i can't stand how the media portrays ray lewis as a hero of sort. i don't care what he's accomplished on the field, how much energy he brings or how motivational his speeches are, his hands will forever be stained with another person's life.
Depends what you mean by modern. There's evidence to suggest that the race is clean(er) now. Riders power outputs are down on prior years, when with technology/training advance, you'd expect a gradual improvement. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18921784
Factbox: Reaction to Lance Armstrong's doping admission (Reuters) - Reaction to Lance Armstrong's admission he cheated his way to a record seven Tour de France titles with systematic use of banned, performance-enhancing drugs. TRAVIS TYGART, United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) chief, in a statement: "His admission that he doped throughout his career is a small step in the right direction. "But if he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities." PAT McQUAID, INTERNATIONAL CYCLING UNION (UCI) president, in a statement: "The UCI welcomes Lance Armstrong's decision finally to come clean and to confess to using performance-enhancing drugs, in the first part of his interview with Oprah Winfrey. "We note that Lance Armstrong expressed a wish to participate in a truth and reconciliation process, which we would welcome." LIVESTRONG, cancer foundation set up by Armstrong, in a statement: "We at the Livestrong Foundation are disappointed by the news that Lance Armstrong misled people during and after his cycling career, including us. "Even in the wake of our disappointment, we also express our gratitude to Lance as a survivor for the drive, devotion and spirit he brought to serving cancer patients and the entire cancer community." EMMA O'REILLY, Armstrong's former masseuse who was sued by the rider after speaking out about his doping, told British television channel ITV: "I had only ever spoken about it because I hated seeing what some of the riders were going through, because not all the riders were as comfortable with cheating as Lance was. "And you could see when he went over to the 'dark side' personalities change - and it was an awful shame." JEFF TILLOTSON, lawyer for SCA Promotions which paid Armstrong $12 million in bonus money for Tour de France wins, told Reuters: "Lance Armstrong's statements were jaw-dropping to my clients, because he basically admitted that everything he told us in his sworn deposition was untrue ... He doesn't deserve, and is not entitled to, that money." JONATHAN VAUGHTERS, former team mate of Armstrong, told Reuters in a text message: "It was a good first step. I'm glad he said he would testify to truth and reconciliation." NICOLE COOKE, British 2008 Olympic road race champion, told the BBC: "Lance Armstrong was living in his own horrible world. He's got no morals and he's a disgusting human being. The sad thing is there were clean riders who had livelihoods and careers stolen from them by Lance and we're probably not going to see those people vindicated in any way through this." BETSY ANDREU, wife of former Armstrong team mate Frankie and who had previously said she had heard the disgraced rider confess to doctors treating him for testicular cancer that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs, told CNN: "He could have come clean, he owed it to me, he owed it to the sport that he destroyed. The hospital is where it all started. If he wants a shot of redemption here, he's dropping the ball." DAVID WALSH, Sunday Times journalist and author who has battled to expose Armstrong's doping and who was sued by Armstrong, told the BBC: "The Sunday Times will be looking for around $2 million back from Armstrong, he should pay that back now straight up no questions because the Sunday Times were the one newspaper at that time asking the right questions. The Sunday Times are saying now 'Lance, you admit you doped, give us our money back, do the fair thing, if you don't do the fair thing we will go all the way to get our money back'." PIERRE BALLESTER, co-author of "LA Confidential" with David Walsh, told Reuters TV: "It is unimaginable to think that there was a generalized system of doping in his team without the help or involvement of other institutions or protagonists. So he benefited from protection. He didn't reveal them. I think that all this was negotiated ahead of this Hollywood show to protect his back and possibly to save his foundation." BRIAN COOKSON, British Cycling president, told the BBC: "I don't think he's sorry. I think he's just sorry he got caught." STUART O'GRADY, former Tour de France stage winner, told reporters: "Lance deceived everybody on the planet, us included. Obviously we all wanted to believe also he was winning the Tours clean. We are all athletes suffering through the mountains and you'd like to think that he was just training harder and working harder than we all were. "But now it's all come out, (I am) deceived, annoyed, frustrated." TONY DOYLE, British former cyclist, told the BBC: "No one is more amazed or staggered with the revelations that have come out. I completely bought into the Lance Armstrong story, his story on how he overcame the cancer, and everything that went with that. I got to know Lance fairly well, and I'm amazed by the extent of deceit that's been going on." ANDY PARKINSON, UK Anti-Doping CEO, told Sky Sports News: "I've been in front of athletes who have been ashamed of what they have done in the past and this didn't ring in the same way to me. From what I can see I this is an action that has been forced on him rather than he has come forward. The point he makes about winning the Tour de France you have to cheat is bemusing because he was the winner for seven years and of course you had to cheat because he was cheating." NOVAK DJOKOVIC, tennis world number one, told reporters at the Australian Open: "I think it's a disgrace for the sport to have an athlete like this. He cheated the sport. He cheated many people around the world with his career, with his life story. I think they should take all his titles away because it's not fair towards any sportsman, any athlete. It's just not the way to be successful. So I think he should suffer for his lies all these years." http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/18/us-cycling-armstrong-reaction-idUSBRE90H0EW20130118 ------------- I bolded the ones I most agree with.
I still think he is probably one of the best riders ever - just because I truly believe everyone of the top riders were doping. The problem is the way he was acting. Like tweeting him with the 7 yellow jerseys AFTER he got caught - like acting as he was the victim of a conspiracy. Like threatening former teammates. Like suing people that told the truth. Like swearing under oath that he was not doing why he was doing. He is not and never was a victim of the sport. While I believe that every major player was doping, I do believe he had the best network, the best "medicine" and the least moral objections to it. He didn't do it because he had to - he did it because he wanted to. You don't need to use doping to win 7 titles - in his dominating years he could try to do it the right way - or he could come clean early. Stating that the whole sport is full of doping and he is sick of having to dope to be able to compete. He could've been a role model that changes the sport or at least tries to. But he wanted to dominate, he wanted to be remembered as the best ever - I'd even say he wanted to humiliate his opponents (often stating that Jan Ulrich could've beat him, if he was working out on Christmas instead of eating turkey) - and for that he was ready to use every thing possible and always be ahead of his opponents even in the use of doping. And the only reason why he came clean now was, because he got caught. And he didn't even come clean in front of a judge but in front of a camera... Now I think he will be remembered as the greatest doper and cheater ever...
You'd likely never have heard of Lance if he didn't dope, he most liekly would hvae been just a part of the pack and easier to dispose of than listen to. It's like MLB riding the coat tails of the Mcgwire / Sosa derby, running the chicks dig longballs commercials, and then acting horrified when things started coming to light; MLB knew and the cycling community knew but Lance was the greatest thing to happen to TDF and cycling in general... at the end of the day, Lance dominated other cheaters 7 times because he was better. If he had been clean he'd have just lost to the cheaters until they replaced him with a cheater. Sports are dirty but they are for most everyone. Talent gets you so far and then "training" will get you the rest of the way and they will always looking for "better ways to train" so that legislation will not keep up.
I am not necessarily talking about Armstrong at the beginning of his career - for a young rider in a sport where everybody is doping it probably is hard to say no. I am talking about the dominator Armstrong. He could have testified earlier - he could have made it clear, that doping is a part of the sport, that everybody uses it and you can't compete if you don't. He could've even come clean after his career. But he never did. He even tweeted that disgusting photo of him with his 7 yellow jerseys after he got caught. And if he is the greatest rider of all time, he should've been able to make the top 10 without doping. That's not bad - actually it is quite good. And if you are the only one being clean doing this and openly talking about it and fighting for a clean sport, well then you can be a hero. But Armstrong chose to be the villain.
I love that Lance says he didn't dope after 2005 -- yet he finishes 3rd overall after a 4 year lay off in 2009... at 38 years old.
Hahaha yes - completely ridiculous. Not credible at all. Throughout the whole interview, you could tell he was trying to hide the arrogant, smug, ruthless jerk and liar, but that person kept creeping out.
You can choose to be the hero or the villain. No doubt, he had unparalleled drive amid competitors in the same muck, but that vanity to be even greater than the next guy was his undoing. As talented as he was, I'm sure one clean Tour de France win would be something he could have accomplished and would gladly trade for right now...
He was not the best ever. He had the best doctors. Indurain won 5 in the row and he didn't skip out of the rest of the cycling calendar. Lemond won 3 while nearly dying from a shotgun accident between his titles. He left cycling because of some health problems. You don't think they could have lasted longer if they had EPO and HGH?
I'm changing my tune on Armstrong and I'll eat the crow it comes with. **** this coward and his nacasistic ass. After watching the 60 minutes piece I hope he goes broke and end up in jail.
How do you know they weren't doping too? Some of their competitors were so it would be hard to imagine them winning fair and square.
There is a new book about Lance Armstrong. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...rong-by-juliet-macur-book-review-9174911.html Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by Juliet Macur, book review Quite apart From all the scandalous stories of drugs and intimidation, one of the most fascinating revelations in Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong comes in the first two paragraphs. A large oak tree stands outside the colonial mansion in Austin, Texas, that cost the seven-times Tour de France winner $10m (£6m). It used to be on the far side of the estate, but Armstrong wanted it by the front gate. He paid $200,000 to have it moved. Until everything started to unravel, Armstrong always got what he wanted. That includes what the US authorities called "the most sophisticated and professionalised doping programme sport has ever seen" (though the former East Germany might have something to say about that). With a small army of confederates, some more willing than others, Armstrong bullied, lied and cheated his way to the top – and as the wealth of personal testimony amassed by the New York Times writer Juliet Macur makes clear, the bullying was as central to his success as his pharmacological intake. A drugs omerta has always prevailed in cycling, so even as large a doping operation as that run by the US Postal team was able to get away with it. As Macur shows, if it weren't for his deeply flawed character Armstrong might still be getting away with it, for all the efforts of journalists like Macur (and particularly David Walsh ofThe Sunday Times). Even in his teens he was attempting to intimidate opponents on start lines and finish lines, and there is an extraordinary account from the other end of his career, when he was fighting the drugs allegations, of a children's fun race that he was supposed to lead out. He couldn't stop himself winning the thing. His vindictiveness is well-documented, but there is always room for more detail, like his charming email to Travis Tygart of the US Anti-Doping Agency: "Hope you have a bodyguard and a bulletproof vest." Much of it leaves one pondering not so much on the drugs operation as the fact that Armstrong comes across as a nasty piece of work. While a lot of the material is already in the public domain, Macur interviewed more than 100 people, and she also gained access to tapes made by JT Neal, an early mentor of Armstrong, who was diagnosed with cancer around the same time and died in 2002. So hurt was he by how his former charge treated him that he was planning a book, and the tapes reveal Armstrong's remarkable capacity to make enemies of those previously close to him. As the lawsuits piled up, the Austin mansion had to go, though presumably the oak is still there by the front gate. In the end, Armstrong's ruthless nature and his treatment of former loyalists was his undoing. While bullying and coercion was central to keeping the show on the road, eventually those things brought him down and his old team-mates betrayed him. Keep them onside and he might still be a global hero living his lie. ------------------- Armstrong, who likes to play up the "cancer survivor" card, didn't have time to go and visit his longtime friend and mentor JT Neal, who was...dying of cancer. Neal left 26 hours of tape recordings about Armstrong because he was so hurt by this. Armstrong is one of the worst human beings who ever participated in any sport.
