Lost any or all respect for Lance Atrmstrong?

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  • Laces_0ut
    Laces_0ut Posts: 3,750 Member
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    i dont blame him for doping either. if i was competing and i knew it was the difference between finishing 20th and finishing 1st i'd do it too. but id like to think i wouldnt be the complete jerk that he is.

    So the cheating and lying takes a back seat to how he is as a person... just as I thought from the start.
    Why all the tap dancing ?

    its all the bad things he did to other peoples lives that matter and make him a bad person. or maybe you dont care about that? its one thing to cheat and take PEDs...its an entirely different thing what he did. and once you are caught you have to pay. i dont understand why you think he deserves a free pass. thats some weird infatuation or something.
  • ChefTJP
    ChefTJP Posts: 108 Member
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    cheater, cheater!!!!! no respect
  • Markguns
    Markguns Posts: 554 Member
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    He competed in an era when players doped. And, they all lied about it. Not saying I condone the doping or the lying. But, I can't lose respect for his accomplishments knowing he was competing against what is likely a fair number of other dopers. I say you put an asterisk on his record, but let it stand.


    So he's the best cheater, Forget That...! He has really disappointed me, I admired him for so long, cancer survivor, an American winning & dominating the Tour... The message, just because everyone else does it, doesn't fly. He could have become an outspoken competitor to promote a drug free competition, he didn't, he decided to "keep cheating" & enjoy his money and fame.... Bottom line he cheated then lied repeatedly about it, he has no honor... Now he wants to tell the truth to get something, not to clear a guilty conscience...It's too late! "Honor Above All Else" He has none! Erase him.........
  • Laces_0ut
    Laces_0ut Posts: 3,750 Member
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    It's ok... you don't like Lance as a person. We get it.

    most seem to get it except you. it is what this thread is about afterall. :)
  • rrowdiness
    rrowdiness Posts: 119 Member
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    It's played out like he's the antichrist because he took performance enhancing drugs in an era where it was commonplace amongst elite athletes. The dope itself didn't win him the Tour De France. He is a genuine athlete, and probably would've won three or four on his own merit. However at a time and in a culture of doping he worked out how to do it very, very well.

    Outside of doping, he has achieved far, far more with his life than the vast majority of his haters. I think that's a solid reason behind the hate; oh, don't we love to see a fallen idol.

    He had testicular cancer, for f*cks sake, had one testicle removed, went through chemo, rehabilitated HIMSELF, and went on to win the Tour De France multiple times. The Tour De France where they go cycling up through the friggin Alps on 200km stages in 35 degree heat, for weeks in a row. I'm fit, well and healthy and I can only just scrape through 100km on the flat of a Saturday without my legs cramping.

    Haters gon' hate, though, usually from the comfort of their armchairs and bowls of cheetos.
  • sm1zzle
    sm1zzle Posts: 920 Member
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    i dont blame him for doping either. if i was competing and i knew it was the difference between finishing 20th and finishing 1st i'd do it too. but id like to think i wouldnt be the complete jerk that he is.

    So the cheating and lying takes a back seat to how he is as a person... just as I thought from the start.
    Why all the tap dancing ?

    its all the bad things he did to other peoples lives that matter and make him a bad person. or maybe you dont care about that? its one thing to cheat and take PEDs...its an entirely different thing what he did. and once you are caught you have to pay. i dont understand why you think he deserves a free pass. thats some weird infatuation or something.

    Who said he deserves a free pass ?
  • PilotX
    PilotX Posts: 233 Member
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    athletes cheat people its part of the game
  • sm1zzle
    sm1zzle Posts: 920 Member
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    It's ok... you don't like Lance as a person. We get it.

    most seem to get it except you. it is what this thread is about afterall. :)

    Obviously you're not reading the same posts as I am. Many have said exactly what I have: He is a liar, cheater.. but we do not hate him.

    You're behaving like Sean Hannity.
  • Laces_0ut
    Laces_0ut Posts: 3,750 Member
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    It's ok... you don't like Lance as a person. We get it.

    most seem to get it except you. it is what this thread is about afterall. :)

    Obviously you're not reading the same posts as I am. Many have said exactly what I have: He is a liar, cheater.. but we do not hate him.

    You're behaving like Sean Hannity.

    seems like the majority say he's a jerk. i guess i dont understand how people dont get upset with someone who acts like he does and has done the things he does. but like you said you dont have all the facts so maybe when you read more you will come around.
  • sm1zzle
    sm1zzle Posts: 920 Member
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    but like you said you dont have all the facts so maybe when you read more you will come around.

    Are you going to continue making things up... or having an adult conversation ?
  • trgoodchild
    trgoodchild Posts: 1
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    Try googling Emma O'Reilly and Betsy Andreu if you want to read the stories of some people he sued and/or intimidated and bullied for speaking the truth about what he was doing. Here's a decent article that puts forth some of the questions he should answer: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/questions-oprah-should-ask-lance-armstrong-230849439.html

    I care not one bit for the fact that he cheated in a sport filled with cheaters. What bothers me about him is that he was so invested in keeping his cheating covered up that he defamed people who were only speaking the truth, sued them, possibly caused some to lose business deals and generally made life as crummy as he possibly could for people who spoke out about his cheating.

    If he apologizes for those things in his interview with Oprah and tries to make amends with those people, that's what matters. His not-complishments in bicycling don't even rate on my gives-a-care-o-meter :)
  • MrEyeCandy
    MrEyeCandy Posts: 15
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    Did he cheat? Ok, he did. And he'll have to deal with that. But just to keep things in perspective, he did it with ONE lung. I can't even run to my mail box and back without getting winded (slight exaggeration) let alone compete at that level for that duration up high in the altitude and all. Does that make it ok? No. Just saying, ONE lung. Racing a bicycle in the mountains. ONE. Even with dope, pretty remarkable. Too bad for him now though, what a disappointment.
  • cuterbee
    cuterbee Posts: 545
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    he consistently cheated and ruined people's lives. he also failed test(s). i dont see how anyone can respect him.

    LOL... how did he ruin anyones life ?
    He has done TONS for people through his foundation.


    LOL he has sued multiple people for speaking the truth.

    LOL Whose life did he ruin ?

    Maybe all the people who should have won the Tour instead? I know I'd be angry if I'd been the honest person who'd lost due to someone else's cheating.

    My husband survived the same kind of cancer Lance had and really enjoyed following his career. When it got to the point he finally believed Lance really had been doping, he got teary (but then, he's Irish/Greek...so he gets the emotional stuff from both sides).
  • Emma_Problema
    Emma_Problema Posts: 422 Member
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    Yeah, I thought the guy was a d-bag when he divorced his wife who had stood by him through cancer and raised his kids while he was biking in France for Sheryl Crow. Bleh.

    The doping thing came as no surprise. Big star US athletes bore me anyway. I can only stand so much nationalism.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
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    I'll lose more respect for him appearing on Oprah than I did over the doping scandal. :bigsmile:

    That aside, yeah....he's done a lot of great things with his foundation and there's no question that he's an elite athlete, doping or not. I do have a problem with the fact that he held himself up as the example of being "clean" and criticized other riders for doping while he was doing the exact same thing. Of course he didn't want to advertise the fact that he was doing it, but he was both sanctimonious and hypocritical about it. I'm not an avid follower of cycling, but when the allegations initially surfaced, I (like many people) didn't want to believe they were true. When it turned out that they were, I did lose respect for him.

    The only question I have is why all these other riders all of a sudden came out of the woodworks to testify against him after being complicit and staying silent about it for so long. I have to doubt some of their motives and veracity as well.
  • yuckidah
    yuckidah Posts: 290 Member
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    The lying was worse than the deed imo.
    If he'd sucked it up from the start, instead of vehemently denying it (when we all knew he wasn't being honest) he may have managed to salvage a tiny bit of respect.
  • JUDDDing
    JUDDDing Posts: 1,367 Member
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    I'm pretty sure it was his testicle that was removed, not his lung, so:

    Did he cheat? Ok, he did. And he'll have to deal with that. But just to keep things in perspective, he did it with ONE testicle . I can't even run to my mail box and back without getting winded (slight exaggeration) let alone compete at that level for that duration up high in the altitude and all. Does that make it ok? No. Just saying, ONE testicle . Racing a bicycle in the mountains. ONE. Even with dope, pretty remarkable. Too bad for him now though, what a disappointment.

    I fixed that for you. ;)
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,689 Member
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    The people who have lost respect for him are the people who looked up to him. I didn't so I could care less about what he did/didn't achieve with/without enhancement.
    So let's talk NFL football now.:laugh:


    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • motown13
    motown13 Posts: 688 Member
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    Someone keeps asking how did he ruin anyone's life. I want to know too. Lots of people are cheaters and liars, many the more money they have the more crap they do, but I want to know also whose life he ruined.

    How about the people he beat in racing who did not cheat, and may have won if he hadn't cheated? Maybe "ruin" is strong, so maybe "Very adversely affected",, might be better.
  • JDAlder
    JDAlder Posts: 153 Member
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    The people who have lost respect for him are the people who looked up to him. I didn't so I could care less about what he did/didn't achieve with/without enhancement.
    So let's talk NFL football now.:laugh:


    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9ers/Pats superbowl. Bank on it

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