Lance Armstrong is a God

black and white footage, lance riding his bike on a drizzly day through (let's say) san francisco, getting a lot of evil eyes from people. no VO, just echo-laden snippets of commenters talking about him being a fraud, how he could never have won the tour w/o cheating, etc. lance turns a corner and before him is california street, leading up to nob hill. one of the steepest streets in the city. lance grits his teeth and begins riding up as the voices all blur together and people walking past stop and stare. as he gets higher, people begin to cheer. eventually he gets to the top and turns around to look back at the city for a moment before riding on. "WINNERS NEVER QUIT"

black

nike swirl

― omar little, Tuesday, August 28, 2012 1:48 PM (47 minutes ago)

There once existed footage of Lance with semi-liquid diarrhea* streaming out of his shorts at the 2001 San Francisco Gran Prix while he was getting dropped on the Fillmore St. climb before abandoning the race, but after a couple quasi-SFW searches, I don't think it's up anymore.

*G-I distress is an unfortunate byproduct of blood doping.

To be fair, GI distress is also an unfortunate byproduct of intense physical exertion.

Surprised that LeMond has had the good sense to stay quiet on this.

I think he did give an opinion some time ago but was threatened by Armstrong to shut up?

Anyway I never liked the guy so quite happy he got his comeuppance (?).

Yeah I think if Armstrong was a mere cheater it would be different but for years he's been on that "snitches get stitches" vendetta

^^^p much

also his whole carefully crafted heroic persona is so repulsive

My neighbour (who shares my hatred of all things Lance) said that he didn't have the build to be a climber, yet he managed to be the fastest climber during one particular tour. Can anyone say this is true (or false)?

Also, I hate this whole "everyone cheats" defense line.

And yes the whole heroic persona is indeed vomit inducing.

"everyone cheats" = why the int'l pro level of the sport fucking sucks

I agree. It sucks the joy out of watching it tbh. But I still hate when people use it as an excuse (for Lance or any other top cyclist).

lance armstrong was in montreal yesterday, should i have said something?

Also, I hate this whole "everyone cheats" defense line.

^it doesnt bother me.

yeah, as a sports fan it doesn't really bother me that the athletes take performance enhancing drugs.

as a drug fan however

Me either. I want to see super athletes that have amazing skills that mere mortals can only dream about. The problem with doping is that everyone should get to do it.

i've kinda moved into not caring about it since I admitted to myself that I straight up loved the excitement and anticipation of Barry Bonds at bats. Even more so when he would only get pitched to about once a game. The year the Giants went to the WS towards the end of his career, that whole post-season with Bonds was great.

it doesn't really bother me that much anymore esp in baseball bcuz there's not much evidence that it helps in a significant way but that doesn't change that lance armstrong is historic douche

I mean cheating has always been part of sports and I think actually one of the more interesting aspects of professional sports. There's this risk assessment of evaluating the odds of being caught versus potential gains if not caught that's really interesting to think about.

not really

"Me either. I want to see super athletes that have amazing skills that mere mortals can only dream about. The problem with doping is that everyone should get to do it."

Uh no that's not the "only problem" with doping. As the interview above pointed out the real problem is that athletic competition becomes about anatomic brinkmanship, who is more willing to do a potentially damaging/deadly thing to do their body in order to succeed. That's not why most non-sadists watch sports.

^^

i can't speak to cycling really bcuz it's not something i've ever followed BUT if steroids in baseball (for instance) turned every player that used roids into a hall of famer than it would be a pretty stupid thing. but that doesn't happen, which in turn makes using steroids themselves stupid.

This interview btw: http://www.bicycling.com/print/67431

the relevant section

If you have one rider who has small muscles and one who has very big muscles, the rider with big muscles can produce a lot of torque and power, but he can’t sustain it because the muscles don’t get enough oxygen. The guy with small muscles, he can’t produce as much torque but he can ride a long time. If EPO is detectable and steroids aren’t, the little skinny guy might make greater gains by doping than the big muscular guy. But if EPO is undetectable and steroids are, the little guy is screwed. So whatever is going on, you never end up where it’s a level playing field—it’s just whatever your physiology happens to be adapted to. So you make everything legal; you can do whatever. There’s only so many drugs invented, so the winner is whose physiology is most adaptable to having 50 things in them. It never ends up that who the best athlete is wins if you just let everyone do it.

Second, what about people who, even if it is legal, have health or moral concerns about it. So you say, ‘Hey guys, this is legal.’ And someone asks, “Wait, what are the long-term health consequences?’ ‘Well you could grow a horn out of your head, but if you want to do this, you have to dope.’ So you eliminate a lot of talented athletes who don’t want to do that. Because if you do make everything legal, believe me, some people are going to push things way beyond where they are now. So some people will say no to what is essentially suicide. So is the winner then the best athlete? No, it’s the guy who’s willing to risk his health more than anyone else.

what drugs are these guys taking? i still can't do my commute in under 30 minutes

Me either. I want to see super athletes that have amazing skills that mere mortals can only dream about. The problem with doping is that everyone should get to do it.

― Jeff, Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:00 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree

ahahaha of course

actually reminds me of the deal with helmets in hockey. people would rather wear them, but if others aren't wearing them, you're at a disadvantage because they have better peripheral vision. so everyone stops wearing them and is worse off. by mandating helmets, the NHL achieved what the players actually wanted but couldn't manage themselves, solving a prisoners dilemma problem.

i can't speak to cycling really bcuz it's not something i've ever followed BUT if steroids in baseball (for instance) turned every player that used roids into a hall of famer than it would be a pretty stupid thing. but that doesn't happen, which in turn makes using steroids themselves stupid.

― young money color me badd (J0rdan S.), Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:07 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dont really want to get into this but why do people always use this so obviously fallacious argument, steroids dont have to turn every player into a hall of famer to improve performance, or is it just a coincidence that all the doods who smashed roger maris single season hr record were juicing, i mean being strong helps w/baseball and other sport fyi, steroids enhance athletic performance, plz proceed w/yr argument from that assumption

there are also plenty of players who have roided until their balls were the size of pennies & it never amounted to shit

are u srsly making this argument because it is epically dumb

Phil Liggett claiming "agents from a particular agency" tried to bribe witnesses to testify against Lance.
http://inrng.com/2012/08/can-liggett-save-armstrong/
D. Millar - "Everybody should watch the @PhilLiggett interview. For me he is not the "Voice of Cycling"."

lol
Ned Boulting ‏@nedboulting
For the record, @PhilLiggett and I have very different views. I don't agree with him about Lance Armstrong. And it's probably mutual.

Don't think this has been posted yet:
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012/08/the-armstrong-fallout-thoughts-and.html

AUSTIN, Texas -- Tyler Hamilton says Lance Armstrong gave him an illegal blood booster at his house before the 1999 Tour de France and the two teammates compared notes on using performance-enhancing drugs as far back as 1998.

Hamilton makes the allegations in his book, "The Secret Race. Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France, Doping, Cover-ups and Winning at All Costs," set to be published Sept. 5. The Associated Press purchased a copy Thursday. Armstrong agent Bill Stapleton did not immediately respond to a request for comment

Hamilton and Armstrong rode together on the U.S. Postal Service team.

Armstrong has long denied doping but last week chose not to fight drug charges made by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. USADA has erased 14 years of Armstrong's competitive results, including his seven Tour de France titles.

key from NBS' link

Let me now turn my attention to four of the common questions and retorts that seem to have arisen:

1. "Lance passed 500 tests. He must be innocent"

This is straight from the press release, because it's been Armstrong's most used retort to the doping question. Two things:

First, there is no way he was tested 500 times. DimSpace has compiled a record of all the possible tests Armstrong may have been subjected to, with over-estimates, and it comes to 236. So there's more than a little hype in that number that started at 400, then hit 500, and just like that fish your uncle caught on his summer vacation in 1997 grew in size with every story-telling, ended up around the 600 mark.

Nevertheless, 236 is an impressive number to pass, so how is it possible? Well, here's a list of names - Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Dwain Chambers, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Valverde. That's just six names of athletes who also doped for very long periods without failing a test. Some were caught eventually (Chambers & Montgomery) because a test was developed for a drug called THG based on a tip-off. It then emerged that Chambers had doped for years, with everything, avoiding detection. Ullrich went down because of good old-fashioned investigative work that discovered blood bags in a clinic. Marion Jones was never caught. The reality is that testing is limited, especially when it happens in-competition. That's why people say that if you fail a drug test in competition, you have failed an IQ test - it's so simple to manipulate the timing and dosage of your drug use so that you are not tested when you compete.

And remember, the effect of doping lasts long after the drug is gone. You can take EPO, get the benefit, and compete without the drug in the system. Micro-dosing allows you to take the drug very close to the event without it being detectable. In fact, you can dope 12 hours from your race, and as long as you get dosage right, you'll pass doping controls. The authorities have to be very lucky to test you while you have the drug in your body.

The point is, passing the drug controls is not really all that difficult.

i think for me the issue is that at the top level of a lot of sports it becomes this elaborate intersection of sports, technology and sports medicine that i find distasteful. and that's true in sports i enjoy watching, like say, basketball or bmx racing but in pro tour cycling it's just this really egregious circus where it might as well be NASCAR with human engines

I like the intersection of sports, medecine and technology. It only really bothers me that pushed to the extreme, this kind of stuff leads to early death, which is not good.

I'd love it if there were medical analysts on tv explaining why some guy lost a bike race because he didn't take the right combination of drugs to win that particular race.

i can't speak to cycling really bcuz it's not something i've ever followed BUT if steroids in baseball (for instance) turned every player that used roids into a hall of famer than it would be a pretty stupid thing. but that doesn't happen, which in turn makes using steroids themselves stupid.

― young money color me badd (J0rdan S.), Thursday, 30 August 2012 15:07 (Yesterday) Permalink

baseball is a wacky sport whose greatest player was a fat dude who played drunk

http://trackandfield.about.com/od/worldrecords/tp/Women-s-world-records.htm

hmmmm what happened, golden age of talent I guess

baseball is a wacky sport whose greatest player was a fat dude who played drunk

― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually baseballs greatest player was a guy who did roids

liggett (and sherwen) gets livestrong money to speak at events. hardly a disinterested party in this.

haha lag i'm glad you said something because j0rdan's post really bugged me but i didn't wanna get into it

Michael Ashenden's response to Phil Ligget

http://nyvelocity.com/content/features/2012/filthy-business-indeed

Excellent ^

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/road-biking/My-Life-With-Lance-Armstrong.html

^^^
"MY LIFE WITH LANCE ARMSTRONG
I was Lance’s personal assistant for two years, during the height of his racing career. Do I think he cheated? Yep. But my real problem is something that diehard fans seem unable to grasp: the vengeful tactics he uses against people who tell the truth about him, on and off the bike."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/tyler-hamiltons-book-reveals-in-depth-doping-network#null

he really is a truly singular piece of shit

with a singular testicle