Lance Armstrong and Pro Cycling

[Adak]

Pro cycling has always had a problem with cheating - including getting rides from cars, and trains, in the early days. Likewise, it's always had a problem with racers using drugs.

Let's face it, you can pedal longer and harder when you have a boost from better chemistry, including EPO (blood doping), etc.

When Armstrong started racing, that was the norm for all the top racers, and he adopted it, as well. As one racer stated for the Tour Broadcast some years back:

There are two races here in the Tour. There are the men, and there are the supermen. The supermen are in the first peloton, up ahead.

Once Armstrong began the lie, he couldn't very well go back and say "oops! I lied!". The team director himself was a former racer, and he also was discovered to be a doper, when he raced (and he admitted it).

So Lance's banned for life (big deal, his racing career is over at his age), and they have stripped him of his Tour wins.

The irony is that everyone who finished second and third, were also using banned substances. Yes, every one of them. Lance and a few others, were just able to do it more discreetly than the others, who have largely been caught by now.

The doping science will continue to try and evade detection, but finally -- after more than 20 years of knowing about the problem and winking slyly at it - the Tour de France and all the major cycling races, have gotten serious about enforcing it. That's not easy to do in a Tour race, but it's necessary.

[Flint]

Said it before, I'll say it again, there was a statistically impossible (and otherwise inexplicable) leap in performance that the entire cycling industry experienced simultaneously, and have sustained ever since (except for the ones who, overnight, lost the ability to compete on the new "level" playing field). There is no lack of industry insiders to openly admit that they are ALL doping. That's just a plain fact.

The Lance Armstrong thing was a media circus. He was doing what they all do.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hmmm

[Pico and ME]

Sports isn't about challenging your body to do its best, it's about putting the best chemicals in you body to take the challenge out of sports.

[orthodoc]

I say, give the title to the 23rd place finisher (or whatever place can be shown not to have cheated) and make a big deal of it. Refuse to even name, or make reference to the cheaters anymore. Ban them all for life, and everyone connected with them, and never mention them again.

Oh, and create a culture that celebrates clean training/competing and is utterly intolerant of anything else. Publicly shame corporations that endorse cheaters. Use as many approaches as possible to get the message across. And now that Armstrong has manipulated the media for his own purposes, let him never get another interview or invitation. He should fall into obscurity.

Eta maybe his corporate sponsors should sue him for breach of contract and demand the return of their monies as compensation for their public humiliation. There had to be at least an implied assumption of honesty on his part in the endorsement contracts. Financial ruin would be a good deterrent for future wannabe cheaters.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

I say, give the title to the 23rd place finisher (or whatever place can be shown not to have cheated) and make a big deal of it. Refuse to even name, or make reference to the cheaters anymore. Ban them all for life, and everyone connected with them, and never mention them again.

Oh, and create a culture that celebrates clean training/competing and is utterly intolerant of anything else. Publicly shame corporations that endorse cheaters. Use as many approaches as possible to get the message across. And now that Armstrong has manipulated the media for his own purposes, let him never get another interview or invitation. He should fall into obscurity.

Eta maybe his corporate sponsors should sue him for breach of contract and demand the return of their monies as compensation for their public humiliation. There had to be at least an implied assumption of honesty on his part in the endorsement contracts. Financial ruin would be a good deterrent for future wannabe cheaters.

This is already happening. I heard that as much as 110 million dollars of damages could be levied against him, according to one story I heard.

[ZenGum]

Either what Orthodoc said, or declare open season, take and use whatever you want. I suspect that will lead to lots of them dying or getting ill, and just as cyclists cooperated to make helmets mandatory, so too they will work to ban dangerous doping. Then it's back to dealing with the cheats.

[classicman]

...

[Trilby]

from the criminal mindset (that I seem to have) he just did it too many times. If he had stopped at five he probably would still be okay but he just couldn't. The hubris takes over and he thought he was unstoppable. Like Al Capone, or Tony Soprano, they just had to have ONE MORE TASTE (like all addicts) and it began to look wonky-him winning all seven titles even AFTER having cancer. He was addicted to the fame and the game. Criminals like him get caught because they just have to have one more, like a junkie with coke or similar.

[Lamplighter]

Classic, that sign is the ultimate put-down for Armstrong.
It will be his legacy, and for someone like him it will hurt for a long time.

Good catch.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Don't be too sure. He feels he wasn't really cheating because everyone else was doing the same, so he had to if he's was going to be competitive.
They can asterisk or remove his wins from the official records, but he(and everyone else) knows he won. I'm betting it was on what he considers a level playing field, too.

[jimhelm]

at least he had the ball to admit it

[glatt]

The flaw to that logic is that it only means that he was the best at perfecting his cheating technique. He wouldn't necessarily have won if nobody cheated. Maybe he had better drugs. Or maybe his body chemistry responded better than others to the drugs they all used. There's no way of knowing if he would have been the best on a level non-cheating playing field..

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

The flaw to that logic is that it only means that he was the best at perfecting his cheating technique.

Not really, there were plenty of others who didn't get caught in the testing.

He wouldn't necessarily have won if nobody cheated.

True, but we'll never know because that condition never existed.

Maybe he had better drugs. Or maybe his body chemistry responded better than others to the drugs they all used. There's no way of knowing if he would have been the best on a level non-cheating playing field..

We only know he was best in the cycle racing world that did exist.

His career has been amazing considering when they discovered the cancer that took his nut, he had loads of tumors throughout his chest and brain. It's a miracle he lived, no less competed.

I'm no Dr Phil, but I am theorizing what's going on in his head, and can understand how he's justified his actions.
I don't approve, but I understand.

[xoxoxoBruce]

heh heh heh