So, US Anti-Doping Agency bribed Armstrong too

[Trixie]

...because he just admitted that he was really doping the whole time (http://www.news.com.au/sport/more-sport/oprah-winfrey-says-lance-armstrong-came-clean-about-drugs-anti-doping-agency-wants-more/story-fndukor0-1226554758458). But don't worry, poor Lance is worth only about 105 million $ now, while combined lawsuits of maybe 10-15 mln $ targeted at him now show being fraud really pays these days. The only losers are people who paid $15,000 for Lance Trek bike, or dumped thousands on Liverstrong clothing. Who cares about them, or for all the promising cyclists he kicked out of the sport.

Remind me, Liarstrong supporters, USADA was team of crooks on witch hunt? Sport is forever ruined by this accusation? Small egos go for the only Great American? There was never any proof? Tour de France is now a farce? But then again, if you were capable of defending him after his whole team testified against him, and after it came to light he threatened disabled woman with lawsuit and death threats for saying the truth you can probably reply he was bribed by Oprah, or something.

Anyway, interview airs soon, have a drinking game (http://static.happyplace.com/assets/images/2013/01/50edcd6d328d6.jpg) to accompany watching the show :smalltongue:

[Morph Bark]

I still think it's pretty darn awesome that he walked on the moon.

[kpenguin]

And the way he played that trumpet? Wooooweeee

[thubby]

the tone of your post disappoints and saddens me. i expect better from this community. :smallfrown:

[Trixie]

the tone of your post disappoints and saddens me. i expect better from this community. :smallfrown:

What tone? :smallconfused:

It's just after reading dozens of reports of him slandering real victims, people who Armstrong bullied/sued with his team of 1000$/hour lawyers, people who never become anything in sports due to being unwilling to dope themselves to the gills, and finally team of people that tried to bring truth to light, I just lost all respect for him I might have ever had.

It's not a man who omitted a part of the story, or even lied, it's someone who both lied and strongarmed everyone he could to keep lie alive, ruining lives left and right as he went.

Ditto for his supporters and general smugness "there was never any proof!" who ignored both tons of proof produced by USADA and stories of his victims, because keeping liar's reputation alive is apparently worth lives of real people, or something. It just really grated me, maybe now real victims will finally have some recognition and peace from real witch hunt started by Lance.

So, excuse me, I am going to have nice drink watching DoJ decision to join the suit, had the man in question had any redeeming qualities I might feel regret it ended in such a way but in this case I have none. He made his own bed.

[Mx.Silver]

I can't say I'm surprised really. I mean come on, there was no way he could have gotten that stretchy through natural means.

[Fragenstein]

Excuse me, but let's be a little more accurate here. It's not called 'doping'.

It's Strong Arm Alchemy and it's just part of his heritage.

[Yora]

Well it's professional cycling. Probably the most corrupt sport in the world.

[GrlumpTheElder]

Well it's professional cycling. Probably the most corrupt sport in the world.

After the Mobster-Three-Legged-Race, yes.

[pendell]

Haven't read all of it, just seen a snippet or two (http://www.news.com.au/sport/lance-armstrong-ready-to-sling-mud-at-others/story-fngr0c3c-1226554630051) .

I must thereby acknowledge that the Doping commission was right to pursue him. I believe that doping is common in sports, but the levels to which he would go to cover up his actions make it far more of an issue than normal.

I must confess I find it hard to have any sympathy for him. I could understand if he came clean of his own accord. I could understand if he kept silent , to protect himself and his accomplices, to the grave.

But as it is, it appears that he first did all he could to silence and ruin those who would expose him, and now out of self-interest is turning around to expose and ruin all those who protected and assisted him. In short, if anyone had any contact with him on either side of the law , they're going to be hurt. The man seems like a walking disaster, a curse to everyone he comes in contact with.

It's the kind of self-interest that would make a man poison to criminals and police and , well, anyone.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[TheFallenOne]

the tone of your post disappoints and saddens me. i expect better from this community. :smallfrown:

You should rather have been disappointed when someone claimed it's all a French conspiracy and witch hunt when USADA(!) went after Armstrong. Yes, that actually happened here.

[Kindablue]

What most upsets me about this whole thing is how I missed out on all the good Armstrong puns.

[Erloas]

I don't really care for the tone of the OP either. It is very clearly negative for the sake of being negative rather then trying to discuss the issue and its clearly negative aspects.

I haven't really followed it that closely, but most things I've read seems to imply that the use of doping was almost universal, at least at the high end of things. Which doesn't justify Armstrong doing it as well, but overall it doesn't really mean that much to me either way.
Whether or not the cycling governing body had any part in the doping is hard to say, but if it is as wide spread as some reports indicate then they probably are.
Whether this ends up being a net positive or negative for the sport is hard to say. Before Lance Armstrong very few people could even name a single professional cyclist. Even now I don't think most people could name anyone else.
As such, I don't think this controversy will have a that big of a long term impact on the sport because there really isn't a huge amount of ground to loose in the public eye. And the people that enjoy doing it enjoy doing it for their own reasons, not because someone famous is doing it. Not that that doesn't happen, I just don't think it is that big of a draw to the sport in this case because there is too much personal effort that has to be put into cycling for the average masses to be swayed to do it.

At least Armstrong did some good overall with the Livestrong foundation and has done a lot to help those fighting cancer. I don't believe the foundation was just a publicity scheme to help protect Lance like some people seem to think. It isn't without some taint, but it has helped many other people.
NPR ran a new story a month or two ago asking various people that worked with Livestrong whether or not it would be a big problem to them if Armstrong had doped. (I think it was just before, maybe just after, the long report released on the investigation.) And of course they had people from both sides, some said it was a big blow to them, others said that the foundation gave them hope and helped them fight through their cancer and it didn't matter to them. Many were supporters of the foundation without caring what Armstrong had accomplished and never saw him as a hero for his ability to ride a bike in the first place.

[thubby]

You should rather have been disappointed when someone claimed it's all a French conspiracy and witch hunt when USADA(!) went after Armstrong. Yes, that actually happened here.

conspiracy theories are for the mentally unsound. i would no more be disappointed than i would at a hospital.

where people came down on this nonsense. (and it is nonsense, a man riding a bike is somehow an international incident? really?) depends on whether they're more willing to believe a high level athlete would cheat, or that one would be the subject of vicious rumor. both of which are entirely too common.

what he did is bad enough, dont make it worse by also being terrible to other people.

[TaiLiu]

I still think it's pretty darn awesome that he walked on the moon.

Lance Armstrong never walked on the moon, Neil Armstrong did.

[Worira]

Lance Armstrong never walked on the moon, Neil Armstrong did.

He's definitely a jazz-playing State Alchemist, though.

[kpenguin]

He's definitely a jazz-playing State Alchemist, though.

With stretchy limbs

[Mystic Muse]

he was bribed by Oprah

How did you find out? We kept that secret any way we could! Dammit Jeremy, You've failed me for the last time!

More seriously, this is all kind of a shame. It's a shame anybody would be willing to sink that low, it's a shame how corrupt this sport has gotten, it's all just kinda sad.

On a lighter note, those jokes were kind of a stretch. :smalltongue:

[Gravitron5000]

How did you find out? We kept that secret any way we could! Dammit Jeremy, You've failed me for the last time!

More seriously, this is all kind of a shame. It's a shame anybody would be willing to sink that low, it's a shame how corrupt this sport has gotten, it's all just kinda sad.

On a lighter note, those jokes were kind of a stretch. :smalltongue:

Don't blame the people that made those jokes. They were obviously strong armed into it :smalltongue:

[Socratov]

So, his legs weren't as strong as his arms after all...

Anyway, not seen a thing, don't care and can't be bothered. I mean, cycling isn't my choice of tv anyway. Yeah, he doped, yeah, the rest as well, and the tour was a lot more eventful back then. We'll see what happens now...

[Mx.Silver]

Don't blame the people that made those jokes. They were obviously strong armed into it :smalltongue:

In our defence, trying to resist seemed a bit Pointless :smallwink:

[pendell]

Update: The Washington Post is not pleased (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/is-lance-armstrong-the-worlds-biggest-liar/2013/01/17/2d8fff7c-60fa-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_blog.html), giving Armstrong 28 pinnochios on a scale of 1-4.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Traab]

How did you find out? We kept that secret any way we could! Dammit Jeremy, You've failed me for the last time!

More seriously, this is all kind of a shame. It's a shame anybody would be willing to sink that low, it's a shame how corrupt this sport has gotten, it's all just kinda sad.

On a lighter note, those jokes were kind of a stretch. :smalltongue:

Didnt the tour de france start out with rampant cheating?


In 1904, during only the second ever Tour de France, Hippolyte Acouturier thought he had found a foolproof way to sidestep those meddlesome rules that were impeding his chances of winning with little or no effort.

You can't blame him, back then the Tour de France was mostly shenanigans, with some bike racing in between (for instance, Acouturier had lost the first Tour de France when someone spiked his water bottle).

In fact, accounts of the first races say competitors used everything from nails and broken glass on the road, to itching powder in the opposing riders' shorts to get an edge. At one point an angry mob randomly attacked some riders and had to be driven away with gunfire. Yes, bicycle racing was about a thousand times more awesome back then.
Being a man of at least some moral fiber, Hippo decided against crippling the performance of his opponents and instead came up with an awe-inspiring method of cheating that would leave other, lesser geniuses, scratching their head in wonder.

He didn't simply grab hold of the bumper of some car and hold on for dear life, as a lesser man would have. No, he attached a wire to the bumper of the car, and on the other end of the wire was a hunk of cork that he would hold onto.

With his teeth.

While this plan has its merits, we can't help but think that a slip knot tied to his handlebars would have worked just as well. Only, you know, without the probable need for radical reconstructive dental surgery.
Hippolyte won four of the six stages, but lost the race to another guy who, as it turns out, was also cheating using some other method out of the Wile E. Coyote playbook. Organizers actually wound up disqualifying the top four finishers and awarded the race to fifth-place finisher Henri Cornet, who apparently was the only one who found a way to cheat that wasn't obvious from a half-mile away.






A cracked.com article.

[nedz]

Didnt the tour de france start out with rampant cheating?

Wiki has a whole page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France) about it — it's quite large.

The race should be called Le Dopage de France really.