Lance Armstrong says he wouldn’t need to dope in 2015

Has the question been answered who was in the hospital room 1996 when lance admitted using performance drugs. We know betsy and frankie the two cancer doctors. We also know the Oakley representative was there. What about Trek and Nike and US Postal. Oakley knew he was cheating was he sponsored by the others at this time? It is interesting that a sponsors had employees there and now going to court to get money back.

America is not bothered about LA because....

American football
Baseball
Collegiate Football
Track & Field

Overshadow anything cycling has done with PEDs...

Okay, okay: you Armstrong haters got me to comment.

First, think about those 7 Tour wins. If you weren't for Armstrong, who were you for?

(enter yr favorite cyclist here) Guess what?

HE DOPED!

Lance won because he had more drive and desire, pure and simple.

He was a better racer, a better athlete, and a better doper when being all those things were needed to be the best.

Is he a driven b*****d who would cut yr mother's heart out and eat it with a spoon to gain 3 seconds on a stage?

Most assuredly.

Would he be the person I would want to compete at ANYTHING with?

No way.

Im tired of all the sanctimony.

Nice guys don't always finish last, but singleminded s.o.b.'s win wars, and often championships.

I hope cycling is cleaner now. But I can't be sure, and neither can you.

I would love to have an all encompassing, fool proof doping test.

It would eliminate a lot of problems in cycling, and other sports as well.

(American football, which I love, would have revelations that would make cycling dopers look like kiddies in a playground).

But if that happens, and we go back testing old cycling champions, we will have to restore Lance's wins, because we will see that he was far from the only one then, and perhaps now as well.

He was just the best at it in a regrettable, (hopefully past) era.

But I, for one, really enjoyed many of those days he wore yellow. There is something appealing about watching the meanest, toughest s.o.b. just take all the other mean, tough guys and cram wins down their throats.

Jesus. Some people really cannot accept it, can they?

Quote:

Once again Armstrong seeks to minimise his offence by claiming everyone was doping, when there seems to be a body of evidence to contrary Christophe Bassons being a case in point.

Have you seen the "reasoned decision" against Gert Leinders (the infamous Sky doctor). When he worked for Rabobank, he was running a guarantee that riders wouldn't get caught. Rabobank had in place a doping programme every bit as hardcore as US Postal, every bit as pervasive and with the same standards of "if you don't dope, if you don't toe the line and support the team, you can kiss goodbye to any hope of ever becoming a professional cyclist"

Interesting reading. Basically Rabobank was a Dutch version of US Postal but, because they didn't have the multi-million pound cancer-survivor superstar, there doesn't seem to be quite the same level of outrage over it. I think some people need to be a bit less anti-Lance and a bit more open as to what was really going on...

Once again Armstrong seeks to minimise his offence by claiming everyone was doping, when there seems to be a body of evidence to contrary Christophe Bassons being a case in point.

Armstrong's if I cant have it I will smear everyone else attitude truly sickens me and displays the bloke's true nature, cycling is a far better sport without him in my opinion.

oozaveared, I'm perfectly aware prior generations used drugs like stimulants, alcohol, even heroin. You need to read what I wrote more carefully - the bit you quoted even. ;). I wrote:

"modern drugs" ... "the hormones that are abused today"

Stimulants and depressants have a limited scope for enhancing performance. They can dull pain, make the heart race a bit and loosen your brain's "safety governors" a little. However they can't grow you new muscle or make your blood thicker.

Physiologically, athletes are more than capable of doing those long stages, even without those modern drugs, just not as fast. Again, there is simply no logical reason to think shorter stages would reduce incentives for doping.

-

Incredible....what are we doing giving him all this air time and publicity.
He was the most prolific drug taker, and tried to ruin anybody who stood in his way.
A lifetime ban...abso bloody lutly.
Now lets move on.

Tool.

Armstrong was probably the greatest stage race rider ever he won 7 Tours and that can't be taken away,( I was there to see him get the jersey for many of them ) and compared to many other top cyclists was actually quite friendly and approachable , in very sharp contrast to the boorish Cadel Evans and aloof Bradley Wiggins.

Yes he doped but so did all his major opponents and most of the bunch he rode with . He never actually failed a drug test and has only been banned on basis of plea bargained testimony of former collegues following a level of scrutiny other multi tour winners have not been exposed to partly because US law is very different from that in Europe.

It is naive to think most other Tour winners havnt doped in some way . Indeed I would reserve judgement on current crop in including messers Wiggins and Froome until time has past , the money has run out and personal rancour has hardened .

In time the self righteous animosity will die down and he will be seen in the same light as Maitre Jacques , the Proffessor et al.

'people are noticeably tired'

Agree on the whole. But for every TdF 2012 stage 10 low speed knackered sprint there is still a 'I can just pedal really fast, honest' 2013 stage 10 farce.

Regarding peloton speeds, I think there has been a step change in the sports application in recent years which has helped drive up average speeds.

A bunch of riders pulling 25mph average for 100 miles a day is not in itself much of a challenge... even chucking mountains into the equation won’t change things greatly… it’s not a speed that in itself asks too many questions. In power terms, the front of the race will need to average not much more than 300 watts to hold 25mph all day, so the guys tucked in the bunch would in theory be pulling 200-240 watts average for 4 hours. I could do that.

The challenge, is the intense period of riding at the start of a stage, and the intense period of riding at the end… which would end my day pretty sharpish.

The structure of a pro race tends to be fairly consistent… an early shit storm of hell to form a break (this can last anything from a minute to the whole stage on exceptional occasions), followed by a settled period at a controlled pace. Then it all ends with another hellish shit storm.

In the EPO golden days, the early shit storm lasted longer and went harder with a similar story at the other end. The middle was nice and steady however. These days, the extremes have tapered a bit, however the mid-section of the race is controlled at a higher intensity because more teams have a vested in the end result more often.

Another change these days is that you don’t see the constant days of unbelievable riding that you used to see. These days, if the touch paper is really lit up, and its a mental day, the next day its controlled and tranquillo… people are noticeably tired.

There are less drugs in the sport now, from those inside it’s a clear message; it’s the riding style, the growing professionalism of the sport (not so much technology) that has driven the speed up.

I'd prefer a debate on making helmets compulsory. Seriously, can we stop giving this guy oxygen. It is doing us no good at all.

LA is like the captain of a sinking ship that refuses to accept the reality of his situation. He doped and got caught out and that went against the rules of competitive cycling. End of debate!
All of the supposed justifications for his actions, e.g. 'everyone was doing it, so I had to do it'....it's all just blah blah blah!

Also Paul would add that if you make shorter stages, then it would only encourage drug use even more as the peloton would get faster.

So funny there is guy..who is so obsessed with Lance and how he is referred to as such a 'fraudster'. So imagine how shattered this poor bloke must have been and still is!? Imagine how he must have worshiped Lance in order for him to have such hatred for an athlete! Imagine how empty this guys life must be...to get so worked up over an ATHLETE! Entertainment! Hoo hoo...so unbelievably hysterical!

At least I direct my anger at those who are responsible for destroying liberties and freedoms, but an athlete!?
Wow, the fan-boys really have their panties in a wad eh.
Simply amazing...

The notion that 200 kilometre stages are not possible without modern drugs is clearly without merit. They were doing much tougher stages, 70 to 100 years ago, well before any of the hormones that are abused today were isolated, never mind mass produced. Can you do those stages as /fast/ as they do now without modern drugs, well, there's a question.

However, this idea that long stages are only possible with drug abuse is just wrong. This kind of thinking encourages the notion that if we only shortened the stages drug abuse would go away, but there's no logical reason to believe that. We see drug abuse in sports of all lengths of effort, from football down to sub-10s sprints.

So please, please, let's put that notion and leave it to die.

Please stop interviewing him, he has nothing to say of any interest or use. Having said that, here's an interesting article all about him... http://www.wikihow.com/Spot-a-Sociopath

Happy to correct your bullshit any time.

I thought what he said was fair enough. Things were differennt in 1995. If you weren't doping you'd be nowhere near the pace. I am sure but not certain that this is no longer the case.

He says he has made a point of personally apologising to any bullyees that will still speak with him.

A lifetime ban from pro cycling was fair enough but from all or any sport even amateur is malicious. He can't even run in a charity marathon as a fun runner. I doubt he'd make much money as a professional sportsman now aged 43 but to stop him entering even charity events is overly harsh.

It seems that the persecution is set to continue...

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/01/andreu-armstrongs-lawyers-have-subpoen...

Lance isn't even the tiniest bit sorry.

AndyP, sorry, I edited myself and moved below your (valid) suggestions.

Your points are both well made. Personally - and obviously this is all personal conjecture - I don't find them convincing. The trouble is, there's a credibility deficit; I've heard those 'Ah, but the technology's changed' explanations so many times before, and not only in cycling. In my own sport, swimming, it's the same story: new stroke techniques, new training methods (often in a hard-to-reach location)... any explanation other than doping. And yet, athletes continue to fail tests, and performances to improve. Really, what would William of Occam say? What's the simplest explanation?

As for whether Lance deliberately held back - who knows? Maybe not even he does. For me, it doesn't really seem to fit with his 'I must crush them all' personality, but there's no doubt he's a cunning fellow.