Lance doping confession - I want an apology from him!

secretsam

I always said Lance was a doper and so am feeling very smug to be proved right.

Bet the Oprah interview is a total farce, however, Lance having already demonstrated more than once he's a serial liar and a slippery weasel.

rjsterry

Obviously he is hoping for some kind of rehabilitation, and Oprah isn't exactly renowned as a ruthless inquisitor, but there are reports that he admitted more than she expected, so maybe there was something of a Frost/Nixon moment. I'll wait to see some sort of transcript before commenting further, but I do find the whole thing fascinating as a sort of modern Greek tragedy.

meanredspider

From reports today, I'm not sure we're getting a full confession

I was really interested that Tyler Hamilton refused to condemn LA completely in his book. Great story - listened to the audiobook in just two sittings. Even though he was clearly bullied, intimidated and even reported to the authorities by LA, he stops short of condemning him which I found really interesting. He also pointed out that no professional cyclist caught doping ever admitted it when first accused. LA is no different and I'm not sure why he should be. In a perverse way, I have to admire the sheer scale and effectiveness of the doping and the cover-up. He also has far far more to lose than anyone else. Finally, as only 3 of the last 17 TdF winners has doped, he's far from alone. From a purely human perspective, I'm fascinated to hear his story when the truth of it finally comes out. Hamilton's book is just brilliant from that point of view.

daviesee

meanredspider wrote:

.... He also pointed out that no professional cyclist caught doping ever admitted it when first accused. ...

David Millar?

IIRC took a few days but finally admitted it. And hadn't tested positive either.
I could be wrong and often am.

meanredspider

daviesee wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

.... He also pointed out that no professional cyclist caught doping ever admitted it when first accused. ...

David Millar?

IIRC took a few days but finally admitted it. And hadn't tested positive either.
I could be wrong and often am.

I think that's the point. The natural response of everybody is to deny it. As soon as you start, you've made it harder to come back from that point. That's what I loved about the Hamilton book - the extent of the doping was eye-opening but it was the psychology of the dopers that was fascinating - in particular, how they dealt with the lies.

tailwindhome

meanredspider wrote:

daviesee wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

.... He also pointed out that no professional cyclist caught doping ever admitted it when first accused. ...

David Millar?

IIRC took a few days but finally admitted it. And hadn't tested positive either.
I could be wrong and often am.

I think that's the point. The natural response of everybody is to deny it. As soon as you start, you've made it harder to come back from that point. That's what I loved about the Hamilton book - the extent of the doping was eye-opening but it was the psychology of the dopers that was fascinating - in particular, how they dealt with the lies.

Millar 'confessed' after the armed police found the empty phials and used syringes in a search of his apartment.

paolo73

Millar would still be lying if he hadn't been thick enough to leave a trophy vial on his mantlepiece. I don't think there's an athlete on earth more painfully hypocritical. All you hear from him is self-pity and judgement of others to whom he is no different, and certainly no better.

Having to listen to his drivel is a constant reminder that the sport will never move on as long as people like him are part of its future. You won't see Bob Diamond at the helm of the FSA in 5yrs talking about how he wants to help people not make the mistakes he made. Why should Millar get that chance? Tell the authorities what you know and then go away.....

daviesee

paolo73 wrote:

Why should Millar get that chance? Tell the authorities what you know and then go away.....

Maybe because he tried but they all stuck their fingers in their ears and went la-la-la-la.
I quite like how that seems appropriate.

meanredspider

Yeah - I don't really understand why LA gets such a bad rap out of all of this. There have been loads & loads of cheats - he just did it bigger and better than anyone else and was far far more successful. And that's where his power came from. He certainly didn't invent cheating (wasn't Simpson doping?) or gamesmanship. And, having listened to the Hamilton story, I'm sure now, more than ever, that he was a cheat largely amongst a field of cheats. I have a begrudging admiration for his success. I have to admit to some bias too. Seeing the utter determination my son has post-cancer I can see how LA might have been like that too. If my son gets something wrong in a test or mock exam, there's an almost forensic examination of why. He's taught himself the biology syllabus from scratch in about 3 months and got an A in a mock paper. Add that step-change in determination to an already world-class athlete, and I can begin to understand LA's mindset. It doesn't excuse it - he's an arch-cheat amongst cheats - but I do understand it better.

tailwindhome

meanredspider wrote:

Add that step-change in determination to someone already cheating.

FTFY

meanredspider

TailWindHome wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Add that step-change in determination to someone already cheating.

FTFY

Absolutely. I know from the Hamilton book he was already cheating when he had cancer. But, again, I bet he wasn't the only one

Wrath Rob

MRS, you're forgetting that, according to many reports out there (Walsh, Hamilton, Emma O'Reily etc) that when accused of cheating the stock LA tactic was to go on the attack and assassinate the characters of the people accusing him. LeMond's bike business trashed? Walsh and the Sunday Times sued? Threats to Hamilton? O'Reily cast as a prostitute who slept around the team? Bassons? Simeoni? Where do you want me to stop?

That's why people don't like him. No-one likes a bully, worse a cheat and a bully. Yes, coming back from one of the most aggressive forms of cancer was a fantastic and inspirational story, but the dark side of the story is the lies, cheating, intimidation and bullying that made it happen. His drive to succeed was warped along the way, losing his moral compass (if he ever had one) and he had to win at any cost, a cost that a lot of other people have paid on his behalf.

meanredspider

Just been checking my facts and, Tom Simpson seems to have effectively brought about his own demise by doping yet seems to be feted. We're a perverse lot.

daviesee

meanredspider wrote:

Just been checking my facts and, Tom Simpson seems to have effectively brought about his own demise by doping yet seems to be feted. We're a perverse lot.

Fact. And you can go back a lot further than him.
I think the main difference with LA is the way he treated those who questioned him, as Wrath Rob says.

meanredspider

Wrath Rob wrote:

MRS, you're forgetting that, according to many reports out there (Walsh, Hamilton, Emma O'Reily etc) that when accused of cheating the stock LA tactic was to go on the attack and assassinate the characters of the people accusing him. LeMond's bike business trashed? Walsh and the Sunday Times sued? Threats to Hamilton? O'Reily cast as a prostitute who slept around the team? Bassons? Simeoni? Where do you want me to stop?

That's why people don't like him. No-one likes a bully, worse a cheat and a bully. Yes, coming back from one of the most aggressive forms of cancer was a fantastic and inspirational story, but the dark side of the story is the lies, cheating, intimidation and bullying that made it happen. His drive to succeed was warped along the way, losing his moral compass (if he ever had one) and he had to win at any cost, a cost that a lot of other people have paid on his behalf.

I understand this totally. But he could only achieve this degree of bullying "power" because he'd been successful.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend LA. I was just really interested to see how little animosity Hamilton had for him despite everything. And I understood better both the pressures to cheat ("everybody" was) and the pressures to defend yourself once accused of cheating. LA went to more extreme lengths because he (and a lot of people in cycling surrounding him) had a lot to lose if he was found out. He also had far more resources available to him. Hamilton explains how he set out to discredit the test results when he was caught. LA's approach is the same just more extreme. Who's to say that some of these other cheats wouldn't have gone to similar lengths had they been an X-times TdF winner with $millions at stake (and available).

This all reminds me of the story of the man & woman on a train
Man: "Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"
Woman: "Err - yes, I would"
Man: "Would you sleep with me for a pound?"
Woman (outraged): "What do you take me for?"
Man: "We've established what you are; now we're just negotiating on price"

All of these guys are cheats & liars. Some are just bigger than others.

paolo73

No doubt LA was a bully to many people, but it seems he was the only one within the sport with broad enough shoulders to take on the responsibility for defending the entire peleton. He was playing by cycling's unwritten rules, and when the accusers came it was part of his job to protect everyone else. in a macabre way it's actually quite admirable. he certainly wasn't only defending himself even though he was the one on the end of the pointed fingers.
If you read David Walsh's book you get the sense that for all the vitriol, Walsh actually admires the way LA was able to lock his house down for so long. If he hadn't been so aggressive then nobody would have earned a living out of cycling in the nineties and noughties. People like Bassons say they lost out on the chance to earn money but the reality is they never had that opportunity in that era, with or without Armstrong bullying them. Right behind every clean rider there would have been someone just as talented ready to ride dirty to support a team leader whilst keeping his mouth shut.

meanredspider

daviesee wrote:

Fact. And you can go back a lot further than him.
I think the main difference with LA is the way he treated those who questioned him, as Wrath Rob says.

But all of these people contributed to the LA story. It became an arms race. As Hamilton noted - if you weren't doping you were nowhere. Doping is at the root of it. The rest (the lying and bullying) was mostly just the consequence of cheating.

SteppenHerring

meanredspider wrote:

Just been checking my facts and, Tom Simpson seems to have effectively brought about his own demise by doping yet seems to be feted. We're a perverse lot.

It's a little more complicated than that. He also had the sh1ts and was dehydrated, plus as was the custom at the time had consumed brandy prior to the climb. Add in amphetamines and a whole load of bl00dy mindedness and the combination was fatal.

I don't recall LA being nicknamed "le Gentleman".

The Fotheringham book on Simpson is well worth a read.

meanredspider

SteppenHerring wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Just been checking my facts and, Tom Simpson seems to have effectively brought about his own demise by doping yet seems to be feted. We're a perverse lot.

It's a little more complicated than that. He also had the sh1ts and was dehydrated, plus as was the custom at the time had consumed brandy prior to the climb. Add in amphetamines and a whole load of bl00dy mindedness and the combination was fatal.

I don't recall LA being nicknamed "le Gentleman".

The Fotheringham book on Simpson is well worth a read.

Yup - read all about that - but a doper is a doper (to quote someone else). Just because we happen to like Tom doesn't mean that he wasn't on the path that led ultimately to LA's door. Like everything, as soon as you turn a blind eye to doping, you effectively condone what results. TBH, LA is exactly what you'd expect the logical outcome to be and worse (like deaths in amateur cycling)

Wrath Rob

There are stories of LA being 1 step away from a bully before he got into drugs, I don't think that he necessarily changed, more that his power and opposition within and outside of the sport meant he could exert his will much more widely and effectively.

@Paulo73, sorry but I don't get this:

paolo73 wrote:

If he hadn't been so aggressive then nobody would have earned a living out of cycling in the nineties and noughties

People have been earning money from cycling for decades. Armstrong and the other dirty riders sacrificed their morals in order to win. Armstrong pushed it the furthest with the likes of Motoman and coercing his team-mates to dope, pushing you out of the team if you weren't prepared to play ball and give it everything in order to support his thirst for victory, at any cost. The other big contenders were at it too, see the client lists for Ferrari and Fuentes but Armstrong took it further and did it better than the others. Admiring that is like admiring a genocidal dictator's methods for securing power.

Any rider who tried to race clean had no chance of competing no matter how hard they worked, so I'd say that yes, they should feel cheated, maybe not of money but of an opportunity to fairly compete for that money.

rick_chasey

Armstrong's bigger than most because he transcended the sport.

People who have never watched the Tour or know what a peloton is are suddenly all over my Facebook saying how interested they are in the story.

It's not really about cycling. It's about Armstrong. Cycling was merely the vehicle.

I've said it before. I don't think he actually likes cycling as a sport. He worked out it was the sport he was best at.

meanredspider

There are plenty of bullies in top-level sport - the adage "Nice guys finish last" didn't come from nowhere. LA may have been the biggest & best cheat/liar/bully in cycling but I'm sure he's not the only one so shouldn't be singled out. You could argue that, through the LiveStrong Foundation, he's paid some of that back - I don't think it's that straightforward - but he's undoubtedly done some good to balance some of the damage. And, in my own simple view of the world, helping people suffering from a life-threatening and often terminal disease, is in many ways more important than a bunch of blokes riding bikes for money.

tailwindhome

meanredspider wrote:

There are plenty of bullies in top-level sport - the adage "Nice guys finish last" didn't come from nowhere. LA may have been the biggest & best cheat/liar/bully in cycling but I'm sure he's not the only one so shouldn't be singled out. You could argue that, through the LiveStrong Foundation, he's paid some of that back - I don't think it's that straightforward - but he's undoubtedly done some good to balance some of the damage. And, in my own simple view of the world, helping people suffering from a life-threatening and often terminal disease, is in many ways more important than a bunch of blokes riding bikes for money.

Jimmy Saville?



Mentioning Saville in a Lance thread should close the thread.

Let's call it Tailwind's Law.

Yes. I can see that being a 'thing'

veronese68

TailWindHome wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

There are plenty of bullies in top-level sport - the adage "Nice guys finish last" didn't come from nowhere. LA may have been the biggest & best cheat/liar/bully in cycling but I'm sure he's not the only one so shouldn't be singled out. You could argue that, through the LiveStrong Foundation, he's paid some of that back - I don't think it's that straightforward - but he's undoubtedly done some good to balance some of the damage. And, in my own simple view of the world, helping people suffering from a life-threatening and often terminal disease, is in many ways more important than a bunch of blokes riding bikes for money.

Jimmy Saville?



Mentioning Saville in a Lance thread should close the thread.

Let's call it Tailwind's Law.

Yes. I can see that being a 'thing'

There probably are a few similarities. Saville wasn't a particularly nice bloke besides the obvious. I can imagimne how a conversation would go if a mid level BBC manager challenged Saville in the early 80s. The response would be a lot of shouting "Do you know who I am?" "I'll see to it you never work in this industry again." and other forms of bullying. Not surprisingly the mid management when threatened by one of the top stars in the Beeb would back off rather quickly.
And as MRS says you don't get to the top level through being nice. You have to be pretty single-minded.

meanredspider

TailWindHome wrote:

Jimmy Saville?



Mentioning Saville in a Lance thread should close the thread.

Let's call it Tailwind's Law.

Yes. I can see that being a 'thing'

Interesting challenge. Mind you (and I appreciate this is all massive shades of grey (and not the book either)) I don't think you can equate the good that Savile did with that of Armstrong. Nor, more importantly, do I believe that you can equate the bad that Savile did with that of Armstrong. The bad part is the particular area. Much of what Armstrong did was generally in the murky world of professional cycling. Where he faced down his accusers (like The Times) he often did so through the legal process. Others were fellow cheats & liars. Savile's crimes (at least in my eyes) were of an entirely different nature - he was predatory - picking on the young and even the disabled. I don't think you can equate that to a bunch of blokes in bicycle racing picking fights with each other.

tailwindhome

meanredspider wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

Jimmy Saville?



Mentioning Saville in a Lance thread should close the thread.

Let's call it Tailwind's Law.

Yes. I can see that being a 'thing'

Interesting challenge. Mind you (and I appreciate this is all massive shades of grey (and not the book either)) I don't think you can equate the good that Savile did with that of Armstrong. Nor, more importantly, do I believe that you can equate the bad that Savile did with that of Armstrong. The bad part is the particular area. Much of what Armstrong did was generally in the murky world of professional cycling. Where he faced down his accusers (like The Times) he often did so through the legal process. Others were fellow cheats & liars. Savile's crimes (at least in my eyes) were of an entirely different nature - he was predatory - picking on the young and even the disabled. I don't think you can equate that to a bunch of blokes in bicycle racing picking fights with each other.

There's a lot we could debate, but it's all been done before.

The fundamental question which applies equally to Saville and Armstrong; "Were their good deeds due to some sort of duality in their character or merely a cynical 'human shield' for their crimes and ultimately does it matter?"

meanredspider

Personally, I have absolutely no doubt that the LiveStrong cancer stuff is genuine. My experiences of young people with cancer is that it profoundly affects them. This is borne out by the local outreach nurse who says that young cancer survivors frquently go on to achieve great things. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that the same isn't true for Armstrong. Even the impact on me has been immeasurable. Regardless, the outcomes of LiveStrong are real whatever the subconscious motivations.

And the other stuff goes on all the time in professional sport. Maybe not to the scale & effectiveness of LA, but we're just talking degree. And I think that's what I find most difficult to get my head around - why Armstrong alone seems to generate such vitriol amongst the cycling community relative to the other cheats & liars. He doped (they all did), he denied it (they all did), he put pressure on others to dope (I have no doubt that many did that too - it's a team sport after all), he was successful (many were) - so is it "just" the bullying? In which case, we're a fickle bunch.

Wallace1492

Tom Sipmson rode in an era when doping was legal (not outlawed till 1965), so therefore, an acceptable way of aiding your endurance/strength. He even had tubes of amphetemine in his race jersey when he collapsed, so was not trying to hide it much. Bit of a level playing field. Lance was using at a time when it was definate illegal and had been for over 30 years, so much less of an excuse, though it was definately an institutional practice.

It is not a surprise for people to deny it when caught or accused, but I think the main problem is that the testing and policing was far too closely associated with the governing body that had an intrinsic interest in having as few positive cases as possible, and certainly not in the top dog himself. It was the governing body in my opinion that allowed the cover up and misuse to continue relatively unchecked.
Lance was allowed to bully his way out of the allegations and get away with it for so long beacuse there was no proper real independent checks and balances in what was happening, therefore, to level the playing field all were at it.

His crimes were against the sport where most were complicit and involved in the cover up for a very long time. A few lone voices stood out, but they were shouted down with the help of the cycling family, not just from Lance alone, though he was immensly vocal on the topic.

To win once "on the juice" is bad enough, but I just cant understand how he could have remained untouched for so long without the whole infrastructure being complicit in some way.

So careers were ruined and livlihoods trashed. A lot of these people were also complicit until their face didn't fit or were caught, so there noses were in the trough too. I can't feel too sorry for them.
It is probably one of the biggest sporting scandels of all time, and should rock the governing body to its core, but it hasn't and that saddens me.

I don't doubt that Lance's charitable efforts have done plenty of good, but what was the reason, to alleviate his guilty feelings, put something back for the cheating he was doing, or just as a genuinely good guy wanting to help others. His actions from his sporting endevours kinda answers that one for me.

gtvlusso

Going to bed early to be up at 2am.....gonna stream it, Virgin Media - don't let me down!

rjsterry

You'll need this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/interactive/2013/jan/17/lance-armstrong-oprah-interview-bingo