Reply With QuoteCadel Evans.Originally Posted by guinea
Name a professional athlete you'd bet your house was clean.
There aren't any.
Cadel Evans.
The fact that LA cheated isn't why most people don't like him; it's the way he went about it and the collateral damage that he caused that makes him unpopular ...
Though he did meet Ferrari when he was mtb'ing
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There's loads, unless your statement is based on the unfounded premise that every athlete is a drug cheat. I don't subscribe to that as it's a nonsensical position. Hundreds of medals have been reallocated so everyone subsequently upgraded has suffered as a result. There's plenty of higher profile examples but Michael Bingham, Martyn Rooney, Robert Tobin and Andrew Steele spring to mind; they were denied a bronze at the Beijing Olympics by a Russian quartet containing one member who subsequently tested positive for steroids. They got their medals 9 years late. Even Bolt lost a gold because a relay team member tested positive, with the Trinidad and Tobago quartet being denied their gold medal day at the time as a result.
Last edited by deepreddave; 21st December 2020 at 20:26.
I couldn't agree more.
I group up supporting Lance and was quite upset when I found out he was cheating. But such is life they were all at it, it was like an arms race.
I really liked the documentary Lance, I learned a lot from it and still think the charity work far outweighs any wrong doing. Life is about nuance, he's definitely not scum as some people have said.
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His podcasts are enjoyable, if you like the sport.
Johann Brunel's insight is excellent.
It's clear that they are both very much hooked into the sport still as they get a lot of inside scoops before any of the other podcasts.
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It's a common trait in those with narcissistic personality disorder to paint an image of a saint through fundraising or becoming some kind of holier-than-thou member of the community, church, worker in the caring professions (doctors, therapists) in order to present an image of perfection and have a defense against all the very substantial misdeads and dysfunction they also get involved in. Ergo sum, his charity work was never with good intentions, it was to further the 'mask' of integrity as part of the overall charade. Despicable human being.
This. It’s just lazy to claim that nobody’s clean, and it undermines the integrity of sport.
Ask Darren Campbell whether everyone cheats (and what he thinks of Dwain Chambers).
As much a Scum as any other PEDs user that denied it and stood against any accuser.
I don’t think people fully understand the implications of Lance not defending his position to the absolute max at that time.
I don’t follow the logic that the length of time between victories somehow show how much he gained from PEDs - they also had the best team/team mates and strategy. As much as people like to believe that Ferrari was unique, he wasn’t and their techniques were well known and widely used within the sport.
It's just a matter of time...
If no one cheats, the winner is the best team+leader package.
If one or more cheat, the winner is the most efficiently enhanced.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Exactly. Only one person won the TdF 7 times in a row. That surely suggests something to you Omegamanic?
Merckx has more Grand Tour victories than anyone else. Why is he the God of cycling and LA the anti-Christ? Merckx even provided the introduction to Ferrari.
I really don’t follow that logic. Although using PEDs will provide a fairly set percentage increase, which has been seen across most strength and endurance sports - it does not follow, at all, that those using more have the most benefit.
Lance was without doubt a gifted cyclist.
Otherwise we would only see the best physical shape athletes/boxers winning every contest - they don’t!
It’s really not worth getting into a debate over it. It’s a nonsense, and like I said earlier, every trick, including a character assassination and media hatchet job was carried out against Lance at the time - maybe to take the spotlight off the sport and others using PEDs, but it’s obvious others have faired reasonably well despite their acknowledged involvement.
Any way, like most of these types of debates, it gets far to tiring and I’m out - enjoy your views and think what you like. It’s a time a year I’d rather not get involved in spats.
All the best.
It's just a matter of time...
Exactly. Everyone has their own favourite villain but they’re all cheats at the end of the day.
The idea that popping Lance was to take the spotlight off the sport is somewhat risible. If anything, it served to make the entire planet aware that cycling was awash with PEDs. Festina was big news but Lance ended up on Oprah!
Anyway, maybe a debate for January when we are all even more bored.
Merry Xmas all
I'd like to believe in Cadel. I was at the 2011 tour and followed him to victory.
Bu the fact is, he won the Tour de France. To believe there was a clean field that year is implausible, to believe a clean rider could beat dopers is impossible. Occam's Razor, innit.
I'm not saying he did dope, I am saying I would not bet anything on him being clean. He rode for Telekom FFS.
Highly recommend reading Paul Kimmage’s book Rough Ride. Insightful read regarding the pressure of doping within professional cycling to be even remotely competitive. Follows his journey from promising cyclist, to taking part in the TDF, turning his back on the sport and his transition in to journalism and ultimately butting heads with Armstrong exposing the depths of doping within the peloton.
The documentary is also a very good watch.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jZRVJjD3ZWI
Last edited by RLE; 23rd December 2020 at 10:43.
Thanks for that doco RLE, it looks interesting.
I found this one also quite compelling, it tells the story of how journalist David Walsh pursued Armstrong for PED's for years before the truth come out.
The undoing of Tour de France hero Lance Armstrong
All top sportsmen are juicing.
It doesn’t mean they aren’t supreme athletes though.
Juice doesn’t turn a pudding into a winner.
That first sentence is just baloney.
All top sportsmen and women are getting as good a competetive edge as they can, legally. That involves a large number of legal supplements and very specific dietary and other requirements.
However, the anti-dopers are now sophisticated enough for us to know for sure that the statement "All top sportsmen are juicing" to be utterly false. With the DNA signaturing of samples and the requirements for out-of-competition testing, we can be pretty sure of that.
Back in the days of Merckx such systems were not in place, so it is impossible for us to know what went on.
It is perfectly possible for someone great in a great team to win repeatedly. Bolt, for instance. The simple act of winning is not proof of guilt.
Armstrong needs to be ignored and avoided. There is an imperative on us not to give people like him a platform, by subscribing to podcasts and so forth.
There are many more interesting points of view to listen to than those of a vicious and vindictive cheat.
I'd prefer for him to be discussed and understood.
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There is not much to understand. He could have been a great athlete, he chose to be a cheat. The end.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
He was undoubtedly a great athlete.
The story was and continues to be fascinating.
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A cheat is not a great athlete, it is almost oxymoronic, regardless of his abilities.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Incredible athlete but even if the cheating only gained him 1% it taints the other 99%.
Nail on the head
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Thats genuine nonsense.
The testers are miles behind what’s going on in terms of what drugs are available. There are synthetic drugs that can’t even be detected yet.
Have you never heard anything Vitor Conte said about the labs and how advance they were ?
I’ve a good friend who was involved in the tour the last 10 years. He claims the juicing is rife. It’s virtually accepted in cycling.
Bolt is 100% of juice by the way. Matter of time until he gets done. He’s font the same was as Lance as being the face of the sport, to pop him would basically undermine Olympic sport.
You know this how? About Bolt I mean.
This. I hate the way the reformed are sometimes held up as examples of courage/strength.
The real heroes for me are those who have the backbone and character to do the right thing in the first place.
I wonder how long it will be before we discover that Ethiopia and Kenya were not actually way better than all other humans on earth at distance running after all.
A friend and I brought David Walsh to Edinburgh to give a similar talk when his book "Seven Deadly Sins" launched. It's well worth a read if anyone hasn't yet.
It’s just not worth getting into with most people. You have to remember the the vast majority of the public used to believe not that long ago that wrestlers and bodybuilders were clean - some still do, and debate that some are! Bolt is retired as far as I’m aware, so unlikely to be involved in any scandal anytime soon. If you know, you know. Like most things when people talk from an armchair perspective rather than know people involved or previously involved in sports at the highest levels, if you know then you know, if you don’t, you’re just guessing.
It's just a matter of time...
Michael Schumacher?
M
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Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
I don't follow F1 but same applies.
Your claims are more unfounded than anything I have said.
You choose to believe (and cite) a convicted drug producer/supplier in his claims that most others are doing what he was convicted of?
Without the slightest suspicion that he has a very obvious motive of normalising his own behaviour, rehabilitating his position and remaining in the limelight?
Go ahead. I would regard him as a massively unreliable witness, especially as (some of) his views fly in the face of the size and scope of the worldwide anti-doping effort.
There is too much being done by too many people in the anti-doping arena for there to be "conspiracies of silence" for certain indivduals or teams.
My point on Bolt is that he has tested clean all the way through, repeatedly called for lifetime bans for dopers, and was clearly world-beatingly fast at youth level (winning U19 races at 15), and continued his improvement (albeit with a stutter over injuries in his late teens). If he is proven a doper I shall change my point of view about him.
But his guilt or innocence is not relevant to Armstrong (the subject here), who was not only a doper himself but mandated it for his team in order to assist him and repeatedly attempted to ruin those that accused him.
Casting aspersions about whole sports, individuals or anyone doesn't assist Armstrong, whose position should be regarded by all sane sports fans as beyond redemption.
D
I have to side with you Sweets. I am an American and was an avid cyclist, not racing, just loved to ride, and I was a big fan of Lance Armstrong until his fall from grace. He in my opinion was the biggest sports fraud of all time.
From my non cycling following point of view . I think the issue with the Tour de France and other multi day cycling events is the sheer rigour on the body. It seems more or less impossible to complete at a supreme level without performance enhancing and I suspect this has been from the very beginning when cash got involved. Cocaine , amphetamines amd then the more sophisticated nasties such growth hormone and thence to EPO. By the time you get to Eddie Merckx these guys were extremely fit but would have been performing enhancing in a time when it was tolerated.
Lance was a freak of an athlete according to his peers but even he had to dope to compete whilst crossing the timeframe from active toleration to public outcry
The question is does any cyclist need to dope at all? If we agree no then we must either accept a far slower tour or maybe just scrap it as an outdated overly risky event, my money is we continue to look the other way pretending it’s not happening
And yet Pantani and Indurain and Roche and Kelly are all lauded, despite their cheating, and kept all their wins.
Lance cheated, many others did too. Lance was a bully. Many others are too.
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LA is unpopular because of how he conducted himself and how he bullied, manipulated and crushed others in pursuit of his own objectives.
Sure he wasn't the only one who doped but he is the only one to have behaved as he did ...
Why is this thread even in “Watch Talk”. Seems more appropriate for BP.
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