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'Enough is Enough' - Lance Armstrong

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Armstrong Drops Fight Against Doping Charges

“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” Armstrong said in a statement.

“The toll this has taken on my family, and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today — finished with this nonsense.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-ends-fight-against-doping-charges-losing-his-7-tour-de-france-titles.html

Lance's decision means he will be stripped of his seven Tour titles, the bronze medal he won at the 2000 Olympics and all other titles, awards and money he won from August 1998 on.

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trodsky

Has there been any evidence to suggest he is guilty. Perhaps it's just a rumour?

A P

Listen up everyone, news hot off the presses
Today is the day Lance Armstrong confesses!

"Ladies and gentlemen, members of the press
I've been rumbled, it's time to confess

I can deny it as long as I like
My victories had nothing to do with the bike

I'm holding my hands up, I've long been a doper
I'm going to spill my guts later on Oprah

I'll tell her the reason I used injections
Was to bury traumatic childhood rejections

I'll tell her I'm sorry with tears in my eyes
I'll tell her my career was founded on lies

I've swallowed and injected every drug known to man
To climb up those mountains as fast as I can

Drugs were the reason I bombed up the Alps
The reason I claimed some notable scalps

For years I've been using numerous doctors
No-one complained (except maybe Vaughters)

The drugs helped increase my red blood corpuscles
Which helped to deliver oxygen to my muscles

Johan and Chris were in charge of logistics
I released fake wattage statistics

I admit that for all of my visits to France
I led the drug testers a merry dance

My fanboys shout out 'there's no evidence'
It must be said those poor ****ers are dense

"He's my hero, he's doing his best
He never recorded a positive test"

I sent out stooges like Fabiani and Liggett
Phil actually believes that I didn't do it!

Phil I am sorry, but that is just funny
Do you believe in the Easter Bunny?

Pat and Hein dug their heads in the sand
While I promoted my yellow wristband

Cycling is corrupted - I hear you ask why?
I refer your question to the UCI

What now for Lance? I've always had a plan
For what I would do when the **** hits the fan

I'm launching my election campaign today
To be the next President of the US of A

alfalad

Been in work all day so haven't read the report yet only articles on it but so far there seems to be very little being said about the UCI and their involvement. Seems like yes it was going on under their noses and they clearly didn't catch dopers as they should but nothing so far to suggest they are part of a cover up is there?

Diarmuid

petethedrummer wrote: »

Not really, Dr Geert Leinders is a bigger shadow.

And Sean Yates parking the Sky car outsider Motoman's shop.

I recognise that shop! When I was shopping for my first real bike I went there to check out some Treks. I remember there being quite a bit of LA memorabilia on the walls. Thats mad Ted

niceonetom

Dave Z being deposed like a boss.

greenmat

househero wrote: »

Professional athletes take steroids in every sport, it doesn't make it right, its just sad that this has been dug up so long after he recovered from cancer and won the tour d France so many times..

househero wrote: »

Personally, I think its too late to kick him in the balls for what he did.

househero wrote: »

You are right Alfa, sport should be clean, I am often beat by known users. Do I have a problem with that? No, if I chose to I could also use. The risks are not worth the reward for the level I compete at. It is not the banned substances that are the problem. Designer drugs are manufactured to be undected by current drugs tests. A study by the Olympic anti doping committee found banned substances in the 1980s Olympic 100m sprinters samples kept on file. Should Jesse Owens have his title stripped off him or what about usain bolt when the test catch up to the drugs?

Lance was a legend, because he had cancer and became the best in the world. A child with cancer does not see what happens behind the scenes and neither should they, this matter could have been delt without the media sensation. He knows what he did.

All drug cheats should be exposed for what they are in all sports. Athletes need to know that if they use PED's, eventually they will be caught and have to live with the consequences. Never forget all the young Pro's who died in their sleep around that time, the pressure they must have been put under to conform to the doping regime's at some teams must have been horrendous. We owe it to their memory to always expose drug cheats and maybe in time the sport can become clean.

furiousox

househero wrote: »

...Personally, I think its too late to kick him in the balls for what he did.

"ball"

deandean

alfalad wrote: »

But my biggest issue here is Lance used the charity as a cover and protector, felt it made him untouchable and anyone who crossed him or tried to tell the truth he tried to ruin them.

mmmm, that's exactly what Jimmy Saville did too.

morana

househero wrote: »

You are right Alfa, sport should be clean, I am often beat by known users. Do I have a problem with that?

what sport are we talking about here?

Are you Johnathan Vaughters?????

iregk

You know what sickens me in all of this Lance thing going back through the years and still today. The use of cancer. As Paul Kimmage siad, he doesn't have a patent on cancer. Now I'm on record a number of times in this forum outlining my feelings on LA, to me he is the biggest fraud that sport has ever seen. But it's the use of cancer that really gets to me.

Ok he suffered with it and yes he survived and regardless of who he is and what he did I will always be happy that he did that. I have friends and family who have gone through the same faith and it's one of my worst experiences in life to see a friend and a family member going through chemotherapy. So I've been directly touched by the disease and love to hear of stories of anyone who has survived it. What really annoys me is anytime anyone says anything remotely negative about him both him and his supporters, some on this forum, roll out the cancer defense straight away. Using it nonchalantly as if it absolves the man of anything and offers him the up most virtue.

Lance is it true you took drugs?
You must love cancer, I beat that desease man!

Seriously can those defending him on here, and I've no problem with that each is entitled to their own opinion, but just please leave the cancer out of it. Yes we know about it, we know what he went through but trying to defend the man for what he did based on playing the cancer card is sick, pathetic and down right shameful both on your part and his part.

There I've said my peace and will stay out of the remainder of this discussion.

Pacing Mule

Forgive what may come across as a trolling question. I assure you it isn't.

I'm not involved in cycling at all but I have always enjoyed watching the tour de france since a kid. Over the years as I grew up the only news I heard about cycling outside of the tour was that rider x, y or z tested positive for banned substance etc. In the early days this was shocking. Then the tour itself came along with a barrage of test fails either side of and during it. More and more high profile names became linked to drug taking as the years went on. I got to the stage where I assumed everybody was on them.

From what I gather from the summaries of the report it appears that it would be more common to dope than not dope across the entire pro sport. So my question is this - should Lance Armstrong's achievements still be viewed with a sense of awe and accomplishment ? If everyone at the top of the sport was doping then it was a kind of level playing field as such.

My personal opinion is that his achievements are of course tainted by drug taking / performance enhancing - they would be far better if done clean but they are still some pretty impressive achievements. Anyway just to emphasise again I'm not trolling here - just an interested outsiders perspective of the sport (I'm sure that those who truly love the sport are not happy with the perception that all riders were drug cheats so apologies for any offence caused there too)

ThisRegard

Sean Kelly was just on Morning Ireland and seems to think McQuaid is doing a great job in the fight against doing since he became president.

corny

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/nike-show-continued-support-for-armstrong-after-usada-report

Astonishing really. Still plenty of non believers it would seem.

martingriff

deandean wrote: »

mmmm, that's exactly what Jimmy Saville did too.

Ok Armstrong is more than likely a cheat but lets not throw him in the same category as him.

Rofo

ThisRegard wrote: »

Sean Kelly was just on Morning Ireland and seems to think McQuaid is doing a great job in the fight against doing since he became president.

Sean Kelly runs a UCI Continental team that often depend on invites to race some of the Pro Tour stage races. I'm not sure what influence the UCI would have over such things but SK always strikes me a smart man.

ThisRegard

Yeah, I was thinking he had his mind on his current career, and possibly his past, while commenting.

Lumen

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

should Lance Armstrong's achievements still be viewed with a sense of awe and accomplishment ? If everyone at the top of the sport was doping then it was a kind of level playing field as such.

No.

1. It's not a level playing field because different riders respond differently to the drugs.

2. It's not a level playing field because a large part of the sporting success under an "everyone dopes" regime comes down the teams' ability to dodge the tests, which depends on money, intimidation etc.

3. Viewing a cheat with a sense of awe and accomplishment is wrong, unless you think cheating is something to be appreciated.

Lance may be the most successful TdF rider ever, measured by the number of times he stood on the top step of the podium, but the way he achieved it should make no one feel good.

Wibbs

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

From what I gather from the summaries of the report it appears that it would be more common to dope than not dope across the entire pro sport. So my question is this - should Lance Armstrong's achievements still be viewed with a sense of awe and accomplishment ? If everyone at the top of the sport was doping then it was a kind of level playing field as such.

PM it sounds like it makes sense, but the problem is twofold, 1) the team with the best doctors and sustained doping programme and money stand to win more, so bye by level playing field, 2) people respond to these blood enhancing drugs and regimes differently, sometimes wildly differently. So you can turn a cyclist with the build for winning one day classics into a tour contender where otherwise he'd be mid, or even back of the field.

Armstong is a good example of this. Lets compare him to another American cyclist, Greg Lemond in the time before the blood enhancements. Greg was a staggering talent from the get go. As a junior he was beating seniors by miles. He had the build for winning tours. In his very first tour at 22 IIRC, he came third, a hint of things to come. Now Lance was a helluva talent too, but not like Lemond. More a one day classics winner that could win the odd stage of the bigger tours. Different animal. In his first Tour de france he came waaaay down the field. Then he comes back and out of nowhere starts to win them? Does not compute. You can see this pattern with all grand tour winners before the blood enhancement drugs. This goes triple for multiple grand tour winners. Bernard Hinault was in the top three in his first and won his second tour outright. Laurent Fignon another example that follows this pattern. ALL of the pre blood doping multiple grand tour winners follow this pattern. It was damn near a set in stone rule. The same rule/pattern goes out the window with the advent of EPO and the like.

Then we get to the blood doping years... You'd see mid field players come back a year later to end up in the top 3 or win. Miguel Indurain an example. There's quite the number, others can draw their own conclusions. For me and this is just my humble, I would be very suspicious of anyone with a lacklustre grand tour career in their early 20's come back to win it. Simply because it didn't happen before blood doping.

ThisRegard wrote: »

Sean Kelly was just on Morning Ireland and seems to think McQuaid is doing a great job in the fight against doing since he became president.

IMHO that's more to do with the nature of Kelly. He's well known for being extremely loyal, almost to a fault.

oflahero

ThisRegard wrote: »

Sean Kelly was just on Morning Ireland and seems to think McQuaid is doing a great job in the fight against doing since he became president.

Yeah, he sounded pretty much sent out to bat by the UCI. The message was: Armstrong's gone, but we can still save McQuaid.

TheBlaaMan

ThisRegard wrote: »

Sean Kelly was just on Morning Ireland and seems to think McQuaid is doing a great job in the fight against doing since he became president.

Not surprising given his role as a team owner reliant on UCI invites, but nonetheless very disappointing. It was more of the 'its all in the past everything is better now' sort of a response. I thought that the least he could do was put his weight behind the moves to separate the UCI's roles in promotion AND dope-testing and highlight the obvious conflicts of interest inherent in the current system.

manwithaplan

TheBlaaMan wrote: »

nonetheless very disappointing. .

Couldn't agree more. I would have thought that this whole thing would have made people slow to play favourites. If it were anyone else there would be howls of criticism.

2 Wheels Good

petethedrummer wrote: »

It's late so I might be missing the sarcasm, so I'll take your question at face value...

He said he had cut ties with Ferrari (the world's leading doping doctor) in 2004. His working with Ferrari is what sparked off suspicion in the first place and the start of Greg Lemond's trouble. This is concrete evidence that he hadn't cut those ties.

You'd have to be a touch naive to believe that arranging meetings with the world's leading doping doctor at key times in the lead up to big races had nothing to do with doping.

Naive is a tad derogatory. So I'm going to say that you would have to have tremendous faith in the good nature of people to not suspect that these meetings had anything to do with doping. I admire your optimism.

No, no sarcasm, I was looking for evidence in the emails rather than realising the emails were the evidence of proof of them working together (It was late and I was tired!)

redzerredzer

Lumen wrote: »

No.

1. It's not a level playing field because different riders respond differently to the drugs.

2. It's not a level playing field because a large part of the sporting success under an "everyone dopes" regime comes down the teams' ability to dodge the tests, which depends on money, intimidation etc.

3. Viewing a cheat with a sense of awe and accomplishment is wrong, unless you think cheating is something to be appreciated.

Lance may be the most successful TdF rider ever, measured by the number of times he stood on the top step of the podium, but the way he achieved it should make no one feel good.

Best post I have ever seen. Sums it all up. Thank you

Rofo

I'd prefer to think that, as he can see the tide turning, he reckons his efforts are better spent on maximising opportunities for the young lads on his team.

death1234567

ThisRegard wrote: »

Yeah, I was thinking he had his mind on his current career, and possibly his past, while commenting.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

morana

what a dickhead David Harmon is. I specifically tuned in this morning to hear his thoughts but no he hadnt read it and he wouldnt comment until he had.

Why is that. What business connection does he have to LA? Maybe its not that maybe its another connection to some other body of the sport

mcgratheoin

Lumen wrote: »

No.

1. It's not a level playing field because different riders respond differently to the drugs.

Just to expand on this for those asking the question - look at the situation back in the 50% haematocrit limit days. A rider with a naturallly high count (let's say a climber) would be unable to boost his levels through the use of EPO, whereas a rider with a lower level (a classics style rider) would gain a huge benefit by pushing their count up artificially.

If you look at the Gewiss numbers published in 1995, you can see that Bjarne Riis was originally at 41.1 while Francesco Frattini was at 46. This means that even with the old 50% rule, Riis could gain an extra 21% oxygen carrying capacity by using EPO, while Frattini could only gain less than 9%.

Macy0161

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

From what I gather from the summaries of the report it appears that it would be more common to dope than not dope across the entire pro sport. So my question is this - should Lance Armstrong's achievements still be viewed with a sense of awe and accomplishment ? If everyone at the top of the sport was doping then it was a kind of level playing field as such.

As others have pointed out, people respond differently to drugs (ignoring the other factors that also made his regime more effective, like the money). Does everyone you know get drunk at the same rate? Do they all behave the same way when they are drunk? Drugs don't effect everyone the same.

However, if he'd come out with that line when the Feds started to investigate, I think he probably would've got away with his reputation intact imo. Too late for that now with the wider public.

ThisRegard

morana wrote: »

what a dickhead David Harmon is. I specifically tuned in this morning to hear his thoughts but no he hadnt read it and he wouldnt comment until he had.

Why is that. What business connection does he have to LA? Maybe its not that maybe its another connection to some other body of the sport

David Walsh will be on Pat Kenny later, probably on the sports bulletin after the news as 11. He was on Off the Ball last night but I'd imagine he'll have a lot more to say now that he's had time to digest it.

manwithaplan

Rofo wrote: »

I'd prefer to think that, as he can see the tide turning, he reckons his efforts are better spent on maximising opportunities for the young lads on his team.

The tide isn't turning fast enough if he has to continue to curry favour with a discredited regime. To be honest, I don't think he's playing it cute for the team. I think he believes what he is saying. In any case, it's not his generation that are going to sort this out.