Can't see that happening!
Posted 11 years ago # -
It keeps on rolling and rolling...
Posted 11 years ago # -
Nicole Cooke's retirement statement was great on the whole subject of contrition, especially people like Tyler Hamilton now raking it in and getting awards on the back of his "regret" at having stolen wins and prize money, contracts and honours, none of which he's had to give back.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
Admitting doping might be a first step into trying to mitigate his lifetime ban from competition."
I think it's a big "might".
If it happened would people want to be in the same race(s)?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Yes, the Cooke statement was on the money.
Must admit I have been becoming more and more disillusioned with the sport I have loved (for 25 years) over the last few years. The Festina affair was supposed to sort all of this out, and it clearly didn't. This chapter will result in a whole host of new measures, and probably change at the top, and the sport still won't change.
The message I took from Hamilton's book was the impunity with which the peleton operated, there was no arms race against the dopers so to speak. The dopers were light years ahead of the testers, it didn't matter if you got tested so long as you followed a few simple rules. I doubt much has changed.
Sky may, or may not be operating to the letter of the law, but the attitude is exactly the same. The athletes are simply spreadsheets to be manipulated, a science experiment to get the best numbers, shame.
Unfortunately, I have now come to the conclusion the sport doesn't deserve my time.
Posted 11 years ago #
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