Fallen Hero

[Daktari]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/11/armstrong-usada-sophisticated-doping-scheme?intcmp=122

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/10/lance-armstrong-usada-cycling-doping-scandal?intcmp=239

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/cycling-hincapies-confession-will-hurt-armstrong-the-most-8205986.html

Is Armstrong the only one telling the truth are all the other just liars? Is George Hincapie just making it all up?

I've heard this morning one excuse that is along the lines of Armstrong was dominant during a dark period for cycling and drug use was endemic, they were all doing it; surely that doesn't make cheating acceptable.

I know that Armstrong has been a 'hero' for many Americans, the rest of the world, not quite so much. This news is sadly not really a surprise.

[Dutch Leonard]

I think it is sad to say that Armstrong probably wasn't doing anything that wasn't being done by everyone else. I thought it was odd that the USPS ( a US Government Agency) was sponsoring a sport that was mainly popular in Europe and was a little worried that doping would come up and embarrass them. But I was interested because I had been a big fan during the Greg Lemond era and had been very interested in the exploits of the women's Olympic team.

I was a Connie Carpenter fan and was thrilled with her victory over team mate Rebecca Twigg in Mission Viejo in 1984. The gossip in the cycling mags was that Connie wasn't Eddie Borysewicz's darling and Rebecca was. Rebecca was reported to have engaged in blood doping at the Olympics, under Eddie's direction. My personal opinion at the time was that a clean athlete had triumphed over a dirty one.

And then Eddie went on to discover Lance Armstrong. I hadn't known about his role in Lance's career.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Borysewicz

[Daktari]

One of the things that bothers me is that he allegedly bullied his team into doing what he was doing. Made them collude.

Just because EPO and the like was the endemic in cycling at the time doesn't make it right. I've followed cycling since the days of Fignon and Lemond through Big Mig et al, I remember seeing The Cannibal too way back in the black and white tv days. Even in the early days drugs were used in the sport. Think Tom Simpson and amphetamines dying whilst grinding up the Ventoux but they weren't the culture like the appeared to be not so long ago.

Maybe if he hadn't kept on denying and finally admitted the truth, whatever that is, then he may have spared himself the circus it has become now.

As other international athletes have been retrospectively banned and stripped of titles I believe Lance should be stripped of his too. I would say the same no matter the nationality of the athlete.

It's not just so cut and dried, I know this. Athletes who cheat and then lie when caught make me angry though. There are so many who want to compete clean but there isn't a level playing field. I'd rather be a clean 'loser' any day.

Time to get real Lance. Just tell the bloody truth.

[aishah]

i don't really have an opinion about the sports aspect - i agree with daktari that it's not cut and dried and that i tend to lean more towards - of course he should be stripped of his title. but i think there are so many problems with how sports works and how athletes are treated and all of that and to pick on this specific situation might be too much of missing the forest for the trees.

one thing i find really interesting is the perspective of my friends who've had cancer on the situation. i have a friend who is very vocal about having always thought lance was pretty much an ass and how very few of her fellow cancer survivors idolize him the way people outside of the cancer survivor community seem to.

[macele]

obviously i'm not a professional athlete. so i don't know what they face from day to day. they face things i've never encountered. but i'll say this, the athlete owes me a clean body, ... free from drugs that will make the player better. free from drugs that will make the playing field unfair. that's ethics. that's a code a player should follow. if lance took drugs, he should pay, ... whatever the payment is. the highest payment is that he will have to live with cheating. if.

a cyclist is an amazing athlete. it takes strength of the mind and body like no other sport.

conspiracy, they say ...
(they are speaking of lance) Instead he exercised his legal right not to contest the evidence and knowingly accepted the imposition of a ban from recognized competition for life and disqualification of his competitive results from 1998 forward. The entire factual and legal basis on the outcome in his case and the other six active riders’ cases will be provided in the materials made available online later today. Two other members of the USPS Team, Dr. Michele Ferrari and Dr. Garcia del Moral, also received lifetime bans for perpetrating this doping conspiracy. -- USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart, October 10, 2012

armstrong says that he doesn't/didn't dope. a lot of other people say that he did. i'm not the judge or the jury. a part of me says he should be fighting it all the way. i don't know. i don't know.

[Daktari]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/22/uci-lance-armstrong-press-conference-live

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/22/lance-armstrong-deserves-forgotten-uci

[girl_dee]

i felt this same way when i found out Mark McGuire had been on steroids.

i loved him, followed him, admired him... the all American red headed kid who grew up to be the All American Baseball player, i thought he was phenomenal behind the bat.

then i found out, and i pretty much decided that there are no more sports heroes left in the world.