A Very Bad Morning For Lance

[jazzcyclist]

I'll bow out of this conversation by simply saying, jazz, that you couldn't be more wrong. An inconvenient truth of the highest order.

Is it this part that bothers you? "they had more resources able to them than any western individual"

[skiboo]

By the 80's the GDR were definitely 'old school' in the drugs they were administering and never got onto giving their athletes HGH, unlike athletes the USA. And we know which western athletes were on that stuff in that decade.

You imply that we know everyone who was using HGH, but that just isn't true. We may know some of who they were, but it seems like some others get lumped in despite being innocent. You seem to have a problem with one particular American woman who shouldn't be included with the rest.

[Rog]

Charlie Francis said that the Soviets knew a little about drugs, the GDR more, and the US were the world leaders. He based his drug protocols for his athletes on what the GDR were doing, and recounted Angella Issajenko telling him one of her US counterparts, a member of a leading training group, had disclosed she was taking ten times the dose Issajenko was. It seems then that at least some US athletes in some events were taking drug dosages far in excess of their GDR equivalents.

As I understand it, the GDR cycled their drug use periodically, but the Soviets took far greater doses over the course of the year, then would maybe take sabbatical years in less important seasons in an effort to avoid saturation.

[gh]

time to return to the Lance discussion, folks.

[26mi235]

My only problem is that he seems to still be honoring the omerta which meant that he wouldn't talk candidly about other people. I guess I can respect the fact that he doesn't want to rat other people out, but it would have made for a much more compelling interview if he had ratted.

He's about to lose most of his net worth. Ratting out people would invite lawsuits, which would be hard to defend against if he no longer has any evidence against them other than his own words.

He may well have conversations with the likes of USADA. I would think he would want to hold on to some 'chips' for the modest leverage that it might bring him. By comparison, Bonds and Clemens were about as forthcoming as a lump of coal.

For all the condemnations here, Lance, and others in this saga have told more about the whole process than almost anyone involved the top. Of course, the Johnson affair had similar 'big splash' and at a time when it was less well known by the public.

I note that he claims that he did not use PEDs in his comeback, which was likely against a cleaner, if not clean, set of competition. The USADA claims he did but bases that off much thinner evidence that the prior era -- just the biological passport -- and that claim may have been strategic and one they knew that they could just throw out there. While allocuting to many things, the recent usage and the Swiss test are ones that he disputes. He also did not seem to make any admission about usage prior to cancer and it seemed that he said that he did not use PEDs in the late-1997, 1998 period (he was fourth in the Tour of Spain in 1998, I think). [I just saw in one of the summaries (Rojo) that he did say he doped before cancer, and that Oprah used that to cut off his 'defense' about becoming more no-holds-barred.]

[guru]

I note that he claims that he did not use PEDs in his comeback...

As I said last night, I believe this is a strategic move(is there any other kind with Armstrong?) so Armstrong can potentially deal with USADA to have his 8-year ban made retroactive to his last confirmed/admitted violation, which is 2005, and makes him eligible to return in...

[26mi235]

I note that he claims that he did not use PEDs in his comeback...

As I said last night, I believe this is a strategic move(is there any other kind with Armstrong?) so Armstrong can potentially deal with USADA to have his 8-year ban made retroactive to his last confirmed/admitted violation, which is 2005, and makes him eligible to return in...

Yes, but that is very dangerous because he knows if he is caught on that one he is really done for. Maybe he thinks that it is worth it, but it is a pretty big gamble, and he knows what USADA has in those thousand pages and what they might have. He also likely will have meetings with them where that topic will come up and he would have to be able to demonstrate to them why he thinks he can show that they are wrong.

[jazzcyclist]

He also did not seem to make any admission about usage prior to cancer and it seemed that he said that he did not use PEDs in the late-1997, 1998 period (he was fourth in the Tour of Spain in 1998, I think). [I just saw in one of the summaries (Rojo) that he did say he doped before cancer, and that Oprah used that to cut off his 'defense' about becoming more no-holds-barred.]

He actually said that he began doping in the "mid-90's", presumably right after he turned pro in 1993.

[jazzcyclist]

As I said last night, I believe this is a strategic move(is there any other kind with Armstrong?) so Armstrong can potentially deal with USADA to have his 8-year ban made retroactive to his last confirmed/admitted violation, which is 2005, and makes him eligible to return in...

Yes, but that is very dangerous because he knows if he is caught on that one he is really done for. Maybe he thinks that it is worth it, but it is a pretty big gamble, and he knows what USADA has in those thousand pages and what they might have. He also likely will have meetings with them where that topic will come up and he would have to be able to demonstrate to them why he thinks he can show that they are wrong.

But I'm thinking that if he doped in 2009 and 2010, wouldn't his teammates have known about it and wouldn't they have already testified to the Feds and USADA about it? I think that there's one thing that all of us can probabl;y agree on, and that is if he rode clean in 2009 and 2010, then the peleton would have to have been clean in those years, but if the peleton was still dirty in those years, then he's lying.

[gh]

On our Facebook page, the commentary is def. running anti-Lance at this point. The first poster in, though, said this

<<I still think highly of him! He almost died from cancer an to come back an win like he did is unbelieveable! God I believe had plans for him or the cancer would have killed him. Now get off his back!!>>

he still has fans.

[jazzcyclist]

Does Track & Field News have a facebook page that I'm unaware of?

[guru]

Of course, he very well may have given himself the cancer in the first place with the chemical cocktails he was ingesting

[Marlow]

<<God I believe had plans for him or the cancer would have killed him.>>
he still has fans.

??!!
That only makes sense if God's plans included him PEDing and lying about it.

[Pego]

<<God I believe had plans for him or the cancer would have killed him.>>
he still has fans.

??!!
That only makes sense if God's plans included him PEDing and lying about it.

Armstrong is an atheist, btw.

[gh]

Of course, he very well may have given himself the cancer in the first place with the chemical cocktails he was ingesting

Oh c'mon, let's not go down the flawed Lyle Alzado path here.

[gh]

Does Track & Field News have a facebook page that I'm unaware of?

apparently you've never noticed the link front and center on the home page.

Twitter too.

[Marlow]

apparently you've never noticed the link front and center on the home page.
Twitter too.

I'm sure this is an enormously stupid question, but what function does a T&FN Facebook page serve, that is not addressed by these fora? Alerts?

[jazzcyclist]

Does Track & Field News have a facebook page that I'm unaware of?

apparently you've never noticed the link front and center on the home page.

Twitter too.

I guess I don't do facebook enough to recognize symbols like that.

By the way, here's what Sally Jenkins had to say on the subject of PED use in a Charlie Rose interview from earlier this week:

I’m an outlier on the topic of doping in sports, so what you’re gonna get from me is probably not the prevailing attitude towards it. I think it’s a terrible, terrible moral dilemma and a very complicated question. I think we’ve done a poor job of defining what doping is, what is therapy vs. what is doping, what helps a guy simply get back on the bike to ride another day vs. what gives him a genuine competitive advantage, what substances are truly performance enhancing and which are just on the list. We have things float on and off lists. I don’t have the moral certitude that a lot of people do on the anti-doping question. I think that it’s a matter of personal conscience. I think we’re doing a bad job of persuading athletes that it’s not the best option. I don’t think we’re talking to them honestly about it, and I don’t think we’re listening to them honestly about it. So I have a lot of complicated feelings about this quite apart from Lance Armstrong, and I always have….I think we’re on the wrong track, and I think that quite apart from Lance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc- ... y-jenkins/

Pego, correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like something you might have said.

And not having read the entire USADA report like Jenkins did, I thought she posed an interesting question about Floyd Landis in her recent column: "The affidavits taken by USADA make it clear that while Lance refused to use HGH, Floyd Landis introduced it to younger riders, so why is the federal government considering giving Landis whistle-blower protection?"

[Marlow]

here's what Sally Jenkins had to say on the subject of PED use in a Charlie Rose interview from earlier this week:

I’m an outlier on the topic of doping in sports, so what you’re gonna get from me is probably not the prevailing attitude towards it. . . .

I never thought about it that way, but I like and mostly agree with her!

[jazzcyclist]

Earlier I mentioned that I knew Armstrong was an asshole after I read his book, so I find it somewhat humorous that Jenkins takes a potshot at the Pollyannas with this paragraph from her column:

"Maybe I’m not angry at Lance because I’ve never believed there was a more innocent sporting past, and I am not one of those people, unlike his prosecutors, who get nervous and angry when great athletes are too far removed from my own image of myself. And 25 years of writing about champions has convinced me that they are indeed, very, very different from you and me, and their qualities are often dark. And because “It’s Not About the Bike” tried to state that quite clearly."

[Pego]

here's what Sally Jenkins had to say on the subject of PED use in a Charlie Rose interview from earlier this week:

I’m an outlier on the topic of doping in sports, so what you’re gonna get from me is probably not the prevailing attitude towards it. . . .

I never thought about it that way, but I like and mostly agree with her!

So do I.

[gh]

apparently you've never noticed the link front and center on the home page.
Twitter too.

I'm sure this is an enormously stupid question, but what function does a T&FN Facebook page serve, that is not addressed by these fora? Alerts?

reaches 100s more people than the Board does. (friends refer to friends)

we started a Lance on Oprah thread 13 hours ago that as of right now has been seen by 2712 people.

[gh]

and we have more than 20,000 Twitter followers (not bragging; that's very small potatoes indeed, but compare that to the traffic on this board, which truly defines minuscule)

[gh]

tweet by miler Lindsay Gallo

<<I just want to know if anyone was doping in the movie "Breaking Away" because that would really ruin cycling for me. >>

[KevinM]

tweet by miler Lindsay Gallo

<<I just want to know if anyone was doping in the movie "Breaking Away" because that would really ruin cycling for me. >>

She's obviously in denial regarding the sophisitication of Team Cinzano's program in the late '70s.

[gh]

deadspin writer is succinct in his take

http://deadspin.com/5976386/lance-armst ... ge-asshole

[jazzcyclist]

deadspin writer is succinct in his take

http://deadspin.com/5976386/lance-armst ... ge-asshole

I agree with you on this 100%. That piece nails it expecially this excerpt:

He's an asshole and he deserves to be shit on. Whether or not he actually merits being thrown in jail and having his penis electrocuted is of little concern to me. Once you cross into Extreme Asshole territory, you invite people to throw rationality out the window. It becomes an intensely personal matter. Your crime becomes superfluous. You are now being punished for being YOU. We are not a society that tolerates people who are both successful AND are jerks about it. And we have a thin-skinned national media that takes being lied to oh so very personally. You don't want to humiliate self-loathing media folks like that. They'll drone on for AGES about how you duped them, and then they'll hound you to the gates of Hell for daring to make them look stupid.

What's the saying about "picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrels"? Lance made the naive media dupes, like Rick Reilly, look like fools, or to paraphrase the movie director Jack Woltz from The Godfather, "He made the sanctimonious, self-important sports media look ridiculous. And folks in their position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous."

[guru]

In Night Two, Armstrong bemoans the fact he received the "death penalty", while others received 6 month suspensions.

Of course, he conveniently left out the fact that he had the opportunity last summer to cop to his cheating and receive the reduced penalty. I'm disappointed Winfrey didn't pursue that point.

[guru]

And now Armstrong drags his former wife into the "I didnt dope during the comeback" tale.

Also, Armstrong states due to the biological passport - the same one he blasted last night for his '09 positives - he thought the field would be level for clean riders. Again, Winfrey missed an important follow up - what about Armstrong's teammate Contador?

[guru]

Armstrong denies $250,000 USADA payoff attempt, citing it's absence from the Reasoned Decision as proof it didnt happen.

LOL

[jazzcyclist]

One thing I've been curious to hear is how other cyclists are reacting to the Oprah interview. Tyler Hamilton supports Armstrong's claim that he never ordered anyone to dope.

"Nobody took a syringe and forced it into my arm. I made that decision on my own," Hamilton said. "But you did feel the pressure. When it was all set up for my first blood-doping experience in 2000, when I flew to Spain on Lance's private jet, I don't know what would've happened to me if I'd said, `I'll stick with EPO but no blood doping.' I assume they would've been angry about it. For me, it was a no-brainer."

However, Hamilton refuted Armstrong's claim about covering up a failed drug test in the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

While admitting to doping in his interview, Armstrong contradicted a key point of Hamilton's: That Armstrong told him he tested positive during the 2001 Tour de Suisse and conspired with International Cycling Union officials to cover it up – in exchange for a donation.
"That story wasn't true. There was no positive test, no paying off of the labs. There was no secret meeting with the lab director," Armstrong told Winfrey. Asked about that, Hamilton told the AP: "I stand by what I said. It's all out there. I don't know if it's a legal thing, or why he said that. It doesn't really bother me that much."

Perhaps Armstrong realized that if he had confirmed Hamilton's claim, Oprah would have asked him some follow-up questions in which he would have been forced to name names which he obviously didn't want to do. He'll have to come clean on this if he wants the UCI and WADA to give him a break.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/1 ... ref=sports

[Mighty Favog]

deadspin writer is succinct in his take

http://deadspin.com/5976386/lance-armst ... ge-asshole

I agree with you on this 100%. That piece nails it expecially this excerpt:

He's an asshole and he deserves to be shit on. Whether or not he actually merits being thrown in jail and having his penis electrocuted is of little concern to me. Once you cross into Extreme Asshole territory, you invite people to throw rationality out the window. It becomes an intensely personal matter. Your crime becomes superfluous. You are now being punished for being YOU. We are not a society that tolerates people who are both successful AND are jerks about it. And we have a thin-skinned national media that takes being lied to oh so very personally. You don't want to humiliate self-loathing media folks like that. They'll drone on for AGES about how you duped them, and then they'll hound you to the gates of Hell for daring to make them look stupid.

What's the saying about "picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrels"? Lance made the naive media dupes, like Rick Reilly, look like fools, or to paraphrase the movie director Jack Woltz from The Godfather, "He made the sanctimonious, self-important sports media look ridiculous. And folks in their position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous."

I think the press' vitriol directed at Armstrong is fundamentally different because their relationship with him is different than with other athletes or even most other public figures. Few have been so legally aggressive towards any negative coverage. Suing the press for telling the truth is probably the best way to make permanent enemies with the most serious writers. So when they see him pretending to come clean but still denying a few very important things, the denying is what they're going to lead with and beat him over the head with.

[bambam]

Things about to get real for Armstrong

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/cy ... t/1834841/

I said it early on in this whole thing and will say it again. He will be bankrupt before this is all through. I know he had a lot of money. Lawyers have lots of billable hours, and he's got very high-priced ones.

[bambam]

Correct me if I am wrong (jazz, especially), but the greatest cyclist ever, Eddy Merckx, also had the best team (by far?) during his heyday.

Actually, bambam could give you a better answer to this question than I can. I was too young to remember when Merkcx was riding. What about La Vie Claire team that Lemond and Hunault rode on in the mid-80's?

Of the major players in the game that have commented on this, the sport, and their role in it, I like Jonathon Vaughters the most. Sure, you could say he has an agenda, but that agenda is possibly the best aligned with the those of the sport than others I know.

I agree with you about Vaughters. If you look at the circumstances, the timing, the candor and the thoroughness of his confession, he seems to be motivated more out of altruism than any of the other players in this saga. His New York Times op-ed, his Bicycling magazine interview and his posts on the cyclingnews.com message board under username JV1973 are must-read for anyone who wants to get a deeper, nuanced understanding of cycling's doping problem.

Merckx's team was good but nowhere near the quality of the Posties. La Vie Claire with LeMond, Hinault, and Andy Hampsten (and a few others - Jean-Francois Bernard) was the greatest team ever, in my opinion.

Drugs in cycling have been around for close to 100 years, as someone noted above. In the book I wrote about 2 years on the History of Cycling, we discussed this - there were lots of revelations about it in the 1920s. Fausto Coppi admitted this - see his WIkipedia page, for this interview:

Question: Do cyclists take la bomba (amphetamine)?
Answer: Yes, and those who claim otherwise, it's not worth talking to them about cycling.
Question: And you, did you take la bomba?
Answer: Yes. Whenever it was necessary.
Question: And when was it necessary?
Answer: Almost all the time!

Merckx was caught several times so he was not fully innocent. As far as I know, Hinault and LeMond were never caught with anything. But I have to look at the sport and the era - I would be very surprised if they didn't use what was then available - in the early 80s that was amphetamines and possibly blood doping. I think cyclists using 'roids (and HGH) only started in the 90s.

Having said all that, everybody is using them. I got asked the other day by a reporter if I thought Lance would have won anything without the drugs, and I told him that if the playing field was level, if nobody was using anything, I think he still would have won most of the races he won. He was that good, despite his obvious psychopathic personality.

[bambam]

Marlow: Since this sort of speculation is not permissible here, I'll just say that the evidence suggests that many while the doping was global and deep-seated (esp. in the 80s and 90s), the 'eastern bloc' nations seemed to have a more 'communistic' (systemic) approach, while the 'western bloc' had a more 'free market' (individual/small group) approach. Both are viable approaches and capable of great sophistication.

No. The GDR program was the most sophisticated doping scheme in history - far more so than the US Postal team under Armstrong, and I've told this to a couple reporters that Tygart's assertion that Armstrong was in charge of the most sophisticated doping scheme ever. Garry is right that the GDR had a doping lab and tested all their athletes in house before competitions so they would not get caught. No GDR ever got caught in the 1980s (Krabbe was in the early 90s). See Brigitte Berendonck's articles on the whole system. A lighter read but pretty good is the book The Miracle Machine by Doug Gilbert from the early 1980s.