Lance Armstrong to be stripped of Tour de France titles

[erik316wttn]

..and also will likely be banned for life from cycling. He is dropping his appeals regarding the doping allegations.

 

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-lance-armstrong-usada-doping-case-20120823,0,1326584.story

[Derwood]

Live Strong

[Theo]

Disappointing, especially considering those dipshits Boers and Bernstine are going to have a field day with this as he is their favorite whipping boy for some reason.

[erik316wttn]

It took a lot of ball for him to keep fighting for this long.

[davell]

I can't blame him. He's sick of defending himself. As for whether he did or didn't? No more than anyone else.

[Theo]

I'll I'm asking, is have they ever supplied a shred of credible evidence against him? Testosterone Therapy can be a treatment for this type of TC(I'm currently fighting the same type of cancer) so they say he overused it right? But do they have finite proof of it?

[erik316wttn]

I'll I'm asking, is have they ever supplied a shred of credible evidence against him? Testosterone Therapy can be a treatment for this type of TC(I'm currently fighting the same type of cancer) so they say he overused it right? But do they have finite proof of it?

 

I'm pretty sure he had some B-samples turn up positive from a few of his Tour wins.

[minnesotacubsfan]

I'll I'm asking, is have they ever supplied a shred of credible evidence against him? Testosterone Therapy can be a treatment for this type of TC(I'm currently fighting the same type of cancer) so they say he overused it right? But do they have finite proof of it?

 

[expletive] cancer. best of luck

[Soul]

Live Strong

 

Actually, he has in my book.

[erik316wttn]

I'll I'm asking, is have they ever supplied a shred of credible evidence against him? Testosterone Therapy can be a treatment for this type of TC(I'm currently fighting the same type of cancer) so they say he overused it right? But do they have finite proof of it?

 

[expletive] cancer. best of luck

 

Agreed. Kick ass.

[Theo]

Thanks. Again if he truly abused he deserves the ban, I just don't get the hate some people have against him.

[Magnetic Curses]

it's about time. next up, usain [expletive] bolt.

[erik316wttn]

Thanks. Again if he truly abused he deserves the ban, I just don't get the hate some people have against him.

 

Probably because they feel misled. They wanted so badly to believe his story and his accomplishments, and they're all disillusioned by the fact that he didn't do it on his own merit and cheated.

[CubInOK]

The man still survived cancer. I gotta respect him for that much.

[erik316wttn]

The man still survived cancer. I gotta respect him for that much.

 

That's true. Kudos to him there, and he's raised a lot of money for charity as well. He's not a monster, but he didn't achieve those Tour victories by himself, and I don't dispute the decision to strip him of those victories and ban him for life.

[imb]

first thing, i cant imagine how in the world someone becomes a fan of cycling

 

secondovely, i cant imagine being such a big fan of cycling that you would care about something like this

[Guest]

I find it a little odd that the international cycling body doesn't really care, but the USADA is seemingly throwing the book at him without a lot of actual proof.

 

But similar to the track and field stuff, this is an event where 99.5% of the activity is just pedaling faster than others. Hard for me to get super outraged about someone toeing the arbitrary "performance enhancing" line.

[Sammy Sofa]

I find it a little odd that the international cycling body doesn't really care, but the USADA is seemingly throwing the book at him without a lot of actual proof.

 

But similar to the track and field stuff, this is an event where 99.5% of the activity is just pedaling faster than others. Hard for me to get super outraged about someone toeing the arbitrary "performance enhancing" line.

 

Yuuuuup.

[Wilson A2000]

But similar to the track and field stuff, this is an event where 99.5% of the activity is just pedaling faster than others. Hard for me to get super outraged about someone toeing the arbitrary "performance enhancing" line.

 

Might be arbitrary, but if the cyclists agreed not to do it, whose fault is it if you get caught?

[Guest]

But similar to the track and field stuff, this is an event where 99.5% of the activity is just pedaling faster than others. Hard for me to get super outraged about someone toeing the arbitrary "performance enhancing" line.

 

Might be arbitrary, but if the cyclists agreed not to do it, whose fault is it if you get caught?

 

Agreed not to do it wouldn't be the phrasing I'd use, but I'm not saying they shouldn't have tests. But if it's possible to have hundreds of clean tests before getting some sort of inclination of doping from other sources like teammates, then personally it doesn't really warrant much more than a shrug. The testing obviously isn't good enough to catch people, so I'm not going to put too much weight in who gets caught. Especially in an event like cycling, where the strength/endurance piece is pretty much everything there is to do.

[apete6]

Thanks. Again if he truly abused he deserves the ban, I just don't get the hate some people have against him.

 

Probably because they feel misled. They wanted so badly to believe his story and his accomplishments, and they're all disillusioned by the fact that he didn't do it on his own merit and cheated.

 

Also, he is apparently a HUGE [expletive] to everyone that he comes into contact with outside of when he is on camera. He cheated on his wife after she stuck with him through all of the cancer stuff, treats his teammates like absolute garbage (no wonder why they had at least 10 of them ready to testify against him if he went to the trial), and is generally a giant phony who used his apparently un-earned celebrity status to create a multi billion dollar business under the guise of helping people (which he obviously still did and that is still a very good thing, but he still saw more profits from that than actually racing).

[TruffleShuffle]

I find it a little odd that the international cycling body doesn't really care, but the USADA is seemingly throwing the book at him without a lot of actual proof.

 

But similar to the track and field stuff, this is an event where 99.5% of the activity is just pedaling faster than others. Hard for me to get super outraged about someone toeing the arbitrary "performance enhancing" line.

 

well, some of the things they were doing (like blood transfusions in hotel rooms) was pretty clearly crossing the line. it wasn't taking a supplement with a questionable ingredient. that being said, during the late '90s to mid '00s like half the teams in the tour de france were being raided by the authorities and riders were being kicked out left and right. you can probably count on zero hands the number of elite riders during that period who weren't at least strongly suspected of doping. in my view armstrong probably knowingly broke the rules, if for no other reason than it would have been superhuman to win as a non-doping athlete facing whole teams of athletes who were cheating. but it was probably a pretty level playing field.

 

i mean, if you take away armstrong's win in some of those tours, who gets it? i just randomly picked the 2000 tour de france. the guy who finished second was banned from the 2006 tour and this year was retroactively stripped of all results from 2005 onward. but he wasn't cheating in 2000? right. the guys who finished fourth, fifth and sixth also have had lengthy bans due to doping. at some point you have to just say that most participants were cheating and there's no point in modifying the results 10 or 15 years down the road.

[C.C.]

I don't get why he won't stop fighting it? If I knew I wasn't guilty I wouldn't throw in the towel. It just creates doubts and discredits his accomplishments.

[Soul]

first thing, i cant imagine how in the world someone becomes a fan of cycling

 

secondovely, i cant imagine being such a big fan of cycling that you would care about something like this

 

I know. Half of Madison is crazy over cycling though, it seems. There are many, many people here who care about it.

[Soul]

I don't get why he won't stop fighting it? If I knew I wasn't guilty I wouldn't throw in the towel. It just creates doubts and discredits his accomplishments.

 

I think it's more that the playing field is probably level, with many of the top riders using something or another. It's not that he never did anything. It's just a really hard argument to make publicly, because by making the argument you have to first admit that you were doping. After that, nobody's going to listen much to the "but everyone else is doing it too" part.