the Armstrong lie, a new film, looks interesting

I do think, would he have been half the athlete he was if he hadn't been doping though.
All credit to him for beating cancer though.

videojetman":ojn4g0nm said:

I do think, would he have been half the athlete he was if he hadn't been doping though.
All credit to him for beating cancer though.

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Well in my opinion, given sports where it's rife, it doesn't tend to make champions of people who wouldn't otherwise be champions, all other things being equal - but I'm sure some will dispute that.

I recognise some people, quite rightly contrast his career before cancer as something of a journeyman, and afterwards as this transformed cyclist - but from what I remember the doping wasn't just a factor before, and there's some of me that thinks going through it had some bearing on his attitude and mindset too.

If 'everyone' at the top dopes, doesn't that pretty much re-level the field though?

If 'everyone' at the top dopes, doesn't that pretty much re-level the field though?

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I read several books about the TDF during the Armstrong years and there were riders that were trying to race clean. Most notably Christophe Bassons who was pretty much hounded out of the sport by the dopers, in part I feel because they feared that he would blow the whistle. It's for riders like him, and clean athletes in other sports, that cheats should be banned.

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

it's the clean cyclists & other athletes that are the true champions,
an athlete who has used banned substances for beating the competition is and always will be a cheat.
there is no victory in lying & cheating.

Dopings bad and all those involved in it were and are bad. Netherless drugs aside all the TDF's he was in were bloody good watching. A good race is a good race especially as everyone else there was cheating too and thus playing field was reasonably level.

Armstrong was doping before he got cancer.

He has not been totally honest since being found out- he has said as little as possible.

Some athletes suit doping better than others.

Rearrange into a cogent paragraph tomo.... snnoorr-hic

videojetman":1pt9fj3r said:

I do think, would he have been half the athlete he was if he hadn't been doping though.
All credit to him for beating cancer though.

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Speaking as a cancer survivor, you don't beat cancer through force of will. I've seen determined guys die and depressed people win through. Some get lucky, some don't...but the only one who can take credit for it going away is the clinical team.

So when's the thieving, lying, fraudulent, bullying, arrogant, cheat going to prison then?

Disgusting little turd.


al.

Neil":1goqosi1 said:

Well in my opinion, given sports where it's rife, it doesn't tend to make champions of people who wouldn't otherwise be champions, all other things being equal - but I'm sure some will dispute that.

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It does. Bjarne Riis used to get spanked out of the back of the peloton on hills as steep as a motorway flyover on a regular basis, a handful of months later hes climbing with the best of the non-specialists in the world in the TDF. And then goes on to win.
Some people respond very very very well to EPO and its chums. Some don't. The problem is that all the clinical trials are done to save lives, so the doses used and results obtained can't be scaled up properly to show the effects on healthy (or at least, fit) athletes. So there is no hard and fast method to work out who would win if the drugs were taken out of the equation.

And the Armstrong hate is more down to his methods and the fall out rather than the actual drug use itself, as its been stated before, the vast majority were at it. But they didn't actively set out to ruin anyone who made any sort of suggestion that they were. Neither did they force the rest of their team to dope up (or loose their jobs) to support the TDF dream. (Yes there are some riders who lost their jobs, Obree for one, but its not an entire team driven to dope up to support one rider in winning one race)