Lance interview in Feb Procycling
Comments
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Maybe I didn't make it clear, I wasn't comparing a GC contender to some ordinary Joe in the gym.
As your wikipedia copy states Indurain was different from an average human being but how does he compare to his rivals? His power to weight ratio was not much better than that of Rominger, Riis or Olano. His advantage over them was tiny: this is the point, they are all elites/freaks/thoroughbreds. Yes he was bigger but against that was his weight so his actual performance advantage over rivals wasn't so big.
As for Indurain, his collaboration with Professor Conconi and Dr Sabino Padilla had a lot to do with his results.0 -
I'm done on this thread. It's been done to death a thousand times. You'll not convince me that LA did not cheat his way to 7 Tour wins. I'll not convince you of the opposite.Tempestas wrote:There will be cheats in all aspects of life unfortunately, what I fail to understand is the way forums pick on one out of thousands and hound them. Innocent until proven guilty applies and like a poster above says, I doubt LA will risk the Livestrong foundation by cheating and I for one hope this season he can produce some good results so he can retire in peace without idiots smearing his name continuously with faceless forum posts.0 -
I know what your saying, but feel there is more to being a good athlete than just ability, yes this is needed but so is that little extra known as willpower and drive. LA proved he has immense mental strength being able to beat cancer and then comeback to such a hard sport, drugs make a small difference, the ability and will has to be there in the first place. This is what seperates the also-rans from the podium finishers, that little extra drive that enables you to push that little bit harder. Great examples of this are when Roche required oxygen after a stage, Tyler Hamilton grinding his teeth down due to the pain of a broken collarbone. These are often forgotten, it's all to easy to dismiss sporting achievements with the 'he must be on drugs' statement. But you can see just how hard they have tried by the state they are in at the end, compare this to someone without the will to succeed and you can see a large difference.0
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andyp wrote:
I'm done on this thread. It's been done to death a thousand times. You'll not convince me that LA did not cheat his way to 7 Tour wins. I'll not convince you of the opposite.Tempestas wrote:There will be cheats in all aspects of life unfortunately, what I fail to understand is the way forums pick on one out of thousands and hound them. Innocent until proven guilty applies and like a poster above says, I doubt LA will risk the Livestrong foundation by cheating and I for one hope this season he can produce some good results so he can retire in peace without idiots smearing his name continuously with faceless forum posts.
I just hope you are not called up for Jury service in my area then
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It isn't just the doped riders that LA beat that makes him suspect it is the coaching staff he hung around with ie. Chris Carmichael (blood transfusions), Ferrari (EPO).
Dave_1: drugs aren't as simple as just ramping your HC up to 50% or whatever, it is more complicated than that as indicated by Willy Voet in Breaking the Chain.
Oh and final point all sportsmen cheat its what they do, this has been recognised for decades.0 -
Did he? Are those who succumb to cancer just "quitters"? I'm sure anyone comes out with a fresh view on life after confronting their mortality but Armstrong was already winning bike races - he was world champion in an icy rainstorm - prior to his illness. As Micron and others have suggested, I think it was the treatment and medicine, plus some good fortune, that probably see you through illness, not mental strength.Tempestas wrote:LA proved he has immense mental strength being able to beat cancer
They are all trying, do you really think the riders are climbing, say, Alpe d'Huez and thinking about their evening meal?Tempestas wrote:drugs make a small difference, the ability and will has to be there in the first place.
Even the last guy up a mountain in the Tour can have a face of agony. But sadly performance enhancing drugs make a very big difference, being able to increase your threshold wattage by 10% is not small, it's possibly the difference between finishing 1st and 40th in the Tour de France. 0 -
Kléber wrote:
Did he? Are those who succumb to cancer just "quitters"?Tempestas wrote:LA proved he has immense mental strength being able to beat cancer
I agree, I've never liked the way his recovery has been credited to mental strength, it does suggest that people who have struggled bravely and died didn't quite try hard enough. Lance said the way to beat cancer is to become as informed as you can and get the very best medical care. Surely the rest is just down to genetics.0 -
Kléber wrote:
Did he? Are those who succumb to cancer just "quitters"? I'm sure anyone comes out with a fresh view on life after confronting their mortality but Armstrong was already winning bike races - he was world champion in an icy rainstorm - prior to his illness. As Micron and others have suggested, I think it was the treatment and medicine, plus some good fortune, that probably see you through illness, not mental strength.Tempestas wrote:LA proved he has immense mental strength being able to beat cancer
They are all trying, do you really think the riders are climbing, say, Alpe d'Huez and thinking about their evening meal?Tempestas wrote:drugs make a small difference, the ability and will has to be there in the first place. Even the last guy up a mountain in the Tour can have a face of agony. But sadly performance enhancing drugs make a very big difference, being able to increase your threshold wattage by 10% is not small, it's possibly the difference between finishing 1st and 40th in the Tour de France.
Cleverly edited to remove the most important part there, 'and come back to such a hard sport' is probably the most important part. After losing 3 of my immediate family in the last few years to cancer I know what it takes to beat it, so please do not try to cleverly edit stuff.
I am drawing this to an end now as I just go around in circle, at the end of the day everyone has opinions and that makes an interesting world, it's just some choose to avoid facts to make theirs seem right.0 -
I was just trying to prune the text, nothing clever. It makes these pages easier to read, rather than copying the same text again and again (hint ).
Many people return to their jobs after illness, it's great. Sometimes you can't come back, a good friend of mine is left wheezing after non-Hodgkins chemo left him with, I think, fibrosis in the lungs and some thyroid problems. But if you can recover with no ill effects, you can go back to work. It's not the case though that surviving makes you stronger, it won't alter your W/kg by any meaningful amount.0 -
andyp wrote:Procycling is full of cheats. It's getting better but most teams will still cheat if they think they can get away with it.
I get the feeling with you andyp that you harbour some resentments to procycling in genral, what was it did ye get yer ass whupped when you tried to be a pro yourself or something ?
MGGasping - but somehow still alive !0 -
Moray Gub wrote:andyp wrote:Procycling is full of cheats. It's getting better but most teams will still cheat if they think they can get away with it.
I get the feeling with you andyp that you harbour some resentments to procycling in genral, what was it did ye get yer ass whupped when you tried to be a pro yourself or something ?
MG
Surely any objective review of stage racing (especially) in the last decade would conclude that Pro-cycling is full of cheats? Or had they all been caught/left as of December 2008?
I would reference a list of GT 'winners'/podiums here for the last 5yrs or so but its too depressing.___________________
Strava is not Zen.0 -
Kléber I know what you mean(notice no quotes), but a normal job is quite easy to go back to after a full recovery, a Professional athlete has a long way to go before reaching the same level after a serious illness and long term lay off. I myself had 4 years off the bike after a fork blade entered and shattered my knee, this was 1 week before the national road race championships which at the time I would have liked to have thought I had a good chance of featuring in.
Did I recover? Yes
Did I race at that level again? No, because I didn't have the determination to put my body through what I had before to achieve the results.
That's possibly the best example I can give for respecting his achievements, but he is still boring to actually watch race
It's like watching a machine do it's job, which I guess is why he is not seen as one of the charismatic greats such as Cippolini or other European riders who have that little bit of flair. 0 -
My recollection of the Lance v Fat Jan years, is of Marc Madiot's "two speed peloton".
Towards the end of each stage, up would go the speed and out the back would go half the peloton. God help them if there was a cross-wind.
Those who remained in the front half were all the overall contenders and their lieutenants, plus the sprinter's (flat stages) squads.
On mountain stages, the carnage invariably began upon whichever climb USPS/Disco put the hammer down.
Given what has been exposed about all of those pretenders to the throne, we have to accept one of two possiblities.
Either: Lance was as juiced as all his main adversaries.
Or: Had his adversaries ridden clean, along with Lance and his team, we would have seen USPS disappearing, en masse, up the road on every stage.
Winning Tour margins approaching what? a hour? more? Who knows?
It explains why one man's sceptism, is another man's cynicism."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
calvjones wrote:Moray Gub wrote:andyp wrote:Procycling is full of cheats. It's getting better but most teams will still cheat if they think they can get away with it.
I get the feeling with you andyp that you harbour some resentments to procycling in genral, what was it did ye get yer ass whupped when you tried to be a pro yourself or something ?
MG
Surely any objective review of stage racing (especially) in the last decade would conclude that Pro-cycling is full of cheats? Or had they all been caught/left as of December 2008?
I would reference a list of GT 'winners'/podiums here for the last 5yrs or so but its too depressing.
The phrase full of cheats is sensationalist and frankly imo innacurate. There are cheats as in all sporting fileds but to say its full of cheats is imo nonsense.
MGGasping - but somehow still alive !0 -
Dave_1 wrote:andyp wrote:
The problem I have with the Armstrong myth is that it is, in my opinion, exactly that, a myth. He uses his cancer survival story to give hope to others but his comeback wasn't based on the hard work and talent he claims it was but on his inate ability to respond to performance enhancing doping techniques like EPO and blood doping. Any hope he gives based on his story is a lie.Tempestas wrote:LA may not be the ‘perfect’ person that everyone demands, but who is? Has anything been proved? Has he ever been banned? To be honest I am amazed he gives any interviews and even bothers with speaking to the public anymore, especially when so called supporters of cycling are the ones who belittle and accuse him. Yes the sport of cycling has cheats within it, but so has every other sport in the world.
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I too believe he took EPO or transfusions...everyone in the top 10 got caught and he thrashed them all...but don't agree re your comments that it was only his inate ability to respond to EPO...pls explain the jump up 2 levels in a decade-the same products exactly available in 92 as in 99...HC% is not rocket science nor the other stuff.
he should not have built a chairty given what he had to do...that is the problem and his out of control ego someone punched him http://cbs11tv.com/local/Dead.Mans.Hole.2.636966.html
With a nice pair of shades he would be up crit chique.0 -
Sadly MG, this isn't a wild claim. Look back to past years and you could safely say the majority of riders in the Tour, Vuelta or Giro were using EPO. Many of these same riders are still riding today and above all, ,most of the team managers, doctors and backroom staff are still in place.Moray Gub wrote:The phrase full of cheats is sensationalist and frankly imo innacurate.
Fortunately today the AFLD says that the majority of riders rode the Tour clean, so we're moving forward. Things are still bad, we know several riders in the bunch today should have been punished for offences that they somehow managed to deny. Valv.Piti anyone? Only this summer cheats from the Tour are caught but riders in the Giro seem to have got away with it, the authorities still can't put in place some even rules to catch dopers.
We'll never get rid of doping of course but the UCI and some race organisers just don't seem interested in applying some simple rules to weed out the cheats, many are able to ride through the net with ease.0 -
Kléber wrote:
Sadly MG, this isn't a wild claim. Look back to past years and you could safely say the majority of riders in the Tour, Vuelta or Giro were using EPO. Many of these same riders are still riding today and above all, ,most of the team managers, doctors and backroom staff are still in place.Moray Gub wrote:The phrase full of cheats is sensationalist and frankly imo innacurate.
Fortunately today the AFLD says that the majority of riders rode the Tour clean, so we're moving forward. Things are still bad, we know several riders in the bunch today should have been punished for offences that they somehow managed to deny. Valv.Piti anyone? Only this summer cheats from the Tour are caught but riders in the Giro seem to have got away with it, the authorities still can't put in place some even rules to catch dopers.
We'll never get rid of doping of course but the UCI and some race organisers just don't seem interested in applying some simple rules to weed out the cheats, many are able to ride through the net with ease.
I think it's a bit harsh to say the UCI across the board isn't interested, certainly I wouldn't lay that claim against Anne Gripper. It's also unfair to compare AFLD's actions at one race with an organisation trying to cover a much bigger scope of operation and nature.
My view is that, to some extent, AFLD got lucky with the coincidence of a new test being available and riders on their patch. Let's not forget that Gripper's targeted testing in the previous season netted the not incosiderable fish of Vinokourov and Kashechkin.0 -
Leguape, you're right. It would have been good if the AFLD could have tested for CERA in Paris-Nice but they didn't.
I'm not saying the UCI isn't interested catching dopers at all, just that they seem to have incoherent policies. One minute they employ Anne Gripper to catch the cheats, the next they refuse to retro test samples from the Giro.
A simple retro test on the Giro samples may well have revealed some more cheats, these are the "low hanging fruit". Why bother with the bio passport which is a subtle scheme for detection but also very expensive and complicated to manage when you can't apply simple dope tests to samples? It's the inconsistency that is a pity, one minute they set up complex schemes, the next minute they refuse a free kick at an open goal.
The cynic in me says it's because the bio passport scheme lets the UCI say "look we're doing plenty" whilst conveniently turning up no scandal; they refuse to review samples from this year for the reason that they'd generate more scandal.
Looking forward, apparently the Giro samples are still in existence they have not been destroyed, someone is sitting on them. Will they get tested? We have this sword of damocles hanging over some riders.
Why not allow the AFLD and the UCI to run the doping controls simultaneously? There is no reason why either organisation should have a monopoly on anti-doping controls at the Tour or Paris-Nice.0 -
The punishments dished out for doping also need reviewing imo, life time bans for 100% positive tests and court action for sporting fraud should be the minimum. This would imo reduce the amount of riders willing to risk cheating. But as you say, a clear testing procedure needs to be implemented before you can do this.0
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Kléber wrote:Leguape, you're right. It would have been good if the AFLD could have tested for CERA in Paris-Nice but they didn't.
I'm not saying the UCI isn't interested catching dopers at all, just that they seem to have incoherent policies. One minute they employ Anne Gripper to catch the cheats, the next they refuse to retro test samples from the Giro.
A simple retro test on the Giro samples may well have revealed some more cheats, these are the "low hanging fruit". Why bother with the bio passport which is a subtle scheme for detection but also very expensive and complicated to manage when you can't apply simple dope tests to samples? It's the inconsistency that is a pity, one minute they set up complex schemes, the next minute they refuse a free kick at an open goal.
The cynic in me says it's because the bio passport scheme lets the UCI say "look we're doing plenty" whilst conveniently turning up no scandal; they refuse to review samples from this year for the reason that they'd generate more scandal.
Looking forward, apparently the Giro samples are still in existence they have not been destroyed, someone is sitting on them. Will they get tested? We have this sword of damocles hanging over some riders.
Why not allow the AFLD and the UCI to run the doping controls simultaneously? There is no reason why either organisation should have a monopoly on anti-doping controls at the Tour or Paris-Nice.
Undoubtedly there's plenty of room for cynicism, as there is where any governing body decides it wants to look after both the financial and moral interests of its remit.
My issue with having both the AFLD and UCI doing controls is that you enter a ridiculous maze of logistics which I think would have the deleterious effect of people slipping through the net because there was an assumption that the other lot were testing them, not to mention the potential conflict of interests - for example, who prosecutes for the UCI pull a French rider outside of ALFD jurisdiction - and massive potential for points scoring, something Bordry has shown himself not to be shy of already.0 -
Perhaps they should obey Armstrong's 'laws of cycling' and let the strongest testers lead - can't imagine that would be the UCI in all honesty, at least not under their current puppet leadership.0
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Just read the magazine.
One of the best interviews I've read from LA. Kudos to Peter and most of the questions.
Iain, I don't get it why you got so hyped up about LA avoiding your second question.
As an ex-pro (not cycling), I used to follow pretty tightly what was written about me in my sports forums, you never feel good reading the negative comments, even when you deserve them after a bad game.
But the way LA has been slammed here and in many other forums, is just ridiculous.
And he is 100% right, none of the negative posters here(no need to name names) have never ridden the Tour, yet alone won it 7 times, so in that view, you are(me included) clueless.
I've always taken the athletes side here, well, except Ricco maybe...
It's so easy to shoot one behind the anonymous name and screen.
No matter what LA says, doesn't say, does, doesn't do, some of you still find the energy to hate the guy, for what ever reason. I'm not one of them.
Thanks PC for the great interview!
Go Lance! 0 -
The questions in the Procyling interview weren't anonymous.0
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double post0
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So only those who have ridden the Tour de France are allowed to discuss cycling? Well, we might as well not bother having a forum. Even the likes of you Arkibal should log out and go away, we'll might as well sit in front of our TV screens and not talk about it...Arkibal wrote:And he is 100% right, none of the negative posters here(no need to name names) have never ridden the Tour, yet alone won it 7 times, so in that view, you are(me included) clueless.
...only it doesn't work like that. I don't care if you've got one leg, if you have something to contribute to the debate on here, and elsewhere in the media, you're welcome to your say. If we followed the line from the UCI, Armstrong and cyclingnews.com the sport would still be in the dark ages.0 -
Arkibal wrote:Just read the magazine.
One of the best interviews I've read from LA. Kudos to Peter and most of the questions.
Iain, I don't get it why you got so hyped up about LA avoiding your second question.
/quote]
Sept 26, Las Vegas, Lance said
"I really try to seek out the most credible and well respected anti-doping crusader, especially here in the United States," Armstrong said about choosing Dr. Catlin. "It's a level of transparency that I didn't want to leave that box unchecked. So I signed with Don and he has a job to do. It is his job and not my job – I will subject myself to whatever he wants. Ultimately I think we as fans must get back to enjoying the race. Hopefully this helps, but there will always be people who question it."
Yet he couldn't be transparent about when a legal agreement would be in place? He also spoke of being more open and if you've got a question "get on the call". I asked a question and not a crazy one and he went off on one?
His actions don't match his words. Maybe that doesn't bother you but why say it in the first place?
At least we can agree it was a good interviewFckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Kléber wrote:
So only those who have ridden the Tour de France are allowed to discuss cycling? Well, we might as well not bother having a forum. Even the likes of you Arkibal should log out and go away, we'll might as well sit in front of our TV screens and not talk about it...Arkibal wrote:And he is 100% right, none of the negative posters here(no need to name names) have never ridden the Tour, yet alone won it 7 times, so in that view, you are(me included) clueless.
...only it doesn't work like that. I don't care if you've got one leg, if you have something to contribute to the debate on here, and elsewhere in the media, you're welcome to your say. If we followed the line from the UCI, Armstrong and cyclingnews.com the sport would still be in the dark ages.
Clueless post, not surprised, coming from you.
Have you been a Pro athlete=earning your salary as an athlete?0 -
Arkibal wrote:Have you been a Pro athlete=earning your salary as an athlete?
I'm curious, why would this make one jot of difference? Obviously because you have you have a different POV and I'm interested ot understand it. And this is a genuine question.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
So you have to be a pro athlete to understand pro athletes? From which era? From which sport?Arkibal wrote:Clueless post, not surprised, coming from you.
Have you been a Pro athlete=earning your salary as an athlete?
I have a friend who was a pro athlete: he knows nothing about cycling or doping (by his own admission), but I take it that he knows more about both cycling and doping than *insert name here*?
Or not?
A 1960's pro-curler knows more about pro kabaddi than a life long fan?
Or not?
In my work, I hear a similar thing all the time & I read lots of evidence that tells me that it's utter mince.
Ironic that you use this argument after saying that a post was clueless :roll:0 -
iainf72 wrote:Arkibal wrote:Have you been a Pro athlete=earning your salary as an athlete?
I'm curious, why would this make one jot of difference? Obviously because you have you have a different POV and I'm interested ot understand it. And this is a genuine question.
Well sitting on your ass instead of working hard out, yes, that makes a difference.
And as it goes in every aspects of life, no matter if it's sports, economy(bad joke), the better you are, the more you'll get paid.
The only thing is that while you are sitting on your ass, you are unlikely to get injured, having an injury that could finish your sporting career, not likely.
Since you "know" so much about cycling and sports, I assume you have been an elite athlete............?0
