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Lance Armstrong ends fight against doping charges









Woodchip

It's all about the bikes
Aug 28, 2004
14,460
Shaky Town, NZ
During part two, in which he fought back tears as he discussed the impact on his family, he revealed...
he wants the life ban in sports lifted but accepts that is unlikely
he feels "disgraced, humbled and ashamed" by his actions
his "most humbling moment" was being asked to step aside by cancer charity Livestrong
the moment he confessed to his son and said: "don't defend me anymore"
his actions had left his mother a "wreck"
his sponsors leaving him was a "$75m day"
What a dick!!
 


Tyrone Biggums

Well-known member
Jun 25, 2006
13,498
Geelong, Australia
The most amusing thing for me is that the preceding years before this, when he was winning, the amount of people who followed cycling world wide wasn't exactly huge in the English speaking nations.

Since this has come out its amazing how many arses that never followed the sport previously all of a sudden had an opinion.
 










Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
50,293
Goldstone
Respect to him after coming clean, still an incredible athlete

Friday night :fishing:
There I am, swimming along, and I see this lovely, juicy bug. I was just about to gulp the lot down when my mate Bold Seagull pointed out the hook. Thanks Bold Seagull, I owe you one.
 




Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
50,293
Goldstone
Since this has come out its amazing how many arses that never followed the sport previously all of a sudden had an opinion.
But this is a massive story in sport in general. How many other top athletes doped to win?
 










Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
50,293
Goldstone
Until other sports have such "strict" doping control we won't know.
Well I guess we'll never really know. We only know about Lance because it was a team sport with an individual winner, so Lance needed his team mates to dope too, meaning a lot of people knew the truth. We can of course keep asking Carl Lewis if he doped, but there's quite a lot of incentive for him to say no.
 


Woodchip

It's all about the bikes
Aug 28, 2004
14,460
Shaky Town, NZ
Well I guess we'll never really know. We only know about Lance because it was a team sport with an individual winner, so Lance needed his team mates to dope too, meaning a lot of people knew the truth. We can of course keep asking Carl Lewis if he doped, but there's quite a lot of incentive for him to say no.

What is to say Sally Gunnell want Hudson blood transfusions and EPO during her successful years (as an example)? We will never know how much drug usage has been in sport, or what sports are the most effected.
 




Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
50,293
Goldstone
What is to say Sally Gunnell want Hudson blood transfusions and EPO during her successful years (as an example)?
You take that back!
 


teaboy

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
1,840
My house
Well I guess we'll never really know. We only know about Lance because it was a team sport with an individual winner, so Lance needed his team mates to dope too, meaning a lot of people knew the truth. We can of course keep asking Carl Lewis if he doped, but there's quite a lot of incentive for him to say no.

We know about Lance because of the failed 1999 test. We know about him because of the failed tests of his competitors of the time, and then the results of the retested samples from 2004. Poeple knew, and not just his team-mates. David Walsh and Paul Kimmage deserve a lot of credit for continuing to ask questions and probe into the subject. The testimony his team-mates helped wrap it all up.

Regarding Carl Lewis we can continue to ask him, and others racing at the time. We can retest samples from '84 and '88 for things that weren't detectable at the time. However, the governing body of athletics seem to not want to know, for some reason. They will soon have to introduce the bio-passport, as will other Olympic sports, unless the IOC would rather not know either...
 


Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
50,293
Goldstone
Regarding Carl Lewis we can continue to ask him, and others racing at the time. We can retest samples from '84 and '88 for things that weren't detectable at the time.
I believe they (actually one man, rather than the organisation) did retest the '84 samples, and the results were so bad he thought it would serve no purpose to release them. I suspect a vast number of winners were doping.
 


teaboy

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
1,840
My house
I believe they (actually one man, rather than the organisation) did retest the '84 samples, and the results were so bad he thought it would serve no purpose to release them. I suspect a vast number of winners were doping.

Indeed. Nice cover-up allowing athletics to be 'clean' to the general population. If there is any desire for actually clean sport then the names should be released. It serves the purpose of knowing where the sport comes from. If you know who was using what, when, where and how you can develop better systems for preventing athletes doing similar in the future. You can find out what would've prevented those athletes starting to dope in the first place.
 




Tyrone Biggums

Well-known member
Jun 25, 2006
13,498
Geelong, Australia
But this is a massive story in sport in general. How many other top athletes doped to win?

Absolute heaps.

Ben Johnson Olympics was a big one.

Quite a lot of of Major League Baseballs biggest names of the 90's were pinged. Their non admittance into their HoF was just a big story last week.

It's a big story for cycling fans but only because we've all been following it for years and in some ways this is the full stop to the story. I doubt any of these people who all of a sudden have an opinion would know who someone like Michael Rasmussen was without googling him.
 


drew

Drew
Oct 3, 2006
23,136
Burgess Hill
The most amusing thing for me is that the preceding years before this, when he was winning, the amount of people who followed cycling world wide wasn't exactly huge in the English speaking nations.

Since this has come out its amazing how many arses that never followed the sport previously all of a sudden had an opinion.

To be fair to the UK, interest in cycling starting increasing from the time of Boardman and then escalated more with Wiggins and Hoy's success in 2004 and subsequent Olympics. Obviously interest in 'le Tour' has now gone stratopheric in the last two years because of Wiggins and his team, first coming close and then this year winning.
 


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