Phantom808

I take a slightly different view of Armstrong. I'm both understanding of his situation and contemptuous of him.

First, let's admit that he cheated. He knowingly cheated. However, the choice of whether or not to cheat was eqivalent to whether or not he wanted a career in Pro Cycling. If he didn't cheat, he wouldn't have stood a chance against the large number of competitors who were cheating. He would have lost to them, again and again, until he finally would fade away into the background with all the other non-cheaters who got into the Pros and never had a chance to win the racers, keep their jobs and win the big money. You've got to make the money while you can, especially in a sport where you're considered washed-up by the age of thirty-two.

So, it was either 1) cheat or 2) go find another career when your teams cut you and no one else wants to sign a loser. Sure, he could have done the honorable thing and quit, but who wouldn't love the chance to be rich & famous? By cheating, he got rich, had armies of adoring fans, famous people wanted to hangout with him, he appeared in movies and corporations signed him to do commercials for them. He must have loved every minute of it and he knew then that he wouldn't have gotten any of those things by being honest. Being rich is great but being rich & famous is absolutely beautiful!

He must have consoled himself by knowing that most of the major competition were cheating too. So, his conscience probably didn't bother him in that regard. I hope that he might have felt some guilt about lying to his fans, especially the cancer survivors who looked up to him and who got involved in his foundation.

The UCI knew about it too. All of it. So, if the watchmen were lying, I'm guessing his lies didn't seem so bad to him.

But, the causes of Lance's biggest downfall were his own ego and the greed of the people who covered-up his cheating. If he had just "won" the five Tours and retired, I think he could have safely retired and he could have enjoyed a retirement as a celebrated cycling champion. But, no. He had to keep racing and win a sixth and then a seventh time. He went to the well too many times for his own good.

Plus, his own vindictiveness against anyone and everyone who tried to come forward with the truth about him. Crushing your enemies underfoot can result in one of two things: 1) you cowe them into silence or 2) they wait until they've got all their ducks in a row and then come out to deliver a killing blow from which you have no defense. People, governments and organizations have all deluded themselves into thinking they were invulnerable until one day their previously cowed enemies came out and crushed them. In that regard, Armstrong is no different.

And who were the people who brought him down? None other than two guys - Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis - who got caught cheating themselves, denied it in front of the whole world and then finally had to admit the truth, but only when they went after Lance. Not the most stellar examples of people doing the right thing. They just did it out of a grudge with Armstrong, not because they got tired of lying.

So, did Lance have a choice? Not if he wanted a career in Pro Cycling.

Could he have been less of a jerk about it? Absolutely.

Let me conclude by saying that I have absolutely no sympathy for Armstrong, though I understand the corrupt environment of Pro Cycling. Heck, even soccer was revealed to be corrupt and that's the "World's Sport", right?

But, I truly feel deep sorrow for the people who got involved in the Lance Armstrong Foundation, especially the the people who lived with cancer themselves. One story that breaks my heart whenever I think about it was one woman who had breast cancer. Inspired by Armstrong, she became very active in the LAF and took part in numerous events. When her cancer came out of remission and her death became imminent, her final wish was to be buried wearing her LAF jersey.

That is the reason I could never look at Lance without a great deal of bitterness. He used his lies to give inspiration to many people and some died believing in him, but many others were emotionally devastated to find out that he had been lying to them the whole time.

roadwarrior

From a guy who has been there, the vast majority WERE taking drugs of some type. And that was just to keep up with the peloton.

Trust me on this. For some of us this is not an article or a Google search.

roadwarrior

Anyone here come from a broken or abusive home? If the answer is yes, you might have a bit of an understanding of why Armstrong's personality is the way it is.

He came from both. And nothing he did was ever good enough.

Having attempted to adopt a child from an abusive and broken home and seen what it can do to a person, I fully get why he behaves the way he behaves.

Trust no one.

himespau 

My wife was asking me the other day about whether I thought he deserved the punishment he got. My response was that it's complicated. For the actual rule violations he was punished for, I felt his punishment was a bit extreme compared to other cheaters of the era (yes, he may have had a more systematic approach and all that...). On the other hand, for his general treatment of the people who told the truth about him, I feel that yes, he deserved what he got karmically (whether he got all that he deserved is not for me to answer).

roadwarrior

Ever heard of Festina and the 1998 Tour?

Those snooty French.

And the still love Virenque. And Jacques Aquetil who freely admitted to doping. Merckx doped. But he is a Belgian.

I just laugh at some of this stuff.

roadwarrior

Good thoughts...except I'll only add that several of the people who "tattled" were making money from being associated with Armstrong. Armstrong's success was their living. I look at it as akin to when David Millar "came clean"...BS...the police showed up at his house and found his drug gear in a hollowed out book in his home. Then they got the tearful admission.

C'mon guys...bottom line is that anyone that wanted to keep their job racing a bike was doing something. That does not make it OK, but that was the lifestyle. Riis keeps his Tour title and now, oh gee he was running a doping program at CSC. Really? Knock me over with a feather.

It is what it is. Lance getting singled out is total BS. If ASO wants to wipe out dopers go back a hundred years.

Jacques Anquetil..."Leave me in peace. Everyone dopes."

Cyclosaurus

I'm not sure what your point is here. I wasn't calling the French snooty, I was describing/mocking the way that Lance's American fans saw the French. And otherwise you are agreeing with me. The French had an incentive for Lance to get busted/disgraced, less so for their own, who, as you point out, are still heroes despite doping.

Also in case you have lost context, I was responding to this:

Damien09

Everyones ok with throwing lance under the bus. But what about the race regulators? They let him keep useing for all the tdf wins it wasent only him who was dirty. Its kind of like how pro bodybuilders wont admit to being on gear and more but they for sure are

RJM

I just watched "Stop at Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story" and watched "The Armstrong Lie" a couple of weeks ago. What you say is pretty much true. He not only took doping to the next level, but he took revenge and the cycling code of omerta to the next level.

He is still trying to decide the narrative to this, which you can see in "The Armstrong Lie" with his interviews. I just don't buy the guy is actually sorry that he tried to destroy people's careers.

Vintage_Cyclist

Professional cycling has been filthy with drug use since it began in the late 1800s. In the old days they used to take strychnine, nitroglycerine, chloroform as well as more pedestrian things like amphetamines and caffeine.

Armstrong wasn't the only one doping; it's more than likely a majority were doping while he was riding. I believe there were some who weren't, and they probably didn't last long in the sport because they couldn't compete against the cheaters. Did Lance deserve his punishment? Yes. Did other people skate? Yes. That doesn't excuse the fact that Lance was a cheater and actually committed criminal acts in multiple countries in furtherance of his scheme. A scheme that was intended to make him fabulously wealthy, which it did.

I'm of the opinion that he's a sociopath, who has no real feelings of guilt over his actions, including the way he proactively destroyed the careers of other people. He's gotten off light for the things he's done and he's still fabulously wealthy.

What's he doing today?

Lance Armstrong Trolls the Tour de France

James Joiner
The Daily Beast
07.07.153:50 PM ET

You have to give it to Lance Armstrong: “quit” really isn’t in his vocabulary, even when it absolutely should be.
In a Tour de France already fraught with doom just days after starting—from 20-bike crashes to local cops protesting it as a soapbox for contract negotiations, even to the grim specter of a long lasting, podium-clearing doping scandal—this year’s race has another, even more sinister and hideous problem: disgraced seven-time former winner Lance Armstrong.
Yeah, you read that right. Lance Armstrong is back in the saddle at the Tour de France, trolling one of the world’s most prestigious athletic events and spitting in the face of his lifetime ban. Unable to actually compete, he’s instead riding several stages of the race the day before the actual race does in a thinly veiled f-you to honest athletes, cycling’s governing body, and the legion of heart broken fans he betrayed, all in his all-too-familiar role as the good guy trying to raise money for cancer.It’s a role we now recognize as a farce, a mask to hide the stain under the faded yellow jersey.
Armstrong, of course, deserves to never race again. Having copped to juicing with all manner of illicit substances in order to win all those medals—of which he has since been stripped—and compulsively lying about it even after being found out, he is still without real regret. Yet his reputation for doping—and bullying the then-powerless who accused him of doing so—is so widespread, the disgraced celebrity athlete has been barred from other sports, such as the Chicago Marathon, a French Ironman, and even competitive swimming.
And the barely recalcitrant cheat has been pushing the limits of moral outrage more and more, unwilling or unable to stand down and let the bitter taste of poor sportsmanship and outright dishonesty fade from the public’s perception. Just this spring, he admitted to finally deciding to work with the United States Anti-Doping Association (USADA) to rat out his former rule-bucking compadrés in an attempt to reinstate his racing ability.


“From the very beginning, our hope has always been that he would come in, sit down and have a full discussion,” USADA head Travis Tygart told the New York Times after the fallen cyclist bragged about his meetings, but thus far Armstrong’s misdeeds haven’t shown any sign of subsiding.
Last week, Armstrong found himself battling with the prosecution in an ongoing court case seeking to question a possible former mistress about their sex life, with suspicions he may have fessed up to her about doping as far back as 1996. The federal government itself is suing Armstrong for $100 million, claiming he violated his contract and defrauded them when he was a member of the U.S. Postal racing team. The fight is so heated, his former teammate is invoking wartime law.
Earlier this year, Armstrong and a former sponsor were forced to pay $10 million to a promotion company that underwrote one of the bonuses he received after winning a Tour de France.
A forthcoming movie, too, paints a picture of Armstrong as a bullying, wild-eyed doping lunatic. It is based on a true story, after all.


Through all of this—the histrionics, the rehearsed admissions of guilt, the bullying, the shame brought not only upon himself and his sport, but also LiveStrong, the non-profit he founded and built to fight cancer—the cyclist’s decision to use the Tour de France as a publicity vehicle and set rubber to pavement once again might be his lowest move yet.
“If you take me back to 1995, when it was completely and totally pervasive,” Armstrong told the BBC in January, “I’d probably do it again.”
It’s also his most telling. By making the calculated decision to openly mock the Tour and the hard work of those who actually earned spots in its coveted peloton, he has confirmed himself to be the self-centered, mentally unhinged egomaniac we all already suspected he was. It’s too bad he has to drag down yet another good cause with him.

Raptor1956

LA doped and lied about it for years, but then so did most of the top contenders -- I'll call that a push...

LA joyfully attacked anyone that questioned his doping and ruined many people in the process -- on this point he loses me and deserves the scorn he now receives.

He may well be a sociopath.


Brian