A decade of dopers.........
 

Since it is now very very safe to say Lance did use something and it appears that almost all at his level did as well. Why not just keep the winners as they are and do as baseball did.
Sad reality of a brutal sport. If they all are doing it is it cheating**********?

That being said Lance was a champion at the age of 16......

Yes, if they all are doing it it is still cheating. Sad spectacle. The reality is my esteem of those who have fessed up has risen, even for Floyd, while my thoughts of lance have evaporated to the conclusion that he is simply a bully, and like all bullies, a coward at heart.

My view is...part of Lance's indignance and justification for what he did is that 'everybody was doing it.' As with all champions, there is the physical and there is mental side of the sport. No doubt there are others with even greater physical skills than Lance and of course we know that...he was not the best sprinter or best climber...but a great combination of all attributes. His mental superiority may be further distilled down to not only his steely resolve to dominate but also to obfuscate i.e. avoid detection. He also had the best doping doctor in the business on his payroll. So he was ahead of the curve in not only his physical dominance of the sport, but the mental side that got him there. If you think about what he achieved, it almost defies explanation. Of course we have now learned it does so for a reason. Lance is great but perhaps his greatest or worst attribute is...he would do whatever it took to win and dominate. He would go to any length. For an American to go into Europe's back yard and repeatedly dominate their passion for a sport that most Americans hardly recognize but is a lifestyle for Europeans is pretty unbelievable really. You can't make this story up it is so fantastic.

Lastly, I haven't read Tyler's book yet. I hope to over the holiday. One of my closest cycling buddies has however and we all used to be fans of Lance. That has changed. He was pretty astounded by the book and in his mind, Lance was basically the champion of the cheaters and why he dominated. I always figured he was a ruthless ahole to dominate like he did...but figured he did it maybe with some help...but he was way ahead of the curve and his doping it sounds like was at a higher level than others.

Oh brother .... (can't get face palm pic right now)

**** (or delete would be better)

The problem here is they were all cheating. Seriously. That's rather obvious. But can you tolerate it? No.

Even if it means the sport's big icon has to take the Big Fall, he has to come down. Armstrong strikes me as a tragic figure in some ways, but he is the penultimate dbag. Still, the guy did almost die from cancer, and he did come back to win the hardest sporting event in the world against similarly doped competitors 7 straight times. That will always be absolutely amazing, even if you don't like the guy, and even if he did dope. After reading Hamilton's book, the doping aspect makes his success even more astonishing in some ways.

Ugly story in the end. Hey, at least he raised dough for cancer and inspired a lot of people, so it's not all bad.

The best thing he could do would be to come clean. I think ultimately Armstrong would figure out a way to stay popular. Not for nothing, but painting Armstrong as some kind of devil here is preposterous. He's just an exceptional athlete that played out this sordid game better than anybody else, with the complicity of the sport's governing body (and one might argue even top broadcasters and media who seemed to look the other way), as ALL of his competitors were also trying to do at the same time. And for that we want to burn the guy like a witch? Keep a little perspective here. While I agree with the USADA's actions, no matter how much it disappoints people, the vilification of Armstrong in some quarters is over the top in the context of the dirty sport he participated in during that era. If you want to vilify anybody, start with the UCI.

In the end, this may well be the final signal that tells pro cycling the doping party is really over, and hopefully the sport moves forward in a healthier way.

I'm just hoping by now that all of his fans (including the journalists) have learned the definition of hearsay so that I don't have to keep reading about how that's all the USADA has on Lance.

You guys are STILL missing part of the point. It's not that he doped, it's the level that he did it, the coercion, bullying, intimidation, threats ...... he seemed to be in a class of his own there. So even today you guys are apologists with "well, they all doped ..." blah blah .... gimme a break .....

So he was a bad guy and the rest were just collateral damage? They ALL doped with intent, he may have had a better program, but they are no lilies in this field.

Baseball is not an apt comparison. For years, baseball did not ban performance enhancing drugs. When guys like McGwire and Bonds were juicing, baseball had not specifically outlawed it. So, it is kind of hard to punish them when they technically weren't breaking the rules. Even now, baseball has the most lax regulations and restrictions on PEDs of all sports.

Cycling, on the other hand, had banned PEDs and tried to fight them.

My athletics coach used to say that no man can run 100 under 10s if he's not using something. The difference are that some use doping in pre-sason training in order to train harder. Some use new, still not banned substances. But all the top athletes use some doping.

This doesn't make their success any less. With doping it doesn't get any easier, you just go faster. You still need to train very hard, do good when the race starts, push yourself. If you add the fact that most competition uses doping, you're practically going handicapped if you stay clean.

I admire Lance, inspite of doping. Hard training, racing, will to win - it's all there. As it was before. The world is not black&white. Pro sport especially.

I agree with virtually all you wrote with the exception of your last sentence. There is no wake up call or seminole moment for the simple reason that mankind does not learn by its mistakes and is prone to repeat repeat history due to primal greed. There is no stoppage of doping in sport for the simple fact there will always be those that come from nothing with physical gifts whereas if they cheat, they will dominate. Chance of getting caught only defaults them back to where they came from...nowhere. So effectively there is no risk other than the consequence of putting unknown drugs in your body. Doping will continue in all of sport. People will risk their lives for fame and glory and even their reputations of getting caught. They came from nowhere and will return if caught. If they successfully cheat, an many have from bank robbers to great track stars to swimmers to those in baseball and NFL, then they will reap the reward. Lance in spite of it now coming out that he may have been the greatest cheater of all time and not just a 'casual cheater' may still endure this fire storm to some degree. In other words, the obscurity he would have endured for not cheating is still worse than the rewards of cheating.

Mmmmmm......... dopers

The massive body of eyewitness testimony from 20+ sources is beyond 'hearsay'.

Look, follow the money. In big-time cycling, I think that it's quite possible the sport will clean up (and already has for the MOST part), because the only source of money is essentially from corporate sponsors shelling out upwards of $10-$20 million annually to field a top flight UCI team. Those entities are in it for positive publicity. That's what makes this a wake-up call in my view. This guy was the Godfather of pro cycling doping, and he has fallen, very hard. If Lance couldn't keep it under wraps, nobody can. That is the pressure that will keep the sport clean. I can't think of a more negative story than a big time doping scandal like Armstrong's.

The lower levels of the sport, not so much. I think doping will continue there. But I would hope that the highest level of the sport has turned a corner, and I think it has.

The issue is not whether he was a great athlete or not. He was.

The issue is not whether everybody else was doping or not. They were.

The issue is that he used coercion, intimidation and tried to destroy anyone who tried to expose the truth.

Oh I totally get that. But so many lanceheads here and elsewhere including a lot of mainstream journalists (Rick Reilly and others at ESPN, folks over at MSNBC and Washington Post among others) all kept calling the eyewitness testimony of the 15 cyclists hearsay and saying the USADA only had hearsay and re-analysis of old tests to go on. Just drove me batty because it's only hearsay (and inadmissible in criminal court) if you hear someone say they did something. On the other hand, if you see someone inject themselves, that's eyewitness testimony and perfectly valid. So many times I kept seeing reputable journalists throwing around the word hearsay and wanting to send them a clip from The Princess Bride with Inigo Montoya saying over and over "I do not think it means what you think it means" until they get it through their thick skulls.

Even in this thread, the apologists still ignore that. It's one thing to say someone doped in the hopes of retaining their spot on a team. But to be the chief "pusher", forcing people to dope or quit the team, slandering those trying to clean things up etc .... did no one read the report ? ... Not that you had to read it ... the points have been known for years for those paying attention. The report just puts everything in one place.

"..If they all are doing it is it cheating ?.."


"..He's just an exceptional athlete that played out this sordid game better than anybody else,.."


"..I just can't chastize Lance (or Bonds) that much since we all know he was doping with countless untold others.."


"..They ALL doped with intent, he may have had a better program.."


"..This doesn't make their success any less. With doping it doesn't get any easier, you just go faster..."

Off with his head!

People that admit their mistakes are always viewed in a more favorable light than those who maintain their innocence. Andy petite admitted he used HGH and everyone respects him for it. The people that fight allegations with every last breath always come off as arrogant a holes. Just look at roger Clemens and bonds. Lance coming back from cancer in my opinion has more of an excuse for what he did than any other of the hundreds of athletes who did the same thing but he just needs to come clean. The public does not like to be lied to and essentially lance is spitting in our faces by maintaining his innocence. Remember its not the crime it's the cover up.

Lance like Tiger has never taken a step in life without calculus. It is what makes them tick and also in large measure what made them successful and also fall out of grace. But there is damage and there is damage control. Lance calculates everything...including his damage control. His calculus is and will continue to be...admit nothing...and fly under the radar of suspicion that everybody cheated..this is his buffer. There will be no relelation that the truth will set him free. His calculation is the truth will create more ruin to his fame then keeping quiet and letting the hand wringers and second guessers do just that. Now...if there becomes an avalanche of disdain for Lance because of Tyler's book for the 'average' joe...then he may change his course. Until then he will let uncertainty cover up any suspicion that the guy was the anti Christ.

Also...point taken to those that say his biggest sin is his intimidation and being bigger than the sport. This speaks to a character flaw...lol...and house of cards as nobody is bigger than any sport. I believe part of his problem is...he threatened to burying those that weren't reaping the same fame Lance was. So his threats turned out to have no sting because the guys he threatened didn't have as much to lose. Lance all told is probably slightly 'cracked'. This madness not only made him dominate but also go to extraordinary means to throw 'anybody' under the bus to promote his personal fame....probably a great guy if you went along with his agenda but if not, hell hath no fury like the unib@!!er

Why don't they create a parallel event where everyone can take drugs, maybe call it the 'Tour de Drugs'. That way there will at least be a level playing field!

Its been going on for more than a decade, dude.

No you see, this is another false perception. This is what we had before. There was a game within a game. Lances biggest success? He took better drugs than the other guys. This would also be the case if you were to open the sport up to doping. The guys with the best chemistry of DNA + the drugs they take (excluding other diet and training) = the best cyclist. This is what we had when Lance dominated.

Completely agree with your first paragraph.

But USADA didnt' do themselves any favor in how they dealt with the riders who provided testimony... make no mistake about it, these riders didn't come to USADA to come clean. To that extent, it helps buttressing your argument that it casts more "uncertainty", and as long as there are enough "uncertainties" out there, Lance has no incentive to come clean.

I don't know if this was your intention or not, but the title has not got both the Belle and Sebastian songs "A Century of Fakers" and "A Century of Elvis" stuck in my head. So thank you very much for that.