Lance Armstrong admits to cheating.
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He DID NOT admit to cheating.
Personally, I could care less. We want our athletes to be bigger, stronger and faster. We put the pressure on them to be bigger , stronger and faster and then condemn them when they succumb to that pressure and enhance their performance.
Let's dig up Lou Gehrig and see if he has any performance enhancing drugs in his body.
It's old news. Drop it. Come up with more accurate testing for the future.
OMG! Lou Gehrig cheated! Say it isn't so. LOL.0 -
so if he's innocent hes going to let them strip him of everything he's won? nobody would do that. nobody would give you their legacy.
You might if you had been fighting it since 1999. You might if it was wearing on you financially and mentally, causing your family anguish. You might if it was negitively effecting the work you do with your cancer foundation. In my opinion, you can't diminish his accomplishments in the sport of cycling. You can't strip him of his titles without proof from his samples that he was dirty. No proof has been found, there's just a bunch of haters and cheats who were caught pointing a finger out of jealousy or to promote another agenda, like selling their book.
He competed at a time of exceptional cheating, and he still won. Maybe he's just a freak with abilities far beyond his pears. He will always be the face of cycling to me, and i respect his accomplishments. Plus, he had the greatest lines ever in the movie "Dodgeball", when he asks Peter, "So what is it you're dying from?"0 -
He cheated.
He got away with it.
Develop better testing methods.
Until then, admit you effed up and didn't catch him instead of witch hunting him for more than a freaking decade.
If this was a criminal thing, the statute of limitations would have expired for all but the most heinous of crimes.
Heinous this is not.0 -
"I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won those seven Tours, and everyone I competed against knows who won those seven Tours. ... Nobody can ever change that"
Innocent until PROVEN guilty. Every single test he's been given he has passed. 100s of them. I wasn't there and have no idea if he doped or not but until they can prove it he's innocent!0 -
100% actually. Well, ok, there probably is one or two, but they never win. One person who got caught said it like this "There are two kinds of cyclist, those who use performance enhancing drugs, and those that havn't been caught yet"Seriously... assuming he did dope. Who cares? I am sure 90% of the guys at that level do it.0 -
The "but his accusers are all cheats!" defense some are throwing out don't really hold water. Of course many are. Criminals hang with criminals, cheats hang with cheats. Floyd landis certainly seems to have some anger toward Armstrong. But Tyler hamilton is very believable.
The biggest hit was expected to come from george hincapie. One of the most liked and respected riders out there. And with Armstrong for all seven tour wins. He was expected to testify to systematic doping by the entire team, including Armstrong. Was also believed to be able to corroborate some of landis' blood transfusion claims.
Ex-teammate hamilton has said he saw doping. Hincapie is reported by CBS and others to have agreed in front of a grand jury. And to the didn't fail a test thing, he is said to have tripped several alarms. Once, according to hamilton, he full-on failed in 2001. That's when he met with the head of UCI in Switzerland and donated 125,000 to the joint. A bit sketchy. The cash 'took care of it,' hamilton said. The lab director has them told the fbi in a sworn statement that UCI made it clear it didn't want the flagged test investigated further.
Yeah. That all seems up-and-up.0 -
he said:
In a statement sent to the AP, Armstrong said: “Today I turn the page. I will no longer address this issue, regardless of the circumstances. I will commit myself to the work I began before ever winning a single Tour de France title: serving people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities.”
Did he cheat? I don't know. Did he ADMIT TO CHEATING? I've read nothing that suggests he has.
^^THIS! The USADA has said his decision to quit is an admission of guilt. Personally, I believe he just got tired of repeating himself. The only thing they have against him at this point is the word of ten of his teammates/competitors who he beat consistently. Hundreds of negative blood tests don't lie, sore losers do. If you can't prove he doped before, during, or immediately after, let it go. The man is officially retired for crying out loud! It's in the past and shouldn't even be an issue anymore. In my opinion, this whole thing has been an unfair, unfounded, and unnecessary witch hunt.0 -
He didn't admit to ANYTHING. Honestly I can't blame the guy for just saying "Screw it." and giving up his titles because it's not worth the fight. Why? Because obviously no matter what he says, no matter what the past tests he's done have said they will find him guilty of it period because it's a witch hunt.
What I don't get is why HE'S the one they're making an example of and not these baseball players who have been convicted of using performance enhancing drugs and get a slap on the wrist, a finger wag and an "Oh YOU! Just don't do that again!" They sit out one game and they're back playing again. They're the ones that should be banned from the sport for life.
"Giving up" is not an admission of guilt. Corporations do it all the time in law suits because it's easier and less expensive to say "screw it" and pay up or, in the case of Lance Armstrong, just say "I'm done. No matter what I say you will not believe me so screw it." They can take his titles but he still won. And what now? Are you going to call up all the second place people and say "Hey! Guess what? YOU won!" I would laugh my butt off at that if I were them considering the fact that I saw Lance's *kitten* in front of me as he flew over the finish line and won.
I like Lance and I'm not going to fault him for not fighting.0 -
yeah i definitely should have headed this wrong but it seems you cant edit the title.
but any reasonable person can see he's guilty of cheating. mountains of evidence and now he's not even going to fight it.
very disappoinnting. what will all the people he inspired think?
All the people he inspired will think the same thing they think when another sports idol gets exposed- "I probably shouldn't put so much faith in someone that I barely know who gets paid to do what kids do for free." I was a big Mark McGwire fan when I was a kid, but was I shocked when he was accused of steroid use (which he subsequently admitted)? No. You know why? Because he was built like a pro wrestler. In my childhood room, I had 3 posters- McGwire, Darryl Strawberry and Lawrence Taylor. Was I shocked when Darryl and LT admitted drug use? No. I was thankful for the production they brought to their respective teams.
What I'm trying to say is that this story will be hued according to your own personal prism. You can look at Armstrong as a cheat, which he more than likely is, and feel that you were misled into feeling empathy for him and being inspired by him and wearing yellow bracelets... OR... you can look at him as a cheat who brought increased awareness to cancer and raised over $500 million for cancer research, which in turn helped save lives. Yeah, he's a prick. And yeah, he's a really good guy (maybe to make up for being a prick). Nobody is just one thing- it's the duality of man- 2 sides of the same coin. In many ways, it's not clothes or money but contradictions that makes the man. People are fallible (well, people not named Derek Jeter, who may very well be the 37th reincarnation of Buddha), which is why many people look to religion, because only god is infallible, or so I've been told. Or if you're like me, you place no faith in man or spirit, still try to do more right than wrong, and enjoy sports for what they are- games. Games being played by men/women in suspended adolescence/arrested development.
Thank you for your time.
Fantastic post.0 -
he said:
In a statement sent to the AP, Armstrong said: “Today I turn the page. I will no longer address this issue, regardless of the circumstances. I will commit myself to the work I began before ever winning a single Tour de France title: serving people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities.”
Did he cheat? I don't know. Did he ADMIT TO CHEATING? I've read nothing that suggests he has.
This!!
I live in Belgium where, for many, Eddy Merckx is a god, and even he faced doping charges- Eddy always defended Lance and, if Lance is good enough for Eddy, then he is good enough for the Belgians- one of the few places where the people are truly passionate about the sport
sometimes you simply can't win against agencies like the USADA and the amount of time and money involved may simply not be worth it considering the appeal rights are limited for the athlete
Eddy tested positive three times ...0 -
Whether or not he's guilty I think my respect for him is the highest right now.0
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Why is everyone freaking out about this? It is a well known fact that most every cyclist in the Tour de France 'cheats' and uses dope...
In Armstrong's seven wins, all but one rider finishing in the top three has been accused of or found guilty of doping. Every winner since his last win have been accused of or found guilty of doping. Yet he, some seem to believe, didn't participate. Please.0 -
TEAM LANCE!
but i was also behind Marion Jones.......:grumble:0 -
I didn't read anywhere that he admitted to cheating. Just that he was done fighting. (I haven't read any of the other posts in this thread, simply the OP)
Who cares? There are more important things to worry about than Lance Armstrong doing steroids.0 -
TEAM LANCE!
but i was also behind Marion Jones.......:grumble:
As was I. And, like barry bonds, she never failed a drug test. Cheaters become very good at cheating. Kind of the whole point, really. Several Tour winners who never tested positive have later come out and admitted doping, also.
Couple more random thoughts ... while some say 'irrelevant!' I say that a guy who would leave his wife after she both raised his kids while he was riding all over and who stood by him through cancer treatment already lacks a bit morally. I mean, Sheryl crow is hot and all, but come on. (Course, then he broke it off with her after three months - claiming pressure to have kids, which he later had with another woman - and moved on to one of the full house twins. Next up was kate hudson, I think.)
There is also a line of thinking, brought up by sports illustrated, that all the drugs he took actually caused the cancer in the first place.0 -
With all due respect to this message title, based on the data it is currently wholly inaccurate. He has not to this point ever said anything but that he is innocent. He has been the subject of an intense investigation based on nothing but hearsay evidence for well over 13 years. During that time, he was tested based on the rules of testing well over 500 times. So there is no hard data, no proven evidence of his cheating. All they have is some disgruntled employees.
More importantly, he never failed a single test, not one, not ever. They have done everything they could, including waking him in the middle of the night at his home many times, to test him and yet he never failed a single one. Is it still possible he did cheat? Sure, anything is possible. But again, based on the rules and regulations in effect at the time, which are strict and precise, he passed over 500 tests! In all other sports, if you pass you pass. It's over. Only in the USADA is innuendo more important than factual data.
As he said, at some point enough is enough. Could you continue to fight every moment of your life for 12, 13, 14 years or more? My father was wrongfully accused of his ex-wifes brutal rape and murder. He was the county tax collector just to stop any profiling. He was pursued for over 2.5 years, being awoken in the middle of the night many times to be dragged down for interrogation. He was pulled, picked at, prodded, and talked to like an animal at times. They had no proof at all. They were trying to get him to confess to something he did not do. They finally caught the right person, but not until they almost destroyed his marriage and our family. None of us are the media spotlight. Mr. Armstrong has gone through this witch hunt for over 13 years or more! I cannot imagine having to answer these questions every moment of my life that I am not huddled in my house. Again, with all due respect, until you live through something, you really don't understand the tool it takes.
Finally, please do not judge those that would use data and facts to come to a conclusion (in reference to the "any reasonable person... comment.) You have every right to come to the conclusion you want to, but don't denigrate others that do not see it that way.0 -
The only thing they have against him at this point is the word of ten of his teammates/competitors who he beat consistently.
The Lance defenders say that the USADA is on a witch hunt, conspiring to ruin Lance.
The Lance supporters also say that his ten former teammates conspired to defame him.
Which conspiracy is the correct? Both?
Or is there any conspiracy at all?
Perhaps he did dope.0 -
None of us know what whether he doped or not.
I also know that, no matter what the cost, I would not let anyone take my titles away from me if I was earned them honestly. You worked your *kitten* off for decades only to give them the upper hand in the end, admit guilt by association when you drop out.
I've never been a fan of the man, honestly, but I won't outright say he cheated without proof.0 -
He didn't say he cheated, he basically said he doesn't give a **** what they say because they can't take his money LOL.
Actually - depending on the findings and which organizations decide to take action, he CAN be stripped of winnings, meaning he'd have to give back what he won. I don't think it will come to that because UCI is supporting him (for the moment), but it can happen.
Meanwhile, as for those talking about him passing all his tests, from what I'm hearing that's not necessarily true. I'm reserving judgement for the moment (though I'm not really a fan of cycling or Lance), but I look at it like this. If new science and technology can clear someone through DNA evidence years and years after they have been convicted of a crime (or the reverse, find someone guilty), I would imagine newer technologies can detect things in older blood samples that weren't detected before.0 -
Really OP - What in tasking some responsibility when you report something you have read!!
NO - He has NOT admitted to cheating!!! Being persecuted by people is very different to admitting to cheating (or cheating)....
In the end of the day he has NEVER - EVER failed any drug tests.......
^^ This!0
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