Armstrong to admit to doping.

ademort

According to sources close to Lance Armstrong, during the interview with Ophra the fallen American superstar will admit to the use of doping during his career, however he will not reveal all. Let me guess, this is when somebody comes in with a mega bucks book deal and Armstrong does reveal all. Surely any such book would sell like hot cakes and make Armstrong a great deal of money, not that he needs it.
Ademort

dodgy

Wow, it's almost as if this is the first time I've heard about this. There should be a thread on it.

shinyhelmut

It's amazing that there can be a 192 page thread on Armstrong's doping and we missed this!

iainf72

ademort wrote:

According to sources close to Lance Armstrong, during the interview with Ophra the fallen American superstar will admit to the use of doping during his career, however he will not reveal all. Let me guess, this is when somebody comes in with a mega bucks book deal and Armstrong does reveal all. Surely any such book would sell like hot cakes and make Armstrong a great deal of money, not that he needs it.
Ademort

He's been shopping a book around - No one is interested.

No_Ta_Doctor

iainf72 wrote:

ademort wrote:

According to sources close to Lance Armstrong, during the interview with Ophra the fallen American superstar will admit to the use of doping during his career, however he will not reveal all. Let me guess, this is when somebody comes in with a mega bucks book deal and Armstrong does reveal all. Surely any such book would sell like hot cakes and make Armstrong a great deal of money, not that he needs it.
Ademort

He's been shopping a book around - No one is interested.

Get on the right thread, Iain.

I want to know about these lawyers.

dougzz

Ademort, you certainly crossed the forum thought police.
The story that Ademort is pointing to is a new one, Lance's people have clearly leaked the advance warning that he'll admit doping. That wasn't necessarily the case, he could have easily done several hours with Oprah talking about his children, his love of America, how all he ever wanted to do was fight cancer etc. I suspect it'll clearly be aimed at a US audience, I think it's safe to say he's blown in Europe and there's no coming back here. Even if he gives up Hein and JB he'll not get a pass on this side of the Atlantic.

sherer

lets not get too fooled by this. LA is going what he always does and look after number one. He won't give any details, bet Oprah won't have him if he is going to pay any money to Bassons or Simioni, and he's just doing this for himself so he can run in a marathon or tri.

If behind closed doors he reveals all to the USADA and WADA and gives up everything he has on Ferrari and the UCI then I may change my mind

Stedman

Lets not forget that LA has a very sharp strategic mind and I suspect that there has already been a significant amount of research and preparation.

What appears to be taking place is a carefully planned campaign type, political interview.

To emphasise the message which they want us to hear, their spin machine will:

1.Initially leak the key points which they want us to hear before the interview
2.During the interview place specific emphasise key points which they wish to make
3.After the interview you immediately flood the press with information clarifying their key points before those opposing them are able to respond.

Any leaks could be an indication that this is going to be a well organised publicity campaign to relaunch the LA brand!

ademort

dougzz wrote:

Ademort, you certainly crossed the forum thought police.
The story that Ademort is pointing to is a new one, Lance's people have clearly leaked the advance warning that he'll admit doping. That wasn't necessarily the case, he could have easily done several hours with Oprah talking about his children, his love of America, how all he ever wanted to do was fight cancer etc. I suspect it'll clearly be aimed at a US audience, I think it's safe to say he's blown in Europe and there's no coming back here. Even if he gives up Hein and JB he'll not get a pass on this side of the Atlantic.

The story i,m quoting has just been published in the New York times. There has been huge speculation as to what will be said in the interview with Ophra but in this story revealed by the New York times a source close to Armstrong says he will confess. As pointed out by "dougzz" this is a new story and thats all i,m pointing out.
Ademort

RDW

The Onion has now leaked the key key points of his confession:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/lance- ... but,17973/

Richmond Racer

Sunday Times and Walsh have placed an open letter in the Chicago Tribune

http://ow.ly/i/1mxjy/original

rick_chasey

Heard on radio 5 live he sent a text to the press association saying location and questions are all Oprah' s choice and he won't hold back and answer all questions truthfully.

Odd that he had to mention that last bit specifically...

rick_chasey

Richmond Racer wrote:

Sunday Times and Walsh have placed an open letter in the Chicago Tribune

http://ow.ly/i/1mxjy/original

I get fed up with all the name dropping.

This whole little anti Armstrong "weren't we all so hurt by him " group is getting increasingly tedious and pathetic.

Funny how Walsh and other journos are so keen to ask the ex UPS riders who doped, but they don't wanna know who Lance thinks did.

samb01

Rick Chasey wrote:

Richmond Racer wrote:

Sunday Times and Walsh have placed an open letter in the Chicago Tribune

http://ow.ly/i/1mxjy/original

I get fed up with all the name dropping.

This whole little anti Armstrong "weren't we all so hurt by him " group is getting increasingly tedious and pathetic.

Funny how Walsh and other journos are so keen to ask the ex UPS riders who doped, but they don't wanna know who Lance thinks did.

Shut the fck up already.

Richmond Racer

There's a debate to be had here. There's an effective way of contributing to a debate and an abusive 'shut the f^&k up already' is not it.

When I posted the link to the Sunday Times' 'letter', I didnt take in the plugs for the ST and David Walsh's book at the bottom of it. IMO the Sunday Times including that - giving Walsh benefit of the doubt because he may have had no say in the matter, just dont know- gives it an overtone of an advert. And that starts to raise a couple of questions.

And a quick review of Twatters shows that this plus a couple of other things are starting to make some people uneasy - and this is not a bunch of Lance apologists, far from. Questions along the lines of 'is this now all about settling scores and point scoring'?

Dont get me wrong, various people including Walsh, Lemond, the Andreus, have every reason to feel vindicated.

But for me anyway the focus needs to be on the right things for the right motives - for cycling. An apology to those he did over is, I guess, satisfactory from a human empathy perspective, but for cycling's benefit him offering up the who's and the how's including Bruyneel, and beyond those known and published already in the report including Och, Weisel, blind eyes turned by USA Cycling, the characters of whom are still in power - for me, this should be the primary goal. And this other stuff seems to put that into the shade...

Yellow Peril

I can well imagine that something like the Sunday times letter will get a mention on Dope-rah's show but it wouldn't be with a view to getting specific answers to each question but more of a "how do you feel when things like this are published?" or "what is your reaction to the Sunday Times open letter?" giving LA an opportunity to generalise.

I'm starting to think that the link to the satirical Onion on this thread may be not far from the mark in terms of what we get out of his interview with Winfrey.

samb01

Richmond Racer wrote:

Questions along the lines of 'is this now all about settling scores and point scoring'?

What's wrong with that? It's as it should be.

Some people on twitter feel uneasy about it? Are you for real? Get a grip.

Richmond Racer

Not when settling scores and points scoring becomes the main story.

How is that going to help cycling?

samb01

Richmond Racer wrote:

Not when settling scores and points scoring becomes the main story.

How is that going to help cycling?

I don't agree with the premise, that this somehow damages cycling.

But even if true, so what? The people involved in this particular fight have no obligation to make 'helping cycling' their priority, even if that's what they think they're doing.

Richmond Racer

ok, take that 'letter': there's a risk that someone who knows toot about cycling has a read of it, and instead of taking in the fundamental questions it poses, sees at the bottom the plugs for the Sunday Times paywall and Walsh's book, and dismisses the questions by concluding that its just an ad. That the source has a vested interest in flogging something. Could mean that an opportunity is missed for some non-cycling fans to understand more detail ahead of next week's transmission, because they could dismiss it as a piece of PR/advertising.

As for the other stuff, if people keep on and on hearing and reading the 'I/they were done wrong', its amazing how quickly some people begin to just blank it all out, and start not giving a stuff anymore. Sorry if that offends you, but its the risk of saturation of a message - and which all of the media outlets are contributing to, massively.

rick_chasey

Broadly what my gripe is that they've finally got the attention of the wider world, and they keep on banging the same tedious drum.

Maybe it's because I've been having the Armstrong doping conversation since I was 12 years old.

I also, as I've said a million times, have objections both to the pure focus on doping from 'sports' writers when it comes to cycling and the total focus on Armstrong.

For sure, I can see why that is - I'm not an idiot - but it's almost like they've barged the other riders who were just as bad just in case they get in the way of getting Armstrong bang-to-rights.

They're right when they say because 90% of people were doping it doesn't make it fair - and people have different natural responses to doping which skews results. But they use that as an excuse to ignore all other dopers and just go after Armstrong.

RR is right - it's now become about settling scores. Two news international journalists and a few hard-done by ex colleagues. They all have an axe to grind.

What I thought was great, and I really didn't expect to, was radio 5s coverage of it. For sure, they relied too heavily on the above characters, but it was a reasonably balanced analysis of the situation. Now, still, they give that more coverage than the bloody racing, but at least it made efforts to be objective and draw a wider picture.

Why Armstrong was even popular to begin with is lost in the whole thing. It's because he kept winning the Tour which is a bloody good race and a good spetacle, even when it's a boring edition, and is the annual climax of what is a great sport.

Monty Dog

It would appear from today's Sunday Times article that USADA were prepared to do a deal with Larry if he came clean and were only going to strip his results from 2004 and 2005, but when he issued the counter-suit regarding their jurisdiction and wouldn't contest the charges, they took the action to void all his results from 1998 - seems his high risk strategy back- fired.
Regarding earlier comment regarding his 'strategic thinking' what utter rubbish as he persistently failed to win a 1-day classic post cancer despite numerous attempts, even getting rolled-over by Boogie at Amstel and repeatedly fluffing LBL, hardly the traits of a great? His only advantage was pharmaceutical and as Tyler's book demonstrated, he hated even being beaten by teammates and had to take extra measures even to beat them.

iainf72

Monty Dog wrote:

It would appear from today's Sunday Times article that USADA were prepared to do a deal with Larry if he came clean and were only going to strip his results from 2004 and 2005, but when he issued the counter-suit regarding their jurisdiction and wouldn't contest the charges, they took the action to void all his results from 1998 - seems his high risk strategy back- fired.
.

That has been widely known since early on. He didn't even need to come clean, all he needed to was go to arbitration. As soon as he'd entered into the arbitration process, the statute of limitations would've come into effect.