Landis admits doping, points finger at LA - Please read Mod Warning post 1

Lumen

RobFowl wrote: »

TBF the greatest ever cyclist was Eddy Merckx and he was thrown out of the Giro for doping yet is widely admired and treated with acclaim....

Yes, but Eddy Merckx is not still a professional racer. Once dopers leave the sport their achievements can be seen in context.

RobFowl

Lumen wrote: »

Yes, but Eddy Merckx is not still a professional racer. Once dopers leave the sport their achievements can be seen in context.

So once Armstong retires then everything's ok?

petethedrummer

RobFowl wrote: »

TBF the greatest ever cyclist was Eddy Merckx and he was thrown out of the Giro for doping yet is widely admired and treated with acclaim....

Edit Cannot believe I'm even partially defending Armstrong .........

I can't believe it either. Now for a bit of speculation;

Lets say everyone was clean from 1999 to 2006. Do you think Lance would have won any tours?

If they were all clean in the Merckx era, do you think Merckx would still be a multiple tour champion?

Lumen

RobFowl wrote: »

So once Armstong retires then everything's ok?

No, but it would be better. He represents the idea that if you cheat well enough you can get away with it. That is bad. Once he leaves the sport we can return to the idea that "things used to be that way but are better now".

Basically, Lance is a festering wound on the sport.

Diarmuid

Lumen wrote: »

Basically, Lance is a festering wound on the sport.

Of in even stronger language.

RobFowl

petethedrummer wrote: »

Lets say everyone was clean from 1999 to 2006. Do you think Lance would have won any tours?

From 1992 onwards cycling results were so skewed I don't think anyone knows who would have won a grand tour if there was no EPO.

Mr. Presentable

Lumen wrote: »

No, but it would be better. He represents the idea that if you cheat well enough you can get away with it.

This is my feeling on it precisely. I only wish I could have said it thus.

petethedrummer

RobFowl wrote: »

From 1992 onwards cycling results were so skewed I don't think anyone knows who would have won a grand tour if there was no EPO.

thats fine, I agree there. now answer the other part.:D

RobFowl

petethedrummer wrote: »

If they were all clean in the Merckx era, do you think Merckx would still be a multiple tour champion?

I think so but he wouldn't have won so many.

niceonetom

Leaving aside the idea that there is something qualitatively different about the blood-doping era and the doping that had preceded it, Lance is somehow different to the likes of Merckx and Indurain and all the other multi GT winners.

They never set themselves up as paragons of virtue. They never wrote books about their own heroism, or turned the resulting hero-worship into a massively profitable brand, replete with merchandise, corporate sponsorship and an army of unblinking, unquestioning fund-raisers. They never vilified their opponents in the media or made them unemployable in the sport. They never wrapped themselves in a worthy cause so tightly as to make themselves immune from criticism. They never porked an Olsen twin or pointedly refused to deny a future in politics.

LA is being hunted now more for his hubris than for his alleged doping. It's hard not to feeling the dramatic necessity of his fall. It's epic, in the original sense.

petethedrummer

Great post Tom.

niceonetom wrote: »

They never wrapped themselves in a worthy cause so tightly as to make themselves immune from criticism.

Questions are now being asked as to how worthy a charity livestrong actually is.

Two heads of charity watchdog groups that rate nonprofit organizations said the deal's apparent bundling of Armstrong's personal financial interests with those of the foundation troubled them.

"This blurs the lines between the foundation and its charitable mission, and the personal gain of its founder,'' said Ken Berger, president and executive director of Charity Navigator. "It's mixing two purposes in a way that smells of a conflict of interest. The most precious thing a charitable organization has is the public's trust, and things like this put a chink in that.''

Daniel Borochoff, founder and president of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago, said he was uncomfortable with the arrangement, especially because Armstrong remains chairman of the board of the foundation. "Nonprofits have to be concerned not only with actual conflicts of interest, but the appearance of conflicts of interest,'' Borochoff said.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5551242

Berger and Borochoff are probably just two more cancer lovers.

Harrybelafonte

niceonetom wrote: »

Leaving aside the idea that there is something qualitatively different about the blood-doping era and the doping that had preceded it, Lance is somehow different to the likes of Merckx and Indurain and all the other multi GT winners.

They never set themselves up as paragons of virtue. They never wrote books about their own heroism, or turned the resulting hero-worship into a massively profitable brand, replete with merchandise, corporate sponsorship and an army of unblinking, unquestioning fund-raisers. They never vilified their opponents in the media or made them unemployable in the sport. They never wrapped themselves in a worthy cause so tightly as to make themselves immune from criticism. They never porked an Olsen twin or pointedly refused to deny a future in politics.

LA is being hunted now more for his hubris than for his alleged doping. It's hard not to feeling the dramatic necessity of his fall. It's epic, in the original sense.

Request permission to quote this at any Lance lovers I come across. I'll add my own bit about spitting on people.

dave2pvd

petethedrummer wrote: »

Great post Tom.

Questions are now being asked as to how worthy a charity livestrong actually is.

Berger and Borochoff are probably just two more cancer lovers.

That's actually pretty damning stuff for Livestrong. Charitable giving in the US is huge. Those 2 organizations are often used by US corporations and individuals to determine whether or not a charity is worth giving to. Any black marks at all and a .org can be dropped off the list of beneficiaries. Around 3 years ago, my company did an audit of all the charities we give to (I was the one who did the audit). We had around a dozen on our list. It was whittled down to 3. 4 more approved charities were then added to the list.

tfrancer

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

Request permission to quote this at any Lance lovers I come across. I'll add my own bit about spitting on people.

Does a person have to be either a "Lance lover" or a "Lance hater"? Is it possible to be neither?

ShevY

yes, no.

how can you post in a cycling forum and be neither

niceonetom

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

Request permission to quote this at any Lance lovers I come across. I'll add my own bit about spitting on people.

By all means.

TinyExplosions

petethedrummer wrote: »

Questions are now being asked as to how worthy a charity livestrong actually is.

One of the fishiest things I find is that there's 2 organisations, Livestrong.org, and Livestrong.com -they both look very similar, and you could easily think that they were one and the same, yet one is a for profit organisation, and one is a charity...

Lumen

TinyExplosions wrote: »

one is a for profit organisation, and one is a charity...

Lance should trademark "charitit".

joker77

TinyExplosions wrote: »

One of the fishiest things I find is that there's 2 organisations, Livestrong.org, and Livestrong.com -they both look very similar, and you could easily think that they were one and the same, yet one is a for profit organisation, and one is a charity...

Nothing fishy about it - it's just plain wrong. There's no grey area.

petethedrummer

But as I asked on the cyclingnews forum. Its fairly hard to actually spend any money on livestrong.com, I clicked around for a while last night and couldn't actually see anything you could purchase. Then I had a shower.

The only revenue I could see is from advertising. Maybe there's alot to be made from it though.

The livestrong gear is all for sale on the .org site with profits going to the foundation.

leftism

The thing that would worry me is how easily funds from one could end up in the other when you have two companies, both headed up by the same man, with two conflicting goals (one profit, one charity). With such an indistiguishable line of demarkation between each company, the accounts must be a NIGHTMARE to manage.

Sort of an accidental-on-purpose kind of nightmare...

petethedrummer

Well there would be 2 seperate sets of accounts. It would be fairly easy to see the delineation there.

I think the concern is how the charity money is being used.

Lumen

leftism wrote: »

The thing that would worry me is how easily funds from one can end up in the other when you have two companies, both headed up by the same man, with two conflicting goals (one profit, one charity). With such an indistiguishable line of demarkation between each company, the accounts must be a NIGHTMARE to manage.

Sort of an accidental-on-purpose kind of nightmare....

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Lance is directly misappropriating charitable funds to buy drugs and Schumi's time. He has Treks and eBay for that.

The problem is more abstract, in that both the charity and the Lance benefit from the same cult-of-personality, so when he's promoting one the other benefits. I don't see a huge problem with that.

He has raised a lot of money and awareness for cancer, which is good.

But even if Darth Vader was giving orphans free rides on the Death Star, you still couldn't forgive what he did to those Ewoks.

RobFowl

Lumen wrote: »

But even if Darth Vader was giving orphans free rides on the Death Star, you still couldn't forgive what he did to those Ewoks.

Totally agree. He should never have let those furry feckers survive..

nerraw1111

Big breaking news story developing on Armstrong.

Sports Illustrated are resporting new evidence against Armstrong.


"SI reports new information in the case against Lance Armstrong."


Among SI's revelations:

• In the late 1990s, according to a source with knowledge of the government's investigation of Armstrong, the Texan gained access to a drug, in clinical trial, called HemAssist, developed by Baxter Healthcare Corp. HemAssist was to be used for cases of extreme blood loss. In animal studies, it had been shown to boost the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity, without as many risks as EPO. (Armstrong, though his lawyer, denies ever taking HemAssist.)


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/01/18/lance.armstrong/index.html#ixzz1BF0qafUi

spokeydokey

Finally, some fresh info

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/01/18/lance.armstrong/index.html#ixzz1BQYb9zku

petethedrummer

You're quick on the draw! I was just about to post. Apparently it has been cut down on the original planned article. There will be no livestrong funding or strippers or coke mentioned in the article.

macken04

god i can see this getting messy. Another law suit at the press for publishing these acquisitions?

If he did dope it would be a disaster for cycling, fans and all the poor cancer patients who are invested in livestrong. I hope for their sake its not true

petethedrummer

macken04 wrote: »

god i can see this getting messy. Another law suit at the press for publishing these acquisitions?

He hasn't sued anyone in years. It would be more trouble for him if he ended up in court.

Diarmuid

macken04 wrote: »

god i can see this getting messy. Another law suit at the press for publishing these acquisitions?

What do you mean "another"?

macken04 wrote: »

If he did dope it would be a disaster for cycling, fans and all the poor cancer patients who are invested in livestrong. I hope for their sake its not true

Absolutely not. Time for cycling and cycling fans to face up to the reality of their sport. Again. Hopefully this time it will be cleaned up for good.