Souldriver
Member
Armstrong is also a perfect case for sociologists and psychologists. He's a pathological liar. Good lord. That - to this day - he denies everything is just astonishingly awful.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
International Cycling Union (UCI) strips Lance Armstrong of all titles
- Thread starter numble
- Start date
- Status
I don't think this matters at all. No one is disputing the fact that Lance Armstrong is a capable athlete. But the fact is that he cheated. Sport is not about who the best cheater is. He cheated, he broke the rules, and he lied about it for over a decade. He does not deserve any sympathy, honor, or compassion. His legacy should be destroyed and forgotten, or cycling will never be able to be a respectable sport.
Could Armstrong have won all those tours if he never doped, and no one else doped? We'll never know. Fact is, he doped, so he's a cheater just like the rest of them. Cheating has no place in professional sports, at least not if you want it to be respectable.
Best at what? Best at cheating? Yes. Because he was the last to get caught. Best at cycling? It's a tough call, because we can never know if he won because he was better at cycling, or because he was better at doping.
Psychotext
Member
See previous responses. Even other cheats said that USPS were cheating on a level that they couldn't even come close to. They said it with some degree of awe too... almost a grudging respect amongst cheats.
If the competition is who can dope best then there's absolutely no doubt that they were the best of the best of the best.
Souldriver
Member
Uh some friend of me on facebook said the same thing, followed by a "well done, Armstrong".
Obviously Armstrong is a good athlete. The whole cycling world is on drugs, and he won amongst the druggies. However, that is besides the point. He's a cheater, and cheating in sports is not allowed. He should never get a pat on the shoulder for any of his "achievements".
ElectricBlue187
Member
The margin of difference is so tiny at that level its possible that the doping gave him an edge but I think it probably had more to do with Armstrong being a god in the climbing sections that led to the 7 wins
+1 lol
Broder Salsa
Banned
Of course it takes real effort, but doping also obviously helps enough for like all the winners of tour de france to risk it.
Windom Earle
Member
Of course it does. That's the sad part. In an even playing field (no doping or equal amounts of doping) Armstrong would probably still have been the best. Even though I think Ullrich was always the more talented rider. But pro sports are doping infected and will always be.
Read the report. Armstrong was the mastermind behind the cheating in the tour. No one cheated more than him. No one.
it still requires lots of effort but performance enhancing drugs affect different athletes in different ways plus not all doping plans are equal. so really he was the most effective cheater with the most advantageous physiological makeup and best doping plan behind him out of the pro cyclists which isn't much to fall back on.
his entire team, other team mates, partners of other cyclists who saw it, urine samples that tested positive to EPO and are lances.
watch the documentary i posted. It explains it all.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Pharmaceutical companies.
HollovVpo1nt
Banned
What Armstrong did was cheat, but it's disgraceful (i.m.o.) that they strip him of his titles.
A. Armstrong is made to look like he was the only one who used doping
B. The UCI should aknowledge that doping is part of the game, af if they find out too late that somebody used it, they should admit defeat and move along.
If often occurs in important football matches that one team wins by 'cheating' (fake diving) or misjudgement by the referee. After the match the ref watches the videotapes and admits he make errors, he doesn't revoke the match :/
This is all a huge fuckup by the UCA and they try to gain goodwill by screwing Lance. Too late man, too late.
A. Armstrong is made to look like he was the only one who used doping
B. The UCI should aknowledge that doping is part of the game, af if they find out too late that somebody used it, they should admit defeat and move along.
If often occurs in important football matches that one team wins by 'cheating' (fake diving) or misjudgement by the referee. After the match the ref watches the videotapes and admits he make errors, he doesn't revoke the match :/
This is all a huge fuckup by the UCA and they try to gain goodwill by screwing Lance. Too late man, too late.
Wow, Evans. The poor guy. Instead of halo of glory, he became a footnote thanks to a bunch of cheaters.
Windom Earle
Member
Yes, because Evans is clean...
Souldriver
Member
I'm really sorry to say this, because I should honor the "innocent until proven guilty" mantra, but I wouldn't dare to congratulate anyone in the cycling world for their achievements. I suspect they're all doing drugs.
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
Evidence suggests that lots of bribery was involved, and he had important people in his pocket. He would get advance warnings on surprise raids, certain suspicions were ignored, and there was an elaborate plan in place to have the dope delivered and disposed of by third parties. After a few wins, Armstrong was also too valuable an icon in the sport for them to lose, so the people in charge didn't want him to be "caught" either.
Goldrusher
Member
Of course.
I'll always remember Floyd Landis winning stage 17 in 2006 by 6 minutes, after pretty much finishing dead-last the day before, 10 minutes behind the stage winner.
That was some superhuman shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlVuha6m204#t=4m10s
gutter_trash
Banned
this is the problem when society elevates athletes to ubber-hero status then go "oh no, he was a cheater! how could tihs happenen?"
athletes being self absorbed dicks, news at 11
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
And that's the real tragedy here. The fact that you're being forced to cheat in order to have any modicum of success and the message this sends to kids starting out in the sport.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Whether he doped or not, all I see about pro-cycling in the news is doping, doping, doping. I want to believe that this sport still has some credibility to it, though, and I'm wary of press exaggeration. But all of this news wants me to believe that the game's been fucked and that doping is cool everywhere. That, or the cycling associations kick everyone out because of it.
What a sordid scene. Hitting up Lance won't solve any systemic failures of the sort. And systemic failure's on the table here, then that's no good.
What a sordid scene. Hitting up Lance won't solve any systemic failures of the sort. And systemic failure's on the table here, then that's no good.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
The same reasons why anyone does it:
1) He wanted to win.
2) He was sure he wouldn't get caught.
Alx
Member
Nah, it's not a game of "hide the drugs from the medics", you don't "win" by not getting caught. It's a sport, there are rules, if you cheat, you're disqualified. It is that simple.
It's not even in the same category as football players flopping ; that may be anti-fair play, but as far as I know it's not explicitly forbidden in the rules (though I wouldn't mind if it was).
He was on drugs
Windom Earle
Member
18th is not bad and it also does not mean he was not doping back then. However, Armstrong systematically perfected the system with Dr. Ferrari.
And as sad as it sounds, but the cancer gave him the chance to completely re-build his body according to the needs of a cyclist in the recovery phase. And it was always suspected that he was allowed to use certain prescriptions legally due to the cancer as well. (Not sure if we have more info on this now after the investigations).
I am currently reading the .pdf with all the investigation results. It reads like a criminal story. Unreal. http://cyclinginvestigation.usada.org/
Cyclings been here before. They had massive drug problems in the 90s. Ironically it was Lance that moved cycling on from that and got people interested again.
But now he's put them back in the shit lol
there was a telling story a few years back. French sports newspaper published lance is a drug cheat as its headline. As they said in the doco, lance has 20 lawyers why didnt he sue us for defamation
because lance knew it was true
The pro-cycling scene has been tarnished for years now. It's supposedly getting better in recent years, with overall times dropping, and top teams seemingly clean, but who knows. It's true that hitting Armstrong won't solve a systemic failure, but it is a major step when he is the biggest winner and has always declared his innocence all these years, while all those below him in his earlier years were found guilty one after another.
I think the sport has to admit and acknowledge Armstrong's guilt to the world before it can really move in a new direction, so this is pretty important. It would be pretty hard to convince anyone that you're serious about reforming the way the sport works if you refuse to acknowledge the biggest cheat, just because he's a popular guy.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Then maybe the sport never moved on anyway. The doping just went clandestine, underneath the media's attention for all we would know. It's hard to tell.
Not a cycling fan but I have a question. When all is said and done will this story become this generation's 1988 Olympic 100m Final? What should have been the crowning achievement for a sport ends up tearing it apart because of the discovery of heavy drug usage across the board?
Souldriver
Member
Yep, the cycling world might essentially have been a decent leveled playing field. If everyone does drug, the sport is "fair" again in some sense.
But in real life, it's just unacceptable, and I'd rather the entire sport is shut down, than to become indifferent towards the rampant drug use.
No thats exactly right. It never went away.
ElectricBlue187
Member
His livelihood depended on him lying and he could not realistically compete in a dirty sport without lying and covering it up, it's really not that hard to understand.
Windom Earle
Member
People who are surprised now are part of the problem. Did you honestly think that such performance can be achieved naturally?
I still respect some of the riders and their accomplishments, because they are part of a dirty system and don't know better.
However, Armstrong is the most pathetic of them all.
I still respect some of the riders and their accomplishments, because they are part of a dirty system and don't know better.
However, Armstrong is the most pathetic of them all.
RomanticHeroX
Member
HGH
Endless schadenfreude by watching Armstrong fall so far. It's been plain to see that he's garbage for so long.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
Now let the lawsuits start, lets see him lose some of the financial benefits his cheating has brought him.
(Starting with the reversal of the payments Armstrong sued over).
(Starting with the reversal of the payments Armstrong sued over).
In Armstrong's case, there's a lot more to that. His air of superiority and arrogance takes it to the next level. He would actively go after anyone who tried to speak out against him, and he has a history of personally contacting journalists who write anything negative about him to convince them that he is the most awesome guy in the world. He goes out of his way to build his own legend up, and he uses intimidation on any force obstructing him.
I want to see lawsuits and investigations into UCI and their leadership as well. Armstrong should be taken down, but the organization which enabled him needs to clean house too.
Uh? Nobody is surprised.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
I couldn't agree more, but given the political connections those in such organizations hold I can't see it happening, just look at the corrupt fleapit that is FIFA for example, should have been cleaned up long ago but unlikely to happen.
I mean look at Jack Warner, disgraced and kicked out of Football but now holds political office, go figure.
Lol. FIFA. That's mob territory!
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked