USAZorro

This qualifies as exercising incredibly poor judgment, IMO.

SamDaBikinMan

Greg is a dick. Jealous if you ask me.

I'll even bet he was using something back in his day.

Reid Rothchild

Greg LeMond was the last clean winner of the Tour de France period. He probably shouldn't have confronted Armstrong at Interbike, but he's angry and Armstrong is a fraud...

SunFlower

Lemond is turning into a stalker. He has spent the last 8 years officially staking his claim that Armstrong was doping. Well....he hasnt proven it and now he is bordering on just being a pathological stalker. Its time Lemond gave proof or shut up and let it go. Is Lemond going to spend his entire life stalking Armstrong with unproven allegations ?
Lemond is a 3 time Tour De France winner but now he has turned into an 8 time stalker loser.
I suggest Lemond show some dignity and walk away from this obsession.

Reid Rothchild

Wow, when you have nothing you have to make personal attacks. LeMond loves the sport and doesn't want to see it go down the toilet and have more tragedies.

I understand that you like to worship Lance, but it took a while to topple Marion Jones too....

chris175

are you saying that is lemond's objectibve? to topple LA? if so, he has failed, and will continue to due so. do you really think his presence at ystrdy's press conf was...sensible? facts aside, he has demonstrated clearly that he is not exactly stable. we all have our demons, he wears his on his sleeve, and uses his name and $$ to force his issues. and its tiresome and its obvious and its sad and he must, given the "depth" of his study, and knowledge, recognize that he has failed and continues to do so. i don't worship LA. i love the way he raced his bike. period. at least on its face, he is using his name and racing to bring attention to cancer. if he is motivated otherly, that is unknown to anyone but him, in addition to being completely understandable. how would any of us know what it means to be an athlete at that level? we wouldn't. lemond is a piker and kind of like a big angry baby who just howls at anyone who will listen. i would say he left his dignity behind long ago. what toilet exactly has the sport gone down? doping? big deal. so yeah, racers dope. so what? some do, some don't, some die, though there is little related evidence of deaths and doping in recent years. the races continue, the sport eveolves as much as it stays the same. love it, or don't.

chewybrian 

Can any of you enlighten on the history of this confrontation, for those of us who have not followed it? I know LA had some allegations from the French(?), and he was cleared. I never heard from Lemond until this news flash. It is a flash, to me, and I think to many people who don't follow TDF.

It seems Lemond is convinced LA is dirty. But even if, is this the way, the time, to address it? Wouldn't the smart and classy move be to let someone else prove it?

I never believed Pete Rose or Barry Bonds; they struck me as poor liars (huge Pete Rose fan; I WANTED to believe). But I am inclined to believe Armstrong, from what I have seen and heard from him. What does Lemond have on him, if anything? You all might have some strong opinions, but what are the facts, if any, surrounding this? thanks

40 Cent

This explains some of the history. Hard to believe it's all motivated by Lemond's love of the sport, yet Lemond seems to have some anecdotal evidence (and maybe more) of Armstrong's guilt, i.e, threats, secrecy. And doing press conferences with, and putting on your payroll, the expert who's going to monitor you? Lemond may look like a wacko here but someone's gotta ask the tough questions.

Hezz

I really think it's time for Lemond to move on. We cannot say for certain that Lance was guilty of doping without elevating our own opinions to the status of fact, which is arrogance. But I do think that Lemond is very insecure about himself (perhaps as a result of childhood sexual abuse experiences) and needs to let go of this.

Greg, if your listening you need to let go of this because it is obvious that it is turning you into a less than whole person and will eat you up. You need to find yourself something healthy that you can do outside of cycling and then just go ride your bike to express your love of cycling.

If Lance could have found 10 people that would testify that you used EPO then obviously there are several cyclists or insiders who believe that you doped also. Regardless if you did or not.

Greg, you've got to get over your own self centeredness. You can't do that by trying to make Lance a good guy or forcing him to humiliate himself in public. You've got to develop more inner integrity in yourself instead of trying to force others to be honest. This need to "purify" cycling is misguided. You need to focus on purifying yourself.

jaxgtr

Wow, this guy just goes further off the cliff with every statement. I really liked him, thought he was a great competitor, but this is just an amazing situation and really, really baffling. He really needs to have someone he trust to tell him to see someone and talk this out before he does something stupid.

chewybrian 

Thanks for the link. It led to other links; enlightening, indeed. The association with Dr. Ferrari looks bad for LA, but it is not evidence of doping. Quote from link about Ferrari:

"If it doesn't show up in the drug controls, then it's not doping," Ferrari was quoted as having said (a statement he has since characterized as a misquote), reportedly also adding that if he were a rider, he just might take whatever he could get away with. And by the way, he informed the French sports daily L'Equipe and a handful of Italian newspapers, "EPO is not dangerous, it's the abuse that is. It's also dangerous to drink 10 liters of orange juice."

Kaboom. It was as if he'd tried to toss a hand grenade at his critics from a car, but forgot that the windows were rolled up.

He said that in '94, and LA stayed with him until '04, when the Dr. was convicted of doping. Yikes!

But another quote from the LA Wik link:

Throughout his career only one test showed indications of the presence of doping products: in 1999, a urine sample showed traces of corticosteroids, but the amount was not in the positive test range. He later produced a medical certificate showing he used an approved cream for saddle sores which contained the substance.

It is possible LA used the Dr. only for nutrition, altitude training, etc. Perhaps he trained with banned substances and then raced clean (reportedly a common practice in horse racing). Is it against the rules to do this? Reading through many links, I couldn't see any real evidence against him. And he has the tests on his side, unlike Barry Bonds. I am still inclined to believe Armstrong, but there is a shadow of doubt, guilt by association, at least.

mato_h2h

You also have to remember that the French accusation came out at a time when Lance was totally dominanting the race for years. That was something that was just not allowed in the minds of many Frenchmen. How dare this roughneck, rowdy American dominate over the long recognized superior Eurocyclist snobs? I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the mission was to try and pin something....ANYthing on Lance. I also wouldn't be shocked if some French lab person may have looked the other way to allow for some sample shenanigans.

As for Greg...he's just reallly sad. You would think the guy would be comfortable with his place in American cycling history. He's still the first cyclist I could have ever remembered by name.

He's just not the best...that would be Lance. Sorry Greg.

save10

greg lemond is a crazy old man.

Trevor98

Define "Clean." Are you limiting "clean" to not using anything specifically on the banned list or to not using any PEDs? If you are using the limited "Banned List," then you may be correct about Lemond. However, you are using some pretty weak thinking and really splitting hairs. By that definition, Barry Bonds was perfectly okay taking BALCO's "Clear" PED because that particular PED hadn't been specifically banned when he was using it even though his intent (or that of his trainer) was to gain a substantial performance gain by using chemistry. Do you see the problem with splitting hairs that finely?

Defining "clean" and "doping" differently are the major sticking point of any doping debate. Thy hypocracy is overwhelming. For example, in a sport that has some of the top endurance athletes in the world I am supposed to believe that the majority has asthma? Give me a break- their TUE's may allow them leeway on prohibited substances but they are still cheating.

I am not defending Armstrong but merely pointing out how lame your assertion is. This rule hair splitting of rules isn't just a problem for just cycling or even just for sports but for so much more.

Lazyass

How do you know he was clean?

bac

Ah okay .................................................. Greg?

... Brad

gear

I was in France for a couple of these races and didn't get that kind of input from the French people I met. Most appreciated the attention LA brought to a race they are very proud of. Some racing fans expressed a preference for the riders they supported over LA but that struck me as the same thing as a Yankee fan supporting Jeeter over Beckett. You shouldn't confuse the sentiments of the French public with the sentiments of the French media. Any media will be happy to create or inflate an issue to sell ads.

linux_author

wow, after reading about Lemond's behavior, i believe *he* should be a doper - and a heavily medicated on at that...

stay on your meds, greg!

127.0.0.1

no one will ever topple Lance. He bounced back from brain, lung, and ball cancer for craps sake. even if he did dope he did the greatest feat of showing the world that cancer is not a death sentence, and that with determination and some luck but mostly hard work you can do anything.

no one can ***** that armor.

most of you posting here, if you went though 1 round of chemo you'd want to shrink up and die and forget doing anything ever again...it is brutal. like drinking gasoline and injecting bleach but with doctor supervision to bring you to the edge of death and back.

what it did for Lance was strip off a lot of weight and push his pain threshold past everyone elses.

no...Lance is too good. plain and simple.

pigmode

The time is soon arriving where we will feel sorry for Greg Lemond in his downward spiral.

silver bullet

A conspiracy theory involving Eurosnobs?

You should ask some "Eurosnobs" how do we feel about Armstrong. He's pretty popular and well respected in Europe, regardless of whether he doped or not.

Funhog

Regardless of your position on Greg or Lance, here is a very interesting interview with Greg Lemond shortly after his "heckling" appearance at Lance's press conference at Interbike. At least you can hear some of his motivation, for what it's worth.

And here is the actual press conference, but the audio isn't good enough to hear Greg's comments - you can however, hear Lance's responses!

I was there at IB but I missed the press conference!

I actually led a bike tour with Greg to the 1999 Tour de France - and I can tell you, this guy enjoyed his champagne! He was a very nice and fun person back then. I haven't seen him since then, so I had to remind him who I was when I spoke to him at Interbike (he was there the whole time at the Lemond booth, not just for the press conference or to discredit Lance). He did recognize me (after being reminded...), and we had a nice 20 minute chat about that Tour. I didn't have the nerve to ask him about why he is so adamant about LA. I am saddened with the position he's taken, and think he's doing cycling a disservice.

erader

lemond also stalked floyd landis if you recal...tried to get floyd to recant. .

ed rader

urodacus

I agree, Brian. someone should really tell Lance to go and see a shrink. or get a reality check/ego-deflator.

limeylew

Greg seems to have been spiraling down since he retired from racing.

Spiraling down in ever decreasing circles, so maybe he will eventually disappear up his own orifice?