Armstrong stops fighting doping charges

[sk8norcal]

Seriously? You think doping and cycling started post Lemond? .

i think you have reading/hearing comprehension issues...

 

[The fingers]

Too bad the headline years ago wasn't: "Armstrong stops doping! Fighting charges!"

 

[Beachcruzer]

Seriously? You think doping and cycling started post Lemond? I thought I was pulling the wool over my eyes. Testing was even more primitive then. It's true, Lance had more methods avaliable by his time, but I assure you, winners of the Tour since race one have been doing something. Used to be they just drank lots of coke, back when it was the "real thing". Then for many many decades methamphetamines were the choice. No tests for anything in those days.

I never thought Lance was squeaky clean, just cleaner than others in fear of the testing. I had no idea the tests were so easy to beat when he was winning the tours. The spin we were sold was that the tests were keeping the sport clean then. HA HA HA, as we now know. So many of his rivals got caught one by one, I just figured Lance was using amounts of questionable effectiveness during the actual race or he'd have been caught too. Of course off season more is done. I knew that, I just thought he was "clean" from about june 15th on. That's one reason why he wasn't riding the spring races.

As said so well above, it's professional sports. Like nascar racing, the consistent winner is going to have a big budget, and people in the pits that figure out how to cheat the rule book and not get caught. It's a fact as old as the oldest profession.

EPO didn't exist when LeMond was at his best. It entered the market in 1989 and became pervasive in cycling in the early 1990s. That coincides with LeMond's competitive decline. He wins the Tour in 1989 and 1990, and can't stay with the peloton in 1994. Draw your own conclusions from that.

I've always thought LeMond was more of a champion than Armstrong, who didn't have the great rides LeMond did, or the rivals. LeMond gave the 1985 Tour to 5-time champion Bernard Hinault, and then took the 1986 Tour from him, despite having half his own team working against him (LeMond and Hinault were teammates, and the management ordered LeMond to back off so the French champion could win his fifth Tour. Hinault promised to ride for LeMond the next year, but instead he attacked him at every turn.) The 1986 Tour is considered the best ever because of the way those two men fought each other. It's the Ali-Frazier of cycling. LeMond beat another great rider, Laurent Fignon, in his 1989 comeback. He lost in 1991 to a guy named Miguel Indurain, another 5-time champ.

Armstrong beat who? The German guy, what's his name? Always with the strongest team in the race, all of them on the best dope money can buy, working 100 percent for Armstrong. The organization and preparation were fantastic (in every respect we now know) and Armstrong was a great tactician and very lucky. But those were some pretty boring years.

Armstrong beat cancer, which is great, and inspirational. LeMond took a shotgun blast to the back and was closer to death than Armstrong ever was.

Armstrong won more Tours (yes, they still count), but LeMond won with better style, against great rivals and with some epic rides. I watched all his Tours, and can't remember a truly great ride by Armstrong.

 

[nechaus]

No ones natural anymore these days... with all the supplements and processed food, meds..ect
argh the joy of living in a hypocritial society

 

[Thomas SH]

No ones natural anymore these days... with all the supplements and processed food, meds..ect
argh the joy of living in a hypocritial society

@Nechaus exactly! ... But it's always been that way - Back in the day, all the riders were influenced by some kind of stimulative like alcohol or amfetamin. Furthermore, if it's possible to cheat, someone will! I.e. Maurice Garin won the first Tour de France race in 1903, and he probably would have won again i 1904, but he was caught taking the train a part of the way , so his victory was taken from him.

On this list of Tour de France winners, The US is on a fourth place with 10 victories, but after Lance Armstrong was stripped of his Tour wins, the States are only on a 7th place with Greg Lemond who won 3 times. The thing that ticks me off though isn't that the riders take doping, but that the anti doping agencies and the Tour de France organizers start taking away victoires, because now they're able to proove that the riders have doped ... But what about all the other riders through out the last 100 years? Everybody knows that they have been under the influence of som sort of stimulative, but they get to keep their victories.

Even though Lance Armstrong has admitted to doping, his victories still stand out among some of the greatest achievements within the sports world today.

In the lastest Tour de France official Trailer (2013), Armstrong isn't even acknowledged - They simply don't show him in the video, even though he is one of the greatest Tour riders of all time.

[youtube]ku_t6qpVoHU[/youtube]

Still, I can't wait for the Tour de France to start this year. I've just planned 3 weeks vacation during the Tour, so I can give this epic race my undevoted attention I'll be covering the Tour de France 2013 on my blog this year, if there are any Scandinavians on board.

mod edit: fixed your youtube link.

 

[The fingers]

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/03/11/lance-armstrong-movie-jay-roach/

Got to pay off the Postal Service somehow.
Pal around with this guy and get the Secret Service thrown in for FREE! :lol:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/14/lance-armstrong-bill-clinton-compares-hero_n_2878512.html

 

[nechaus]

Where do I sign up lol

 

[The fingers]

Some new charges for the Lancester:http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/165537

 

[Joseph C.]

Some new charges for the Lancester:http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/165537

That's put a spanner in the works for the redemption comeback.

I'm loathe to say this (because the people who usually say these things generally happen to be morbidly obese bastards making themselves feel better) but his girlfriend, Anna Hansen, from the pictures I have seen, appears to be a good bit underweight. That would be right in line with a typical narcissistic psychopath preying on the vulnerable. If she has any cop on she should run. But then again if she had that she wouldn't be anywhere near him in the first place.