Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

The new york times is reporting that Lance Armstrong may be ready to make a public admission of using performance enhancing drugs.

I expect that some of the remaining fan boys will claim some god-like morality in any admission. Yeah hard to believe but some will never see fault in his actions. However the motive is said to be to be so that life long bans may be modified so that he can re-enter sport, specifically WADA sanctioned running events and triathalons.

Though I am sure that he will spin some pretence of clearing the air for the good of the sport, cancer victims and any number of other higher causes. After all, spin and arguing the unarguable is something that he did even better than drug assisted riding.

http://nz.sports.yahoo.com/news/article ... port-says/
http://aol.sportingnews.com/sport/story ... livestrong
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/201 ... ead-jan-5/

From http://cycling.norbtech.com/2013/01/lance-confession/

Armstrong will be doing this on his terms and trying to minimise the grief for himself. That is what he does. I expect if there is an admission of drug use, it will be as soft an admission as possible, and he will be hurling people under buses left, right and centre, trying to take the heat of himself.

and

To the fans. Those people still wearing their Livestrong bands and spouting !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! like “500 tests with out a failure” and “they were all doing it, just that Lance was the best!” That bunch of zealots will turn this around and be calling him the messiah of anti doping. (Thanks John Galloway for the title.) The group that have been steadfastly behind the Yellow Curtain will shift their rhetoric to put him back on the pedestal they love to see him on. And you watch Lance lap it all up.

For anyone reading any of the books that have come out this is pretty much what would be expected. It will still be about protecting Lance. And perhaps scoring as many points as he can against those that have spoken against him in the past.

It wont happen - as soon as his lawyer tells him that they wont let him compete in triathlons while he's doing time for perjury, he'll forget about it.
And if he's not motivated by his freedom, I've always thought Armstrong was motivated by money. Every company that gave him money under fraudulent pretenses will sue him immediately (cos the last one to sue wont get any money).

I used to admire the bloke.

Now I wish he'd just go away and give the sport a chance to heal, I hear Venus is good this time of year.

Mulger bill wrote:I used to admire the bloke.

Now I wish he'd just go away and give the sport a chance to heal, I hear Venus is good this time of year.

+ 1000..........

Lance was a drug cheat, but everyone seems to overlook the fact that the top guys in his era had to cheat or wouldn't win. Unfortunately for them, maybe sour grapes but he won and they didn't. Maybe he was already fitter, maybe he doped in ways that were more effective than the rest. I personally don't think much of Lance, but doping was the norm....i hope he admits it.

booge wrote:Lance was a drug cheat, but everyone seems to overlook the fact that the top guys in his era had to cheat or wouldn't win. Unfortunately for them, maybe sour grapes but he won and they didn't. Maybe he was already fitter, maybe he doped in ways that were more effective than the rest. I personally don't think much of Lance, but doping was the norm....i hope he admits it.

If you win by cheating, is it winning????

If all the top contenders are doping, in a twisted way it's a level playing field for the top GC riders and he won. It's not right, but when you read some of the books by guys who have been caught, it was common place.

Sounds to me like testing the water to see what the reaction would be.

As for the premise that Armstrong might get a reduced sentence, you only get a Faustian bargain if you confess BEFORE being found guilty.

Its just another can of worms that will be opened and tarnish all of the cycling community. Maybe his missus at night can sing to him while lightly running her fingers through his hair "everbody hates me, nobody likes me,think ill go and eat some worms"

But i do belive that people that have the comments of "he was taking drugs so it is not really winning" and the like, are very narrow minded or dont know what the sceane was back then. as a juvi division 2 (under 12 year old) i knew that it was the norm that if you made it overseas you would be on the "juice" once you get there.

booge wrote:If all the top contenders are doping, in a twisted way it's a level playing field for the top GC riders and he won. It's not right, but when you read some of the books by guys who have been caught, it was common place.

With respect booge it appears that you have not read much of the material that has come to light, especially books by those who blew whistles. It was not a level playing field despite so many others did the same.

Armstrong did it in such a way that he had signficant advantage over even the other cheats. There is everything to support that he was a rider far from capable of EVER winning or even being on the podium on an even playing field. Yet he did, seven times. There is however much to support that he had better connections and that he burnt friends and others alike an a sociopathic way. Little people (Betsy Andreu), not so little people (Floyd Landis) and others who were not required to cheat (David Walsh). His willingness to soil publicly and behind the scenes anyone that is a threat or just simply pissed him off is the stuff of movies.

Your first post is more on song. He was better than the other cheats. Though even that is insufficient to describe the magnitude of what he did.

Yes, there may be a sort of justification to respond in kind to cheats. Lance did far more than that.

Assuming that he does manage to get the sort of deal he can live with, it will be interesting to see how he spins it and how he spins others he has scores to settle with.

Here's a scenario that would be worth hoping for.

• Lance gets some form of entry back into WADA sanctioned triathalons and the like.
• Other contestants boycott events he enters under the arrangement

booge wrote:If all the top contenders are doping, in a twisted way it's a level playing field for the top GC riders and he won. It's not right, but when you read some of the books by guys who have been caught, it was common place.

With respect booge it appears that you have not read much of the material that has come to light, especially books by those who blew whistles. It was not a level playing field despite so many others did the same.
LATER EDIT: booge I now read your statement and see it is in the context of paladins poser rather than on Lance. Sorry. But I'll leave this post in place as comment on Lance anyway.

Armstrong did it in such a way that he had signficant advantage over even the other cheats. There is everything to support that he was a rider far from capable of EVER winning or even being on the podium on an even playing field. Yet he did, seven times. There is however much to support that he had better connections and that he burnt friends and others alike an a sociopathic way. Little people (Betsy Andreu), not so little people (Greg LeMond) and others who were not required to cheat (David Walsh). His willingness to soil publicly and behind the scenes anyone that is a threat or just simply pissed him off is the stuff of movies.

Your first post is more on song. He was better than the other cheats. Though even that is insufficient to describe the magnitude of what he did.

Yes, there may be a sort of justification to respond in kind to cheats. Lance did far more than that.

Assuming that he does manage to get the sort of deal he can live with, it will be interesting to see how he spins it and how he spins others he has scores to settle with.

(Later edit ; Brain snap I listed Landis when I meant LeMond)

fatdudeonabike wrote:It wont happen - as soon as his lawyer tells him that they wont let him compete in triathlons while he's doing time for perjury, he'll forget about it.
And if he's not motivated by his freedom, I've always thought Armstrong was motivated by money. Every company that gave him money under fraudulent pretenses will sue him immediately (cos the last one to sue wont get any money).

He's more into the fame and glory, money is just the icing on the cake. He is seeing all these other riders 'fessing up and getting pretty much just a slap on the wrist and is thinking he should jump on the bandwagon too. Other riders have doped but don't seem to have been sued or have to pay back prizemoney so there may be a precident set here. It will be interesting to see how things unfold.

Lance is running out of time though. He is 41 now, he wouldn't have a lot of years left to compete in triathlons or other similar events at the top level. Not sure he would really want to race at club level.

For as long as the same people are in charge at the UCI (and most countries cycling bodies), he probably rightly figures he's
got a chance of getting something financially advantageous to himself from a confession. Incorrigible - all of them, not
just LA - and a confession from the UCI president would be worth a lot more to the sports credibility.

Ross wrote:Other riders have doped but don't seem to have been sued

It'd only be a level field if they were all taking same dose of the same stuff. Never gonna happen 'cos most of the teams don't have that sort of "medical" backing.

booge wrote:Lance was a drug cheat, but everyone seems to overlook the fact that the top guys in his era had to cheat or wouldn't win.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that tired old assertion, I could buy a new C59 with Super Record EPS.

Hes a cheat,should be in jail for the rest of his life. If Marion Jones (Olympic 100m champion) had to do time due to lying to the court that she never used drugs then why isn't that hobb knob in jail? Hes a disgrace to all athletes. Should ban his name forever and walk around with "Drug Cheat" printed on his shirt,for the rest of his life.
Once a cheat always a cheat.
Tooo much money in sport these days. Get rid of the prize money and the sport will be clean.

Secret Squirrel wrote: Tooo much money in sport these days. Get rid of the prize money and the sport will be clean.

no it won't.

Yep lets let the race organisers and tv networks keep all the money the sport generates. Don't give any to the riders.

warthog1 wrote:Yep lets let the race organisers and tv networks keep all the money the sport generates. Don't give any to the riders.

or it couild be directed to development or to building the facilities. When was the last time that Fox Network put any money into building or refurbishing a footy stadium? Never. Each seat at a footy stadium comes in at around $15,000. For entertainment, not participant sport.

Two things.

The 'everyone was doping so Lance was legitimately the best cyclist of his era' is bunk. That argument assumes everyone had the same access to drugs, doctors, knowledge and inside connects. This was not true. Lance was the best at doping. He was also the most aggressive. His mantra was 'they are all up to their gills in dope, we have to go further',

Currently there is very little money in cycling (compared to world class Football, Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, etc). Taking the money would do little do lessen doping but it would definitely detract from the talent pool.

Apparently he is going to be on Oprah on Jan 17 - details here

It appears Tyler is correct when he said Lance by his nature can't remain silent.