I'm shattered Lance!

Just read reports of Lamestrong's latest interview, and it confirms for me what a first class
creep he is.

He has attempted to use the same spurious comparisons with earlier generations that were
effectively debunked on here. Unfortunately, while anyone with any reasonable knowledge of cycling
will realise that Armstrong's doping was much worse on several levels, his attempts to compare himself with previous generations seem to convince the wider public - there were various letters in the Belgian papers tp the effect that 'oh Merckx was caught doping, they are all the same'. Lamestrong is clearly trying to exploit public ignorance of cycling history and the context of previous cases.

Worse, his talk of an amnesty and so on seems like an attempt to weasel himself into a position where he can rehabilitate himself by 'co-operating' with future anti-doping programmes. If this happens, it will simply undermine the credibility of future attempts to deal with doping. Depressingly,
it is likely that incompetent organisations like the UCI will go along with this anyway.

Sorry for the rant, but Lamestrong's new interview is such a blatant and cynical example of following the crisis management textbook. The frustrating thing is that he will probably succeed in rehabilitating himself.

Johnny

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the last post, but its not all black & white.
what about Dave Millar's attempt to reform the peloton and rehabilitate himself by co-operating with future ant-doping programmes? Does that not also undermine future attempts to deal with doping.

Also, if you wanted to promote the harmful effects of say alcohol or recreational drugs, who would you want to hear it from? Some sheltered-life councellor whio had never seen a needle or been drunk, or from an alcoholic or ex-junkie?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Lance fan but as far as drug TAKING is concerned, he's in there with all the other cheats. Where Lance goes further is with intimidation, bullying, running a systematic doping programme for the team. alleged corruption, sheltering behind his charity, liaising with A-listers for protection, the list goes on ...

pigman":158zam48 said:

Where Lance goes further is with intimidation, bullying, running a systematic doping programme for the team. alleged corruption, sheltering behind his charity, liaising with A-listers for protection, the list goes on ...

Click to expand...

Indeed, I agree, the problem is that it's all these extra aspects that make him totally inappropriate for involvement in any anti-doping programme, or any other role involving managing or educating
athletes.

It's probably always going to be a difficult judgement call whether any particular ex-doper should be
allowed to be involved in such programmes - someone like Millar seems (from a distance) genuinely contrite and has showed he was willing to work hard to win clean. I get the impression that people like maybe Vinokourov OTOH are just shameless cheats.

In Lamestrong's case, though it's clear, it's not just the doping but the systematice bullying, intimidation, hypocrisy etc that make him the wrong person to be involved in trying to clean up cycling.

yeah, I think youve put that quite well johnny, I'll go with it.

So, the digging continues. Wonder what will happen if they manage to "convict" Indurain? Personally, I'd find it quite sad, as he always appeared a genuine & likeable guy back in the day. The tales of his 28 HBPM and horse-sized lungs always made him seem like a genuine super human.

Cycling news interview;

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lance-a ... -interview

What do we make of his summing up...

Armstrong: My generation was no different than any other. The 'help' has evolved over the years but the fact remains that our sport is damn hard, the Tour was invented as a 'stunt, and very tough mother f**kers have competed for a century and all looked for advantages. From hopping on trains a 100 years ago to EPO now. No generation was exempt or 'clean'. Not Merckx's, not Hinault's, not LeMond's, not Coppi's, not Gimondi's, not Indurain's, not Anquetil's, not Bartali's, and not mine.

I dont see it as pure deflection. I agree he is an utter tool and his personality is both his crime and his punishement, and there is no defending doping, but like it or not cheating (by doping or hopping on trains ) has always been a part of our sport.

Lets hear it for our current crop of (hopefully) clean riders!

Now Rasmussen has confessed to doping for his entire career. Who next...

I was in Boots the other day and I found this...

With these performancing enhancing drugs, it must hard to to avoid them when they are so available...

how am i ever gonna watch dodgeball ever again!