I'm sorry, but what hand did Armstrong have in forcing entire other teams worth of competitors to dope...? These are the two things I do not buy. 1) Armstrong is some mafia don whose influence in doping forced hundreds of people to cheat 2) Livestrong was created as some public relations front The concept of those two things is just silly to me. They put Armstrong in like super villain territory.
Absolutely untrue. I have always and consistently thought it likely that he doped (unlike some people, I didn't go around beating this drum until I had sufficient cause/evidence). It's extremely unlikely someone clean beat a field of cheaters. I thought the early 'evidence' and public tit-for-tats were asinine. I did not think he was innocent. Do not mistake playing devil's advocate for being on "Team Lance".
One thing I would like to say is that I really think Travis Tygart is amazing. And I have to say, in a country like Russia or China, NEVER would they have made an investigation like that possible that finally delivered the truth. Go USA!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...ine-lance-armstrong-20130115,0,3444200.column Some notable snippets from the article: Contrary to apparently some people here on the forum, some people in the journalist world have the class to admit that they were wrong, and to apologize for what they said: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ve-lance-armstrong-when-he-denied-doping.html
Will be interesting to see if anyone sues him for libel/slander/etc. He defamed and threatened a lot of people, and potentially destroyed careers. The claims he's made over the years about his accusers are long and ridiculous.
So after cheating for years, lying for years, covering up for years, intimidating for years, besmirching for years, he's now going to cap it off with snitching? Snitching? Congrats Lance, you've managed to knock Bonds down to number two. You are now officially the worst star athlete in modern sports. PS, OJ is in a different category.
dude, russia or china didn't even have a single tour winner. so it's hard to prove your belief, isn't it? armstrong's predecessor was Miguel Indurain who's from Spain. after armstrong, i wouldn't give him the benefit of doubt either as we all know it's impossible to compete being clean in that era. so spain's probably is better example of impossible to have a Travis Tygart or not being USA-like or whatever you want to prove.
Lance Armstrong can't win final stage of this fight, no matter what he says in upcoming Oprah Winfrey interview For the last time: Nobody made Armstrong take drugs. Nobody made him lie about that drug use and play the whole world for suckers. Nobody made Lance Armstrong strong-arm Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy and Greg LeMond and his wife Kathy. Lance Armstrong has told so many lies across the years, so many of them about his own doping, even he must lose track of them sometimes. Some have been told to the media, some in depositions, some to those who dared to cross him. You want to know why this guy might not get to ride off into the sunset without the law chasing him like the rest of the field in the Tour de France? Start there. Just over seven years ago, Armstrong sued a Texas company for Tour de France bonuses the company, SCA Promotions, was withholding because of doping allegations that of course Armstrong was denying at the time. This was before he became the great line from the old boxing promoter Bob Arum, the one about how yesterday he was lying but today, hallelujah, he was telling the truth. And in that deposition, Armstrong was asked what would happen to his endorsements if it ever came out that he was using the same drugs that so many others in the race were using, all the cyclists who were not treated as living saints and American heroes. Would he lose those endorsements? That really was the question of the day, Nov. 30, 2005. Armstrong: “All of them. And the faith of all the cancer survivors around the world. So everything I do off of the bike would go away, too. And don’t think for a second I don’t understand that. It’s not about the money for me. Everything. It’s also about the faith that people have put in me over the years. So all of that would be erased. So I don’t need it to say in a contract that you’re fired if you test positive. That’s not as important as losing the support of hundreds of millions of people.” Only Armstrong — who seems to still have this weird, grandiose version of where he fits in the universe — would actually think that he had the support of “hundreds of millions of people.” It is just worth mentioning that in a week where we are all expecting him to cry with Oprah Winfrey, because so many things he said in the past, about so many things, make you laugh now. Including a line in the middle of that statement from 2005 about how it wasn’t about the money with him. Good Lord, no, that would have made him like everybody else instead of an American hero. Lance Armstrong sure wants a lot now for this confession that he has supposedly made to Oprah Winfrey. He wants the Department of Justice to stay away from him, he wants understanding, he wants redemption, wants his lifetime ban from competition lifted, wants to explain that he only started doping because everybody else was doping. In so many ways, this is a way for Lance Armstrong to get back on a bike that did inspire so many people and try to ride off, ride away from the lies that he told and the people he hurt to protect the lies. At the heart of all this, if any of this story has a heart, is that this all really began to happen because Lance Armstrong, heroic cancer survivor — sometimes he acts as if he’s the only one — was just another victim of a dirty sport. Armstrong is called a 'professional at lying,' by former teammate Frankie Andreu. But this will be his version, one that will apparently include the denial that he was some kind of doping ringleader on his own teams. “That’s bull---,” Betsy Andreu, the wife of former Armstrong U.S. Postal Service teammate, Frankie Andreu, said on Tuesday afternoon. “He wasn’t the ringleader? He was the owner of the team.” Betsy Andreu, whose truth-telling about Armstrong is now vindicated along with her husband’s truth-telling, then said this: “Who profited the most from the doping? Again, who owned the team? Who told the other guys on the team that they had to step up? It’s all in the (United States Anti-Doping Agency) report. Are you kidding? If he wasn’t the ringleader, what was he?” “He has,” Frankie Andreu said, “been a professional at lying.” You know Armstrong wants this to be cycling’s fault, at least in part. And you know there is a part of Armstrong, big part, that justifies what he did because of all the cancer survivors given comfort and even hope by his foundation Livestrong, though at this particular point in time it is clear that the only cancer survivor in whom Armstrong is most interested is himself. And you know that at some level, Armstrong even wants this to be the fault of all sports where performance-enhancing drugs became the drugs of choice at the time he began winning the Tour de France. But for the last time: Nobody made Armstrong take drugs. Nobody made him lie about that drug use and play the whole world for suckers. Nobody made Lance Armstrong strong-arm Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy and Greg LeMond and his wife Kathy, and a masseuse named Emma O’Reilly whom Armstrong labeled a w**** in that 2005 deposition. And that is just the short list. Now he is going to tell us all about it, in a setting that you hope — for Oprah’s sake — isn’t some kind of glorified pillow fight. Armstrong has always thought that he is some kind of charismatic Elmer Gantry, able to convince an audience of almost anything. He sold the lie for such a long time, and when people finally stopped buying, he had to try something else. Like going from the Tour de France to triathlons. By the end of this week, we’ll be expected to believe that Lance just had to find a way to level the playing field in the hills of France, had to use drugs and keep using them because the world needed a hero like him. And if you believe that, this new version of the truth, he’s got more yellow bracelets he wants to sell you. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/lupica-lying-lance-win-final-stage-article-1.1240966
I have to get back to this. It does not make sense that you would doubt these two things. Just to address no. 1: Armstrong was the dominant rider on the tour. We already know, from the USADA report, that he forced some of the members of his own team to dope. That is what everyone else had to try and compete with: One rider and his team who had the most sophisticated doping scheme of all. If that doesn't make everyone else try and compete with the same methods, what does? So yes, he forced members of his own team to dope. They were pawns he used to further his personal success. And because the dominating team was doping like crazy, others tried to catch up. And he knew that, too. One rider (Simeoni) who spoke up against these practices - he chased him down, humiliated him, then made the "zipped lips" gesture. I have posted it a few times. It is impossible that you missed this. And yet, you make it seem like he was just another guy who had to dope because everyone else did. That is ridiculous, and delusional. That is exactly the story he will try to sell now. To address no. 2: Armstrong was extremely calculating in every one of his moves. He bribed people, pressured people, intimidated people, threatened people, called a lady who testified against him a prostitute and made her life hell. He did EVERYTHING to cover up his criminal scheme. If you think that he did not at least PARTLY use Livestrong as a shield against allegations, once again, you are closing your eyes to the truth. From the article I just posted: So he used Livestrong to bolster his moral integrity. As we know now, it was all a giant lie, from the beginning. Now, if Livestrong actually helped people with cancer, his motivation does not matter for these people - what matters is that they got help. Hmm - yes, mostly true, but you bet these people will be disappointed with Armstrong, too.
More to add about this from an October 2012 Guardian article: Perhaps Livestrong should strip Lance Armstrong of one more title: chairman The future of the cancer foundation set up by Lance Armstrong looks uncertain in the wake of the drugs scandal There's one victory that the US anti-doping agency can never strip from Lance Armstrong: he beat cancer. More than that, he inspired a major cultural shift in how we view the disease and people afflicted with it: they're no longer cancer "victims", "patients" or "sufferers". They're cancer survivors. The disease is no longer to be endured; it's to be fought. In 1997, during his successful treatment, Armstrong established a small foundation, known as Livestrong. The purpose was to fund testicular cancer research. In its first year, it took in less than $250,000. Nine years and seven Tour de France titles later, Livestrong had sold more than 75m $1 yellow wristbands, and had made Armstrong a global hero to millions. But now that Armstrong has been stripped of those Tour titles, the question has been raised: does his charity work somehow make up for his bad behaviour as a sportsman? Is it OK that he cheated, somehow, because (as more than one influential US sports columnist has written) he "does so much for cancer"? Last year I made a thorough investigation of Livestrong for Outside magazine – what it does, and what it doesn't do. One thing it doesn't do – contrary to popular opinion – is fund cancer research, in the sense of guys in white lab coats looking for a cancer cure. Your Livestrong donation will not hasten that cure. It does help cancer patients and their families "navigate" the patchy and hostile realms of the US healthcare system. But it also does quite a lot to boost the stature and brand value of one Lance Armstrong. In August 2009, for example, the foundation spent about $7m – a quarter of its annual spend – on a Dublin "summit" whose main purpose seems to have been presenting Armstrong as a kind of global statesman, on the same plane as his role models, Bono and Bill Clinton. That seems a very long time ago. This week, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USASA) released about 1,000 pages of evidence and testimony that Armstrong used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions throughout his Tour de France career. It is gruesome reading. There is no more room for reasonable doubt. In the sporting realm, he is utterly disgraced. Should that opprobrium also extend to Livestrong? Without doubt, Livestrong has helped many people with cancer. There are some good, dedicated people who work there (their PR director certainly deserves a raise after what she's been through this year). And without doubt, Armstrong has inspired many more cancer survivors, just by having survived the disease himself, and triumphing as an athlete. But as we now know, he has also been lying to them, for years. He lies to them still, every time he repeats his tired denials. How is that OK? A year ago, I predicted that Armstrong would lose his Tour titles. I did not foresee, however, the extent to which Livestrong would be enlisted in his defence. Every time there was a new eruption in the doping case, it seemed, Livestrong was launching some sort of new campaign or new "outpouring of support" for cancer survivors. Anything to change the subject. His lawyers shamelessly cited Livestrong in their letters and press releases, and even in court filings. On more than one occasion, Livestrong-paid lobbyists were reported to have questioned congressmen and senators about the USADA investigation. Charity funds were apparently being used to help the charity's founder avoid doping sanctions. Again: how is that OK? Why would anyone (but a true believer) ever write them a cheque, ever again? Livestrong may survive this storm. If it does, one would hope that it is because of the public's generosity toward its cancer-stricken fellows, and not because people have suddenly decided, in the 21st century, that poor ethics don't matter any more, so long as the person in question has done sufficient charity work (historical note: the Catholic church tried that during the middle ages, selling indulgences to make up for sins. It didn't work out so well). My analysis of Livestrong's behaviour and its spending, though, leads to one inescapable conclusion. In order to survive, perhaps it needs to strip Lance Armstrong of one more title: chairman. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2012/oct/12/livestrong-lance-armstrong-chairman
Mmmmh. Explains why you would still try and downplay what Armstrong did. And what I said was obviously not untrue - your quotes above clearly show that you were denying that he doped. But some people will own up to having been wrong in the past (and having attacked "the Euro on the board"), some will say "it's absolutely untrue" that they ever said it.
I knew this was coming. Go MMhmm yourself. 1) I already stated that I don't feel Armstrong's athletic accomplishments are tarnished much at all because his entire field of competition was doping. To win 7 TDF's takes dedication and an assload of training and skill. If Armstrong was the only one doping, I'd feel differently. 2) Your vendetta against Armstrong was comical. You fit the persona of the bitter european who is pissy because an American dominated his sport to a tee. Lots of people cheated, yet you focus on Armstrong almost exclusively. That makes me question your motives. And the way you paint him as some kind of moustache twirling super villain only reinforces that for me. 3) I still feel like it's a massive waste of time. I feel like nothing was accomplished here. I feel like the same way about the baseball fiasco. 4) Once again, do not mistake devil's advocate for "team lance". You're a lawyer, so you should understand as well as anyone that you can defend someone while thinking (or knowing) full well that they are guilty as sin. You defend the process, not the person. I found the evidence and the process to be silly and largely immaterial until recently. Note how many times I stated that I found it unsurprising, if not likely, that he doped. Like I said before, I found no reason to go on this crusade against him until the case warranted it.
Wrong about WHAT? Where did I say Lance did not dope? Do you honestly not understand how you can be unconvinced/unimpressed by a case against someone and still think it likely they are guilty?
Your aggression and outbursts show that you are bitter about this. Lance cheated, defrauded, intimidated, threatened, slandered, bribed - and ultimately lost. As I have always said, the truth came out eventually. You are bitter about this. You lost.
