don d.

A must read for all the Armstrong fans out there:

www.velonews.com/news/fea/6299.0.html

brent_dube

I thought my sig was enough.

Poppaspoke

The accusers of LA are, with few exceptions, as little interested in the facts as are his defenders. Armstrong, in Europe and Canada, is merely a stand-in for hated American power and arrogance. If Lance had accomplished the same feats as a native of Australia or Belgium, the firestorm of criticism would never have reached this critical mass.

gringorio

I don't get the point of the rant... Patrick O'Grady even admits that 'Like you, I haven't read "LA Confidential." ' the uninformed trying to inform the uninformed?

velocipedio

yeah... and that's why euros and canucks also hate tyler hamilton and freddy rodriguez and levi leipheimer!

no... waitasec... they don't...

hmm... seems to be a bit of a hole in your theory.

maybe the reason why you believe that non-americans "hate" armstrong is because they don't worship him the way so many american fans appear to. there are no sacred cows in sport. armstrong is respected, though his arrogance and lack of what the french call elan, make him hard to warm up to. he is seen as a machine in much the same way that indurain was seen as a machine [and indurain wasn't american, btw].

no one is above criticism in the sport of cycling [although many american fans believe that saint lance should be], and non-americans who look at armstrong's machine-like perfection are eager to see that he is a fallible human being and not a stepford racer.

if he was more human [like tyler and freddy and and levi], i suspect he'd be better liked.

Laggard

Exactly. There is a certain amount of Lance backlash coming from those tired of the incredible amount of Lance worship that's developed since '99.

Lance is easy to respect for what he's gone through and accomplished. He's hard to like as a person though. He may be a great guy in private and the work he does to raise money for cancer is great, but the Lance that most of us see on camera is about as charming and likeable as a land mine.

roadwarrior

Yeah...and when pressed, Walsh has "no opinion" on whether Lance is clean or not...what a joke

I love writers who do this..."I just write what they say and let the reader decide...", like he had no interest in this, no opinion, and are unable to draw an opinion after wading through the "facts". There's no proof, which he has also admitted in another interview...just what people say...uh huh...Walsh, the human tape recorder....

I can't hear because of the words...

More interesting stuff...second article, defending Motorola

BTW...Walsh's comments about Lance's deal with the cortisone makes no sense. There would be no reason to, after the fact, say there was a prescription. What reason would anyone have to cover for or defend Lance at that time?
No reason....

...jeff

...and to add injury to insult LA is from TEXAS.

brent_dube

I think that you are only looking at the idea that Walsh said in the book that Armstrong is doping. Read between the lines. He is just pointing out facts having to do with the subject. So many people here are getting 'proof of facts' and 'proof of doping' mixed up.

Piratello

Exactly, couldn´t have said it any better.

Crack'n'fail

I personally have not reacted against the book other than in conversations in my own home. There are thousands of books out there written on the sole basis of circumstantial evidence. It's going to happen, it's part of free press. i want to explain something about this "sacred cow" status many give to Lance. Most people here in America have been affected by cancer, some of us in more direct ways than others. For those of us who have lost close loved ones or who are at risk for developing cancer ourselves, he stands as a testament of hope. Hope that others won't have to suffer our misfortune, or that we won't have to be a memory to those around us, like our lost loved ones are to us. I have to say, it's a little risky to put that much imprtance on the achievment of another human. But we do it, and I can tell you that when someone goes and starts trying to diminish what that person has done, you are going to react negatively to that, whether it's rational or not. This is not to say that there aren't blind loyalist americans reacting as well, but I can tell you that this is where a lot of this emotion is coming from.

bac

So Lance gets treated poorly because his fans "worship" him? I guess I'll have to stop then.

brent_dube

Armstrong has fans... who cares? Being bothered by that is like being pissed off at the Backstreet Boys. It's so childish.
Waste your emotion on something else.

Laggard

It's not that he has fans. It's that many of his fans treat him as some type of untouchable god completely incapable of any wrong.

lotek 

I have very conflicted thoughts here, and I expect a lot of others
have the same idea.
When it comes to what he did in regards to his own cancer, and the LAF, Livestrong,
Ride for the roses etc. then yes, I do hold him as a hero, and can't do any wrong.
On the other hand, he is a sports figure and in that he is fallable.

kerank

I especially liked the last paragraph:

"The media being what they are, there will always be plenty of eager hands to polish the halos of the gods. It takes a firmer hand to point out any grimy tracks their feet of clay may leave on the world's stage."

LOL... No one in the media ever writes negative things about popular-culture figures. We readers/consumers would never read articles, buy magazines, or buy books that aren't based on absolute fact. Maybe he should go to the news stand sometime.

The authors might be taken a lot more seriously if they would donate all profits of the sale of the book to LAF or some other worthy cause. Although this wouldn't help any of the "facts" in the book, it would at least remove one motive associated with sensational journalism.