<p>Lance is anything but a coward. He is a realist. And a great cyclist. He is a liar, too, but they all were.</p>
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<p>I vote for tainted.</p>
<p>What about the recreational rider who does an MS 150 and after the first day of 75 or 100 miles feels so beaten up, achy and sore that there’s no way he will be able to get back on the bike the next day without taking a load of Advil the night before and the next day. He does so and completes the second day 75 mile ride. Is that rider’s accomplishment tainted too? In one case it’s ok to use drugs to perform and in another it’s not simply because some crusading bureaucrats have said no? Or how about the rider who does a 100 mile ride in 95 degree heat and collapses from heat exhaustion due to loss of electrolytes and can’t finish versus the rider who pops Endurolytes and eats Cliff Blocks during the ride and finishes. Did the latter rider cheat?</p>
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<p>Most serial liars are cowards, particularly when their lying is completely out of self interest. He was capable of strong arming and bullying when it was in his best interests. Now, he’s folded and backed away - once again the coward.</p>
<p>Yeah… Epo, testosterone shots and advil are all the same. </p>
<p>Maybe I will go down to my neighborhood CVS and pick up some EPO the next time I need some advil.</p>
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<p>If that’s a serious question, then you have lost all perspective.</p>
<p>@MichaelNKat: Most of us learned in kindergarten that everyone has to abide by the rules even when you think they’re stupid and ill-conceived, and then we learned a few years later that it’s inherently unfair when those who follow the rules are compared to those who don’t. It’s really a very simple concept, and your railing about the sport’s “system” or comparisons to the use of substances that don’t break the rules are irrelevant. Armstrong knew he was in violation of the rules, moved heaven and earth to avoid being caught, and accepted the adulation of the world under false pretenses. He and his cohorts turned the sport into a joke. If Armstrong believed, as you do, that every scientific and medical means to enhance performance should have been permitted, then he could have advocated for that approach or started a rival cycling organization with completely different standards. All he wanted to do was win, and he did whatever he could to make that happen. Of course he’s a cheat and a fraud.</p>
<p>Great post, mommaJ.</p>
<p>Yes, mommaj!</p>
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<p>Haha, talk about an impossible proposal. Russia and China would not only not devote a cent to such stupid and misguided group such as USADA, but would actively seek to hide the organized cheating it has maintained for generations.</p>
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<p>What a ridiculous statement, on every possible level. Guess I didn’t know the stakes were so high on our local MS rides.</p>
<p>The point is, Lance had opportunity after opportunity to do the right thing, and he chose not to. If he was such a great leader and superior athlete he could have LED the charge to either 1) change the rules or 2) make sure they were enforced. Generations of cyclists before him competed, and won, without the illegal tools Lance and company were using. And that is why some of them (particularly Greg LeMonde) have been so outspoken over the travesty of Lance’s actions.</p>
<p>******** MommaJ. Spoken like someone who has no clue about elite athletics.</p>
<p>MOWC, it appears MommaJ’s post rubbed you wrong. Can you explain why? As most here are not elite athletes what might seem obvious to you won’t necessarily to someone else. Thanks.</p>
<p>I have very mixed feelings about USADA at this point. They went after Armstrong for things that happened in 1998–14 years later. They appear to have bribed other athletes to testify against Armstrong. Armstrong will never get a chance to confront the witnesses against him. </p>
<p>In addition, I have reached an age where I know several people who are taking testosterone, prescribed by a doctor–and they compete in cycling races. They’re not elite athletes, no one is getting paid to race, but USADA can still bar them for life if they’re caught. </p>
<p>I’ve had two knee surgeries and chose to compete in my sport of choice (dog agility) while taking narcotic painkillers (oxycodone, specifically), again, doctor-prescribed. Fortunately, USADA doesn’t care about dog agility and I haven’t been barred for life… but if I’d take those painkillers to compete in a sanctioned race, again, I could be barred for life. </p>
<p>Do we really want to discourage everyday athletes from competing? Should USADA have jurisdiction that supercedes US Courts?</p>
<p>"******** MommaJ. Spoken like someone who has no clue about elite athletics."</p>
<p>I guess elite athletics is a cesspool.</p>
<p>Professional cycling is (was?) a cesspool of performance enhancing drugs. These were not amateurs. This was their LIVING! They all believed (correctly) that they needed to do this in order to compete on a level playing field. You did it or else you could not make a living in the sport. Lance did not invent this. I don’t see him as some sort of drug lord. He was better at not getting caught and better at cycling than the rest. I thought and hoped he was clean post-cancer. I knew for a fact that he used stuff pre-cancer. What has come out is too convincing, especially the Hincapie affidavit. But it is 14 years or 7 years or whatever too late! Lance didn’t get caught the way just about every other elite cyclist did. God knows what all it REALLY took to make everyone sing after all these years. We’ll never know.</p>
<p>Lance is a Bobby Knight in my book. He has done a lot of good, is a wonderful father and has supported many, many people- both cancer victims and athletes. He is also arrogant and mean sometimes. All the good Bob Knight did gets covered up by the incidents that are more interesting to report in the press. </p>
<p>I will always admire Lance and will remember him as the teenager who kicked my butt in Dallas races, who swam with me, who rode recklessly and helmet-less weaving in and out of traffic on Hillcrest Road in Dallas, who survived the almost unsurvivable, who founded and grew one of the most successful and well-known charitable organizations in the world, and who loves his kids and treats his ex-wife with love and respect.</p>
<p>So if “everyone is doing it,” it’s not cheating? </p>
<p>Whenever anyone says “everyone is doing it,” I’m immediately skeptical. I would bet alot were, maybe even most, but “everyone?” Nope, that’s just something cheaters say to make their actions seem okay. They don’t want it to get out that there are people who behave in an ethical manner in spite of the “pressure” to do otherwise.</p>
<p>And I agree, this sport sounds like a total cesspool, composed exclusively of “all liars.” Wow.</p>
<p>I agree with some of the above. If the rules were so stupid, then these athletes should have either fought tooth and nail to get them changed, or formed their own association where anything goes.</p>
<p>I loved watching Lance race. I was a big fan. I even have a Postal jersey I used to wear sometimes on rides.</p>
<p>But somehow, what he did to the soigneur-- destroying her life, when she was telling the truth-- makes me lose all respect for him. It’s one thing to use drugs to beat all the other cyclists who were also using drugs, but another to sacrifice innocent people to his ambition. He was willing to throw this innocent woman under a bus, to protect his reputation. He’s scum.</p>
<p>MOWC, I have appreciated many of your posts over the years, now with LA and BK I am in a different camp. When I saw Lance win one of his 7, I was ignorant of doping.</p>
<p>BK, on the other hand, signed a player for IU I had watched in person the previous evening knock the front teeth out of a player from the opposing team, the school I was teaching at in Chicago. That was the end of my being a BK fan.</p>
<p>Many cyclists, Lance included, are extraordinary, determined athletes who probably could have excelled at other sports or other professions. To me, the fact that they choose to compete at the sleaziest levels of a sleazy sport says something about their inherent character.</p>