No Lance chatter?

skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
edited January 2013 in Strut Central
How's it playing out Stateside?

Low level sanctimonious hand wringing over here.

B/w

B..b...but his charity helped many etc etc etc
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  • This story gets more and more fascinating every day, and I don't even follow this stupid sport. Doping, money laundering, shady Italian doctors, an international conspiracy, tattooed dudes...will the sport ever recover? Who cares? The more important question is whether Matthew McConaughey can overcome the cheekiness and summon the gravitas needed to play the lead role in the eventual Hollywood blockbuster, "Dopeballs."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/sports/cycling/inquiry-into-kayle-leogrande-led-to-lance-armstrongs-eventual-fall.html?pagewanted=all

  • Hotsauce84Hotsauce84 8,450 Posts
    rootlesscosmo said:
    The more important question is whether Matthew McConaughey can overcome the cheekiness and summon the gravitas needed to play the lead role in the eventual Hollywood blockbuster, "Dopeballs."

    Aren't they good friends? That could be weird.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,243 Posts
    rootlesscosmo said:
    The more important question is whether Matthew McConaughey can overcome the cheekiness and summon the gravitas needed to play the lead role in the eventual Hollywood blockbuster, "Dopeballs."

    Aren't they good friends? That could be [del]weird[/del] perfect.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Lance is a hometown asshole. Not so much because he doped or that he lied, but that he ruthlessly destroyed the careers of several others to protect his lies. He's only now trying to "apologize" in order to gain an endorsement deal for his future as a triathlete. Fuck that dude.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,243 Posts
    wasn't there a whole thing about him becoming famous and then instantly dumping his wife in order to hook up with Sheryl Crow or someone like that?

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    :five_pager:

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    There doesn't appear to be the same eagerness to strip Armstrong of his honours that there was in the case of, say, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Ben Johnson, does there? I'm even reading a few people suggest that a degree of doping should be permissible in certain sports. I mean, what the fuck?

    Getting to go on Oprah and reframe an entire careers-worth of systematic cheating, lying, intimidation and vilification as garden-variety remorse must be nice too. That's what doing a heckuva lot for chee-yarridee gets you, I suppose.

    Still, at least he didn't handball it in against Mansfield, eh? Fucking one-bollocked bastard.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    Lance is a hometown asshole. Not so much because he doped or that he lied, but that he ruthlessly destroyed the careers of several others to protect his lies. He's only now trying to "apologize" in order to gain an endorsement deal for his future as a triathlete. Fuck that dude.

  • DocMcCoy said:
    Getting to go on Oprah and reframe an entire careers-worth of systematic cheating, lying, intimidation and vilification as garden-variety remorse must be nice too.

    oprah is the world's greatest shill.

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,947 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    That's what doing a heckuva lot for chee-yarridee gets you, I suppose.

    Charidee work = PR-dollars stashed away for such a rainy day. It's not enough to buy him any credibility now, or ever, with followers of the sport. Most, if not all, pro riders were at it, but with Lance, it's the magnitude of his "Denial machine" that so deforests the sport of gravitas like some workaholic loggers. F*cker deserves nothing. Set the game back years.

    You could say that taking the money out of the sport will stop it, but It's a difficult one because even the amateurs racing just for "Fun" at the weekends are all doping.

  • DocMcCoy said:

    Still, at least he didn't handball it in against Mansfield, eh? Fucking one-bollocked bastard.

    sometimes I don't understand a word you're saying, but I always enjoy trying to decipher this stuff.

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    Look up Luid Suarez

    Cleverest soccerball player in the world

  • DocMcCoy said:

    Still, at least he didn't handball it in against Mansfield, eh? Fucking one-bollocked bastard.
    skel said:
    Look up Luid Suarez
    Cleverest soccerball player in the world

    prompts new terrace chant...

    'Luid Suarez only got 1 ball, Skel left the S in the Albert Hall' plaese to complete...

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,902 Posts
    DuttyBabylon said:
    DocMcCoy said:

    Still, at least he didn't handball it in against Mansfield, eh? Fucking one-bollocked bastard.
    skel said:
    Look up Luid Suarez
    Cleverest soccerball player in the world

    prompts new terrace chant...

    'Luid Suarez only got 1 ball, Skel left the S in the Albert Hall' plaese to complete...

    That made me lol.

  • DocMcCoy said:
    There doesn't appear to be the same eagerness to strip Armstrong of his honours that there was in the case of, say, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Ben Johnson, does there?
    Cheating baseball players have not faced nearly the same consequences as a lifetime ban and loss of titles. All their tainted accomplishments still stand, displacing the sport's most "sacred" homerun records. Instead of being banned from baseball, their names are on Hall of Fame ballots.

  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    I gave Lancer the benefit of the doubt for a while, but yeah, fuck that dude.

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    DOR said:
    DuttyBabylon said:
    DocMcCoy said:

    Still, at least he didn't handball it in against Mansfield, eh? Fucking one-bollocked bastard.
    skel said:
    Look up Luid Suarez
    Cleverest soccerball player in the world

    prompts new terrace chant...

    'Luid Suarez only got 1 ball, Skel left the S in the Albert Hall' plaese to complete...

    That made me lol.

    Apologies, I was out on the pidd.

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,332 Posts
    One reason nobody cares about Marion Jones or Lance Armstrong.

    It's track and field (a once every 4yrs sport) and cycling..........

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,947 Posts
    Thymebomb13 said:
    I don't understand why anyone, anywhere, gives a single shit.

    He cheated because everyone else in his meaningless, dull sport was cheating.

    Why does anyone care about this bullshit?

    To not give a shit about this is to condone cheating, for me.

    It's meaningless and dull to you.

    I am sure the people at LiveStrong who now feel like Bernie Madhoff evangelists think it's meaningful.

    I am sure the other riders he defrauded out of making a living think it's meaningful.

    I am sure the sponsors who paid him dollars think it's meaningful.

    etc.

    You sound like you don't own any lycra.

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    Or headgear n goggles that makes you look like an insect.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    J i m s t e r said:
    Thymebomb13 said:
    I don't understand why anyone, anywhere, gives a single shit.

    He cheated because everyone else in his meaningless, dull sport was cheating.

    Why does anyone care about this bullshit?

    To not give a shit about this is to condone cheating, for me.

    It's meaningless and dull to you.

    I am sure the people at LiveStrong who now feel like Bernie Madhoff evangelists think it's meaningful.

    I am sure the other riders he defrauded out of making a living think it's meaningful.

    I am sure the sponsors who paid him dollars think it's meaningful.

    etc.

    You sound like you don't own any lycra.

    There was a mate of mine on Facebook last night (who may/may not have been pissed up/off his meds) ranting at me because I posted that "handball" joke - "I've followed cycling for 30 years/you try completing the TdF without the aid of drugs/he's done a lot for chee-yarridee/why don't you wait until the facts come out before you judge him", etc., etc. Most unedifying, but whatever.

    People like him clearly care, and there must be plenty of others who've invested time and energy in the sport, both as spectators and participants, who are shocked to finally learn that Armstrong has feet of clay like a motherfucker. Moreover, if I was a US taxpayer I might also be inclined to care that Armstrong may have effectively defrauded me and millions of others out of something between $30-50m via his five-year TdF team sponsorship deal with the US Postal Service.

    This whole Oprah thing is fucking despicable, and everyone involved needs to have a word with themselves. The desperate attempts at rehabilitation of one man with a massive ego trumps the credibility of an entire sport? Sponsorship for the women's sport has already collapsed in the wake of all this, and there are probably thousands of honest people whose jobs, careers and investments will be gone before much longer. But never mind all that - brave, heroic, plucky ol' Lance deserves a chance to repent and rebuild his career and his life, and if that comes as a result of him fucking over a few more people, well it's not going to make that big a difference now, is it?

  • JuniorJunior 4,853 Posts
    If Lance was British he would have been booted into touch a long, long, time ago. Probably before the drug allegations even surfaced.

    B/w I suspect that this whole affair has also been influenced by some people's unwillingness to believe that a "survivor" can also still be a wankstain on the bedsheets of humanity. Doesn't fit with predefined TV movie tropes.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,243 Posts
    I'M A SURVIVOR



    sorry, I don't have anything meaningful to add to this conversation. The man clearly had the best doctors and publicists money can buy. I guess the three-ring circus that was built around him has to keep going somehow.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    Lance is a hometown asshole. Not so much because he doped or that he lied, but that he ruthlessly destroyed the careers of several others to protect his lies. He's only now trying to "apologize" in order to gain an endorsement deal for his future as a triathlete. Fuck that dude.

    ^^^This^^^

    Karma is a motherfucker

  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,390 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    HarveyCanal said:
    Lance is a hometown asshole. Not so much because he doped or that he lied, but that he ruthlessly destroyed the careers of several others to protect his lies. He's only now trying to "apologize" in order to gain an endorsement deal for his future as a triathlete. Fuck that dude.

    ^^^This^^^

    Karma is a motherfucker

    Thirded.

    Even in his autobiography he comes off as a complete dick and a textbook sociopath. He stomped on a lot of undeserving people on the way up and dragged down a whole lot more when he finally fell. I wouldn't underestimate the redemptive PR power of an Oprah confession but I can't see a way back for him.

  • fauxteur said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    There doesn't appear to be the same eagerness to strip Armstrong of his honours that there was in the case of, say, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Ben Johnson, does there?
    Cheating baseball players have not faced nearly the same consequences as a lifetime ban and loss of titles. All their tainted accomplishments still stand, displacing the sport's most "sacred" homerun records. Instead of being banned from baseball, their names are on Hall of Fame ballots.

    what are you talking about?

  • Junior said:
    If Lance was British he would have been booted into touch a long, long, time ago. Probably before the drug allegations even surfaced.

    B/w I suspect that this whole affair has also been influenced by some people's unwillingness to believe that a "survivor" can also still be a wankstain on the bedsheets of humanity. Doesn't fit with predefined TV movie tropes.


    So, what about Wiggins and Froome and the Sky team? Their dominating in the last TDF was some crazy shit as ridiculous, worse actually, than Armstrong and US Postal's ever was.

    Doc McCoy is very much on point, I think. Now it's rumoured that cycling could be pulled from the Olympic Games over this. Even if It's going to go away again and it's mostly about not looking bad in public, this is a sport that's already been a scapegoat for a long time.

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,947 Posts
    novecento said:
    Junior said:
    If Lance was British he would have been booted into touch a long, long, time ago. Probably before the drug allegations even surfaced.

    B/w I suspect that this whole affair has also been influenced by some people's unwillingness to believe that a "survivor" can also still be a wankstain on the bedsheets of humanity. Doesn't fit with predefined TV movie tropes.


    So, what about Wiggins and Froome and the Sky team? Their dominating in the last TDF was some crazy shit as ridiculous, worse actually, than Armstrong and US Postal's ever was.

    Doc McCoy is very much on point, I think. Now it's rumoured that cycling could be pulled from the Olympic Games over this. Even if It's going to go away again and it's mostly about not looking bad in public, this is a sport that's already been a scapegoat for a long time.

    I don't think you follow the sport. Wiggo has one once, Lance defrauded the race seven (7) times. If you know anything about Wiggo, know this:



    There have been a couple of questions asked about doping this week and I don't feel I've been able to give a full answer. I understand why I get asked those questions given the recent history of the sport, but it still annoys me. It's hard to know what to say, half an hour after finishing one of the hardest races you've ridden, when you're knackered. The insinuations make me angry, because I thought people would look back into my history, the things I've said in the past, such as at the start of the 2006 Tour when I turned up for a first go at the race and Operaci??n Puerto kicked off, what I said when Floyd Landis went positive, and what I said when I was chucked out with Cofidis after Cristian Moreni tested positive in 2007.

    On the way home after that, I put my Cofidis kit in a dustbin at Pau airport because I didn't want to be seen in it, and swore I would never race in it again, because I was so sick at what had happened. Those things I said then stand true today. Nothing has changed. I still feel those emotions and I stand by those statements now.

    To understand me, I think people need to look at the bigger picture, where I have come from, in the context of how the sport has changed, and how I've progressed. They see me put in a great time trial like I did on Monday: I can do it because I've worked hard to close the gap between me and Fabian Cancellara and Tony Martin. What seems to be forgotten is that the margin between me and the best guys wasn't that large in the past, even when I wasn't putting in anything like the effort I have in the past couple of years.

    I do think that over the years I've laid down a few markers as to what I could do. I was fifth in the time trial in Albi in the 2007 Tour, behind Alexandr Vinokourov, Andrey Kashechkin, Cadel Evans and Andreas Kl??den. The first two later tested positive for blood doping so I was effectively third, two weeks into the Tour, at a time when I wasn't concentrating on the race.

    I had the engine already, and it showed that year when I won the prologues in the Dauphin?? and the Four Days of Dunkirk. As early as 2005 I was seventh in the world time trial championships in Madrid: two of the riders in front of me, "Vino" and Kashechkin, were again, later, done for doping; a third, Rub??n Plaza, was implicated in Operaci??n Puerto. That year, I won a mountain stage in the Tour de l'Avenir.

    When I look back, we now have an idea of what was going on in the sport back then, and it was a different era. Personally, I used to find it difficult. You'd be trying to negotiate a contract ??? say ??50,000 ??? I had two kids to worry about, a livelihood to earn in the face of what was going on, and people beating me because they were doping. I had a chip on my shoulder as a result, and I wasn't shy of saying what I thought about doping because it directly affected me and the lives of my family.

    Since then, drug tests have begun to work better, the blood passport has come in, so it's harder for people to dope. The chances of getting caught are far higher than they were. I do believe the sport is changing, if you look at what Ryder Hesjedal did at the Giro and what Chris Froome did at the Vuelta. As that change has happened, my performances have gone up, and at the same time I've begun to work far harder than I did before.

    I'm not claiming the sport is out of the woods but doping in the sport is less of a worry to me personally, it's less at the forefront of my mind, because I'm no longer getting beaten by people who then go on and test positive or whatever. If there is a difference in my attitude now compared to back then, it's that I'm more focused on what I am doing, I pay less attention to what's going on outside my bubble because I'm not coming second to riders who dope.

    It affects me less, in terms of my worrying about it, but the important thing is that nothing has changed in how I stand morally. Nothing has changed about the reasons why I would never dope. In fact, the reasons why I would never use drugs have become more important. It comes down to my family, and the life I have built for myself and how I would feel about living with the possibility of getting caught. I wrote it all in my autobiography back in 2008 and I still feel the same now. It's just I say it less. There is more attention on me, which makes me more withdrawn, and I don't feel easy in a leader's role, as [the cycling author] Richard Moore correctly wrote in his book.

    The question that needs to be asked is not why wouldn't I take drugs, but why would I? I know exactly why I wouldn't dope. To start with, I come to professional road-racing from a different background to a lot of guys. There is a different culture in British cycling. Britain is a country where doping is not morally acceptable. I was born in Belgium but I grew up in the British environment, with the Olympic side of the sport as well as the Tour de France. I don't care what people say, the attitude to doping in the UK is different to in Italy or France maybe, where a rider like Richard Virenque can dope, be caught, be banned, come back and be a national hero.

    If I doped I would potentially stand to lose everything. It's a long list. My reputation, my livelihood, my marriage, my family, my house. Everything I have achieved, my Olympic medals, my world titles, the CBE I was given. I would have to take my children to the school gates in a small Lancashire village with everyone looking at me, knowing I had cheated, knowing I had, perhaps, won the Tour de France, but then been caught. I remember in 2007 throwing that Cofidis kit in the bin at that small airport, where no one knew me, because I didn't want any chance of being associated with doping. Then I imagine how it would be in a tiny community where everyone knows everyone.

    It's not just about me. I've always lived in the UK. All my friends in cycling are here, and my extended family. Cycling isn't just about me and the Tour de France. My wife organises races in Lancashire. I have my own sportif, with people coming and paying ??40 each to ride. If all that was built on sand, if I was deceiving all those people, I would have to live with the knowledge it could all disappear just like that. My father-in-law works at British Cycling and would never be able to show his face there again. Their family have been in cycling for 50 years, and I would bring shame and embarrassment on them. It's not just about me: if I doped it would jeopardise Sky ??? who sponsor the entire sport in the UK ??? Dave Brailsford and all he has done, and Tim Kerrison, my trainer. I would not want to end up sitting in a room with all that hanging on me, thinking: "Shit, I don't want anyone to find out."

    That is not something I wish to live with. Doping would simply be not worth it. This is only sport we are talking about. Sport does not mean more to me than all those other things I have. Winning the Tour de France at any cost is not worth the possibility of losing all that.

    I am not willing to risk all those things I've got in my life. I do it because I love it. I don't do it for a power trip: at the end of the day, I'm a shy bloke looking forward to taking my son to summer rugby camp after the Tour, where he could maybe bump into his hero, Sam Tomkins. That's what's keeping me going here. What I love is doing my best and working hard. If I felt I had to take drugs, I would rather stop tomorrow, go and ride club 10-mile time trials, ride to the cafe on Sundays, and work in Tesco stacking shelves.

    Whether you believe him is down to you. He didn't come from nowhere. They just had a good plan and executed it.

  • J i m s t e r said:
    novecento said:
    Junior said:
    If Lance was British he would have been booted into touch a long, long, time ago. Probably before the drug allegations even surfaced.

    B/w I suspect that this whole affair has also been influenced by some people's unwillingness to believe that a "survivor" can also still be a wankstain on the bedsheets of humanity. Doesn't fit with predefined TV movie tropes.


    So, what about Wiggins and Froome and the Sky team? Their dominating in the last TDF was some crazy shit as ridiculous, worse actually, than Armstrong and US Postal's ever was.

    Doc McCoy is very much on point, I think. Now it's rumoured that cycling could be pulled from the Olympic Games over this. Even if It's going to go away again and it's mostly about not looking bad in public, this is a sport that's already been a scapegoat for a long time.

    I don't think you follow the sport. Wiggo has one once, Lance defrauded the race seven (7) times. If you know anything about Wiggo, know this:


    Whether you believe him is down to you. He didn't come from nowhere. They just had a good plan and executed it.


    Wiggins is not using because he says he's not, ok.

    He did come from nowhere in 2009. At that time he had been a pro for six years with no results. His progress in the mountain stages was explained with weight loss, but that fails to explain why he's also much better in the time trials after he lost weight. He was never really competitive in time trials when he weighed more but is always first/second in time trials now. That's hard to believe becaus when you lose weight you lose power.

    The others from h??s team came from nowehere in the last two years. Froome did nothing in five years as a professional. He claims this has to do with a mysterious viral disease. Then he went to the Sky Team. The disease went away and he was second in the Vuelta. Then the disease came back and went away again so he could get second in the TDF. The two australians dudes on the team have had just as unlikely careers, and has never showed close to the strength in the mountains they did last year.

    I mean, look at the mountains in the Tour last year: to see four riders from the same team tear up the race so like only four other dudes could stay with them was pretty unbelievable, and like I said actually never seen with Armstrong's teams. And there's so many other pointers beside the performances, the way the key riders prepared in a remote place where Dr. Ferrari is known to be at, the shady doctor that was fired.

    Apparently it's no issue in UK media at all, I think part of that is because it's a country that until recently had no relationship with cycling and no prior doping scandals like most of continental Europe has had.

  • JuniorJunior 4,853 Posts
    Actually the UK's had a fair few extremely high profile doping scandals in the last few years which have resulted in much hand wringing and moral arguments in the media over lifetime bans, right to ever compete again, etc etc.

    I'm not the biggest cycling fan by any stretch of the imagination but even with my outsider perspective I feel reasonably confident in saying that the British have been heavily into cycling for a long long time.

    My point still stands that if rumours and accusations about Wiggins doping gathered any steam he'd be dumped on by the UK media within minutes. Not saying they would be fair or just about it, in fact it's much more likely that they'd take the standard guilty until proved innocent approach.
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