Lance Armstrong to be stripped of Tour de France titles and banned for life

[PaulWinch again]

The reality is that he's a false idol and sounds like a very unpleasant man.

[Jon Crofts]

'The deceitful pursuit of glory' sounds a bit nicer than 'cheating bastard'

[Dante Lavelli]

The reality is that he's a false idol and sounds like a very unpleasant man.

His book "It's Not About the Bike" is excellent yet he still comes across as an See You Next Tuesday.
Did he write the book or did he have a ghost writer?

[Ad@m]

Ad@m - to me your argument reads as you being a little upset that you've been proven wrong. 

Could you please explain how I've been proven wrong.

My views on this thread have been about USADA stripping someone of their titles whilst the only publicly available 'evidence' was the testimony of a couple of former teammates.  Now that actual evidence has been provided which I expect will be ratified by the UCI I'm happy to accept that Armstrong was a cheat.

That's not me changing my mind on anything, nor is it me being wrong.

As for cycling not seeing much damage to its reputation as a result of this, have you picked up a newspaper, read any news websites, or listened to any interviews with anyone involved in the sport today?  This has caused huge damage to the reputation of cycling when it was just about dragging itself out of the gutter.  Already people are questionning whether Team GB and Team Sky are clean - both on here and in the mainstream press.  They weren't doing that last week.

[john e]

i've watched plenty of episodes of 'lie to me' and i could tell straight away he was guilty

[Dave Cooper please]

Ad@m - to me your argument reads as you being a little upset that you've been proven wrong. 

Could you please explain how I've been proven wrong.

My views on this thread have been about USADA stripping someone of their titles whilst the only publicly available 'evidence' was the testimony of a couple of former teammates.  Now that actual evidence has been provided which I expect will be ratified by the UCI I'm happy to accept that Armstrong was a cheat.

Throughout this thread I have mentioned many of the things now published in the USADA report. If these were not 'publicly available' then how did I know about them? Do you think I've got some sort of inside track in the cycling world or something?
 No, I just read books, magazines and articles about a sport I love to watch. All of it was out there, it's just that those who put Armstrong up on a pedestal have refused to believe it.
 What I don't think this will do is destroy cycling, on the contrary, it will draw a line under a dark time for the sport. Those racing now are, if not totally clean, there will be some still trying to get away with things, the cleanest ever because the testers are right on top of them now.

 And of course you are never wrong Ad@m, in almost every debate we've had on here you have never had the courage of your convictions to categorically state your absolute viewpoint. Just admit it, you didn't think Armstrong doped, you were wrong, I've been wrong loads of times, it happens!

[lovejoy]

Yes Ad@m you are coming across as a little defensive now.

[Ad@m]

Ad@m - to me your argument reads as you being a little upset that you've been proven wrong. 

Could you please explain how I've been proven wrong.

My views on this thread have been about USADA stripping someone of their titles whilst the only publicly available 'evidence' was the testimony of a couple of former teammates.  Now that actual evidence has been provided which I expect will be ratified by the UCI I'm happy to accept that Armstrong was a cheat.

Throughout this thread I have mentioned many of the things now published in the USADA report. If these were not 'publicly available' then how did I know about them? Do you think I've got some sort of inside track in the cycling world or something?
 No, I just read books, magazines and articles about a sport I love to watch. All of it was out there, it's just that those who put Armstrong up on a pedestal have refused to believe it.
 What I don't think this will do is destroy cycling, on the contrary, it will draw a line under a dark time for the sport. Those racing now are, if not totally clean, there will be some still trying to get away with things, the cleanest ever because the testers are right on top of them now.

 And of course you are never wrong Ad@m, in almost every debate we've had on here you have never had the courage of your convictions to categorically state your absolute viewpoint. Just admit it, you didn't think Armstrong doped, you were wrong, I've been wrong loads of times, it happens!

What a load of rubbish.

You've mentioned all the things in the USADA report because you just swallowed everything they said without a second thought.  Sitting on a desk at the USADA is not publicly available.  The USADA telling the world they have proof is not publicly available.  Now they've produced the evidence, good, that was all they had to do.

As for drawing a line under this, that's exactly what was said every time every other TdF winner got convicted of doping.  But it didn't, it just made the public more sceptical of the remaining riders.  And the testers being right on top of them?  I'm sure the testers thought they were doing a great job throughout the 90s and 00s and look how that panned out.  Drugs regulators are always one step behind and you can never be sure there isn't something else out there which doesn't show up on tests.

And 'just admit it, you didn't think Armstrong doped...'?  My very first post on the first page of this thread started with 'I also thought it seemed implausible, especially as before his illness he never looked like getting close.'. 

Yet again, you're spouting nonsense.

[Dave Cooper please]

What a load of rubbish.

You've mentioned all the things in the USADA report because you just swallowed everything they said without a second thought.  Sitting on a desk at the USADA is not publicly available.  The USADA telling the world they have proof is not publicly available.  Now they've produced the evidence, good, that was all they had to do.

Wrong again (oh, sorry, misinformed not wrong, because you are never wrong, right?).

I had read books and magazine articles both for and against Armstrong years before USADA even picked up the case. I suppose I first got interested because my cousin had testicular cancer around the same time as Armstrong and i was amazed at how a man could recover from something which made my cousin into a physical wreck for two years and go and win bike races. Of course there were whispers back then but such was the aura surrounding Armstrong, most people dismissed doping claims.
 So I read some books, Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage is the one that stands out, a tale of a cyclist who had all the talent in the world but found he just could not keep up with even the most mediocre of Peleton riders until he started doping.

 So in short, I haven't swallowed anything USADA have said, all USADA did was confirm what a lot of us already knew.

[bertlambshank]

Ad@m for a couple you mean 11.Lendme a couple of hundred quid will ya?

[ExclDawg]

The fact that observers of the Tour said this year's lacked the panache of outrageous attacks and it was almost attritional seems to suggest either everyone is doping to the same extent or everyone is now pretty much clean. 

Wait, so it's okay if everyone is doping to the same extent?  Because that's essentially what was happening in the Lance years.  Or if someone is cheating better than other, then it's wrong?  I'm confused.

Also, I like to know what exactly we're celebrating today?  We've brought down a 7 time Tour winner and handed the victories to the next big doper in line.  Is that a win?  We've handed him the largest penalty ever given to a cyclist and stripped away all victories ... while every other cyclist of that era, who more than likely cheated just as much as he did served much lighter sentences and for the most part, retained their Tour titles and other victories.  Is that the big win? We've "justified" the waste of millions of tax dollars by USADA to conduct a witchunt that proved that one guy cheated just like everyone else 10 years ago, so they can ultimately stick their big head on a stick, inflate their egos and ultimately change absolutely nothing in the current context of the sport.  So I suppose that's the big win?  We've also cheapen a very noble charity, regardless of who started it ... but hey, the guy that did started was cheating with everyone else in his sport ... so who cares what he did for the fight against Cancer right?  Is that what we're celebrating?

[bertlambshank]

So people who do lots of things for charity can get away with things then?
I take it Jimmy Saville hasn't the NBC nightly news with Tom Carver?

[JD]

I've always admired Lance Armstrong and always defended him, but he has let us all down (imho). I thought after what he went through after the cancer then he would want to stay clean and not put shit in his body. I guess the need to win was a bigger draw.
Secondly what is the point of stripping him of his titles, it seems that drugs were rife when he won the titles so maybe he won on an even playing field. How far down the finishing positions in the TDF will you have to go to prove a rider was clean when Armstrong won his titles?

[paul_e]

The fact that observers of the Tour said this year's lacked the panache of outrageous attacks and it was almost attritional seems to suggest either everyone is doping to the same extent or everyone is now pretty much clean. 

Wait, so it's okay if everyone is doping to the same extent?  Because that's essentially what was happening in the Lance years.  Or if someone is cheating better than other, then it's wrong?  I'm confused.

Also, I like to know what exactly we're celebrating today?  We've brought down a 7 time Tour winner and handed the victories to the next big doper in line.  Is that a win?  We've handed him the largest penalty ever given to a cyclist and stripped away all victories ... while every other cyclist of that era, who more than likely cheated just as much as he did served much lighter sentences and for the most part, retained their Tour titles and other victories.  Is that the big win? We've "justified" the waste of millions of tax dollars by USADA to conduct a witchunt that proved that one guy cheated just like everyone else 10 years ago, so they can ultimately stick their big head on a stick, inflate their egos and ultimately change absolutely nothing in the current context of the sport.  So I suppose that's the big win?  We've also cheapen a very noble charity, regardless of who started it ... but hey, the guy that did started was cheating with everyone else in his sport ... so who cares what he did for the fight against Cancer right?  Is that what we're celebrating?

The bit in bold is the key for me.  He's been allowed to get away with this for the length of time he has on the back of this, no matter how much charity work someone has done if they're a cheat they deserve to be treated as a cheat.

What is being 'celebrated' (your words not those of anyone who is happy with the news) is that someone who earned a title of sporting legend and was being regarded in the same way as people like Ali, Pele, etc has been shown to be a fraud and a precedent has been set that you can't get away with cheating, regardless of who you are.

[RunRickyRun]

Also, I like to know what exactly we're celebrating today? 

You should celebrate that America is possibly the only country in the world that would (rightly) bring down a sporting star of such worldwide fame for systematic cheating. I'm struggling to think of any other country which would do the same. For example, there's pretty strong evidence that France's 2nd greatest footballer (after Platini) was a regular visitor to Switzerland in order to blood dope but such matters are brushed under the carpet in other countries.

Political pressure caused the federal investigation into Armstrong to collapse (for probably the same sentiment that you have expressed here) but the cheat was still unmasked - wonderful!

It sends a message to every doping athlete in the world - Yes, you may be one step of the testers now, but you can still be brought down - no matter how powerful you are. If it stops a handful of stars doping, it will be worth it.

The techniques developed to catch cheats in cycling (testing, blood passports, freezing of samples etc) will be implemented in other sports to catch more cheats in the future and hopefully increase the deterrent for up and coming athletes.

Lastly, cycling will recover. It's a fantastic sport and provides great drama. There are and still will be dopers (just like in all sports) but the days of teamwide systematic doping and 'omerta' look numbered. I think we're currently looking at the cleanest racing for half a century. That definitely should be celebrated.