'Enough is Enough' - Lance Armstrong

Lusk Doyle

No

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/watson-armstrong-did-what-he-had-to-do

What a prat. End of.

RobFowl

No

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/watson-armstrong-did-what-he-had-to-do

What a prat. End of.

Yep

FrankGrimes

No

RobFowl wrote: »

Yep

+1 on that. The point he's trying to make about Lance not being a highly manipulative individual is well and truly shown to be totally unfounded in David Walsh's book. Surprised to see the book hasn't been discussed much here. Maybe that's cos like myself, people who've been following Walsh's articles closely over the past 13 years thought there wouldn't be much new insight in the book. I wouldn't have bought it but was given it for Christmas and I'm glad as it turned out to be very insightful.

In particular, it gives much more insight on just what extent Lance went to intimidate people and you really get a sense of the impact speaking out had on the whistleblowers' lives. Gotta say, I've great admiration for Emma O'Reilly and others.

Would love to have seen Lance's face when he read (and you just know he's self-obsessed enough to have to read it) the quote on the front page from Seven: "You're no messiah. you're a movie of the week. you're a f**king t-shirt, at best."

Cienciano

No

Lance actually tweeted a link to that Graham Watson article saying it was "the most balanced piece we've seen yet".
Is that an admission from lance that he doped? If that Watson article came out this time last year basically saying "lance doped cos he had to, but he was the best at doping and just beat other dopers" Lance would have gone on the attack.
Now he has friends saying it and actually praising them for it!

Hard to read an article that says "if Lance did what he’s been accused of doing, then that’s his issue to deal with", and that's the end of the criticism of the drug cheat. Lance was really a victim, USADA are the big bad people in all of this :rolleyes:

petethedrummer

No

"I’m not likely to utter any bad words about a cyclist who helped so much to escalate my earnings way back then" - Graham Watson

Once Graham is alright, that's all that matters. Everyone else can go f*** themselves.

Raam

No

Which cycling websites and magazines use Watson's pictures? Time to avoid them.

ThisRegard

No

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Maybe that's cos like myself, people who've been following Walsh's articles closely over the past 13 years thought there wouldn't be much new insight in the book. I wouldn't have bought it but was given it for Christmas and I'm glad as it turned out to be very insightful.

That's my thinking. Has it much more than what's covered in Rough Ride and The Secret Race ?

Lusk Doyle

No

ThisRegard wrote: »

That's my thinking. Has it much more than what's covered in Rough Ride and The Secret Race ?

There's a secret race? Why haven't I heard of this before? Is it like the stone cutters club - entry by invitation only?

Lusk Doyle

No

Of course, when you actually see this guy it becomes easy to understand his position on the use of doping products...he's sweating just holding the camera FFS!



I mean if it weren't for both the motorbike he uses to travel on while taking shots and PEDs, how would he ever get up the mountains???

Idleater

No

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

Of course, when you actually see this guy it becomes easy to understand his position on the use of doping products...he's sweating just holding the camera FFS!

Lol, I think the same thing about the correlation between the strength and vehemence of utterances shouted from car windows and the rotundness of the utterer.

ROK ON

No

Massive overreaction IMHO
I don't agree with him, but I find his statemen is remarkably honest - mores than many folks involved in the LA debacle.

He admits he is completely biased. In almost any walk of life those involved so closely with a person or event are actually completely incapable of admitting bias.

It is a start. This is his version of what happened as he chooses to see it thru his openly biased eyes.

Lusk Doyle

No

ROK ON wrote: »

Massive overreaction IMHO
I don't agree with him, but I find his statemen is remarkably honest - mores than many folks involved in the LA debacle.

He admits he is completely biased. In almost any walk of life those involved so closely with a person or event are actually completely incapable of admitting bias.

It is a start. This is his version of what happened as he chooses to see it thru his openly biased eyes.

If he admits he is so biased then his words ain't worth sh1t.

Lumen

ROK ON wrote: »

Massive overreaction IMHO. I don't agree with him, but I find his statemen is remarkably honest - mores than many folks involved in the LA debacle.

He admits he is completely biased. In almost any walk of life those involved so closely with a person or event are actually completely incapable of admitting bias.

It is a start. This is his version of what happened as he chooses to see it thru his openly biased eyes.

He doesn't admit bias in any meaningful way. He buries it in the middle of a fawning and rambling defence of a cheat.

Lets take one sentence:

"He didn’t kill anyone along the way, and as a father of five, he’s no child molester either."

WTF? Even aside from that fact that most child abuse is done by relatives in the home, is "I didn't kill anyone or molest any children" now a valid general defence?

"Sure I shot him in the kneecaps, but I didn't kill him. He gets around fine in a wheelchair. Yeah, I might have sold crack to his 12 year old daughter, but it's not like I molested her".

ROK ON

No

Depends.

You can be biased and correct about something or biased and incorrect.

Most here are biased against LA - it happens that we are correct to be.
Now let's assume that this is all a hoax and that he was set up.
Would we be able to change our minds about him - I wouldn't.

Watson admits he is biased - and he admits why.
Disclosure and visibility are important concepts.

He remains a decent photographer with a lousy taste in cyclists.

Lumen

ROK ON wrote: »

Disclosure and visibility are important concepts

That's nice-sounding nonsense.

ROK ON

No

Fine.
But that is my opinion.
Let's recap.

LA does lots of bad stuff.
He is being rightly held to account for that.
The Internet demands stuff be put to right and so asks former LA colleagues/hangers on to confess and apologise.
Some do.
Some don't.
And some admit that because LA effectively 'made' them that they will not damn him.
Tbh - I think more of Watson for his piece than I do of Brunyeel, Ruberia, Ligget and the entire Sky management team.
There really is nothing to see here.

hinault

ThisRegard wrote: »

That's my thinking. Has it much more than what's covered in Rough Ride and The Secret Race ?

Walsh's book is an excellent read - I've got to page 302 and the coverage of the SCA hearings alone is worth the price of the book.

I'd strongly recommend the book

Fr D Maugire

No

The problem with Graham Watson and his bias is the sheer hypocrisy. When Contador was busted a few years back, Watson was positively seething towards Contador going on about how he was destroying all his images of Contador because he was a doper, blah, blah, blah. Watson is critical of dopers except when they are nice Anglos or something.

Sherwen, Liggett, Watson are all in the same boat, they had their noses so far up Armstrongs butt, they cannot be take seriously in anything they utter on the matter. The only thing worthwhile about the Watson piece is the fact he admites to refusing to criticise Armstrong because he made so much money of him. In other words a pimp.

ROK ON

No

Unfortunately I don't think that Watson is alone in his hypocrisy.

Too many members of the peleton havehad a lot of words to say about the inconsequential doper - ie bit players doping simply to survive.
At the same time these moral guardians have been remarkably quite about big names doping such as LA, Contador or Schleck.

How many patrons of the peleton have been consistently outspoken against doping - not too many. Not even Millar.

FrankGrimes

No

ThisRegard wrote: »

That's my thinking. Has it much more than what's covered in Rough Ride and The Secret Race ?

I've read Rough Ride and most of Walsh's articles and Kimmage's. Haven't heard of the The Secret Race and only flicked through Lloyd to Landis, but 7 Deadly Sins had enough new info for me to be glued to it - got through it over 3 days between trips to the fridge for turkey sandwiches over Christmas!

petethedrummer

No

Anyone remember the last Graham Watson incident?

http://road.cc/content/news/26568-storm-over-graham-watson-pictures-branding-greg-lemond-fool

furiousox

No

If you have a kindle (other e-readers are available) about 80% of what's in 'Seven Deadly Sins' is in 'Lanced' and it's only $4.60.

http://www.amazon.com/Lanced-shaming-Lance-Armstrong-ebook/dp/B009ZZW7WK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1357332206&sr=1-1&keywords=lanced

resdubwhite

No

I bought 3 cycling books in the past few months.

Seven deadly sins is very good ( the Bill Tormey incident is very funny)
The secret race is an honest open account of what went on. I found it marginally better.
The Road to Valour . Outstanding. ( i know its not about Lancegate, but had to just say Its fab, and given the amount of bad news in the cycling world it certainly lifted the spirits.)

If you read the Secret race. I think Hamilton has his finger on the pulse Re the Federal investigation on Lance.

The closure of the case had all of the appearance of a political decision. Just because it didn't happen didn't mean they didn't have a strong case.

Plastik

No

I found Seven Deadly Sins to be mediocre. It's 3/4's of a good book and then the writing style changes completely, it runs out of steam and made for a poor ending. It's interesting to read about Walshes personal perspective on the situation but it didn't live up to my expectations. I don't particularly like Tyler Hamilton, for no reason that I can place, but I found his book a far better read.

The problem with Seven Deadly Sins? Maybe the complete over exposure of Lance at this stage. If you've seen the live Q&A session he did christmas week, know the USADA reasoned decision document and have read The Secret Race then there's I probably wouldn't recommend it.

As a stand-alone book for someone not completely up to speed on all that has happened it probably reads much better.

RyanAndrew

No

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-said-to-weigh-admission-of-doping.html?hp

In Reversal, Armstrong Is Said to Weigh Admitting Drug Use

By JULIET MACUR

resdubwhite

No

RyanAndrew wrote: »

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-said-to-weigh-admission-of-doping.html?hp

In Reversal, Armstrong Is Said to Weigh Admitting Drug Use

By JULIET MACUR

No F**king way he confesses.

happytramp

No

resdubwhite wrote: »

No F**king way he confesses.

If he does, however, one has to wonder whether it'll be a full blown, house of cards toppling, uci destroying, whistle blowing or a carefully worded press release that tip toes around positive test cover up's and illicit payments in order to exonerate the uci.

Junior

petethedrummer wrote: »

Anyone remember the last Graham Watson incident?

http://road.cc/content/news/26568-storm-over-graham-watson-pictures-branding-greg-lemond-fool

There was another one in between where he said women weren't able to ride classics or tours - along the longs of trot along now little girls and stop pretending to play at a man's game..

He brought to life the articles I read in magazines, now I just see him as an odious f*ckin toad sucking as much cash out of a sport as he can.

Cienciano

No

The start of operation damage limitation begins! Don't forgive Lance for him, do it for the millions of cancer sufferers out there!

resdubwhite

No

happytramp wrote: »

If he does, however, one has to wonder whether it'll be a full blown, house of cards toppling, uci destroying, whistle blowing or a carefully worded press release that tip toes around positive test cover up's and illicit payments in order to exonerate the uci.

You had me at UCI destroying.
Swoon.