that's ridiculous... if true. the photo kind of looks staged, maybe by publicity folks. how come there's no one running behind him?
i met lance during the summer of the atlanta olympics at a casual bbq. he was arrogant, and that was way before he was a household name. not very likeable -- despite everyone knowing that he was the next big thing.
but he's done great things for cancer research, and brought public attention to endurance sports.
and at least he's not a scientologist.
What's next?
Special tape for the fattest?
Special tape for the one with the most kids?
Special tape for the one who holds a record for most marbles he can hold in his mouth?
Special tape for the one who lost the most weight?
OK, I'll stop now.
LANCE IS KING!!!!! wrote:
what a douchebag!!!! lets see how you would do in the tour de france shall we?!?!?! what the hell have u ever done!!!!
How anyone can rip Lance Armstrong for running a marathon to raise money (lots of money) for cancer research is beyond me. So what that he ran 2:50+. He's already run in the 2:40s, and he's a RETIRED athlete -- running wasn't even his skill that paid the bills. Not like he's in his prime at age 27 or anything. Holy crap. He was a decent runner when he was doing triathlons before he turned into Mr. Tour. Not everyone can be Geb.
Also, anyone who extrapolates mile and 2 mile times from a marathon time is ridiculous. I ran an indoor 2 mile in 9:21, and my marathon PR is 2:55. Different levels of focus for each of those races, but still.
Ripping him is just crazy -- unless someday we do discover that he was juiced to the gills, then all is fair.
We should be ripping the BAA for putting the stupid finish line tape out for him. I can't see Lance knowing about that ahead of time. As someone who finished first in a lot of races (bike that is) he must have felt silly breaking the tape from the middle of the pack.
Nothing but a PR stunt for BAA. If I was Lance I wouldn't run there again.
do you realize 99% of people don't give a shit about the marathon? By getting lance out there you bring a huge name in sports into a dying sport. It's good for everyone. You guys need to calm your selves down, and realize the BAA is doing something good for the sport by putting some interest back into it.
you cannot possibly say the mara is a dying sport. there are more maras on the calendar every year than the year before and the majors are filling up in record time. Lance is a household name so he brings RATINGS to the TV network and some passing interest in the event by some nonrunners, he is not there to resurrect a sport with one foot in the grave or whatever.
I saw special LA syringes for sale on eBay last week. The dude is all over the place. What a guy LA is !
Having Lance break his own special finishing tape is cheesy beyond belief. I certainly hope he had nothing to do with it.
eBay seller wrote:
I saw special LA syringes for sale on eBay last week. The dude is all over the place. What a guy LA is !
Is it outbidding the Barry Bonds ones.
I completely agree. The BAA should be completely embarrassed at this really pathetic attempt at pandering to the masses by putting a tape up for Lance.
It is completely disrespectful to the many others in HIS OWN age group who finished before him.
And finally it really waters down the concept of there being ONE male and one female winner.
Really weak BAA.
Please don't write "maras." That's worse than "thons."
I don't see a "maras"...I do see a "mara"...mis-quoting is even worse than what you pointed out.
no, Armstrong has the corner on the doping market, he's the Teflon Don, John Gotti w/o the greasy hair.
wondering... wrote:
I don't see a "maras"...I do see a "mara"...mis-quoting is even worse than what you pointed out.
Not that it matters, but if you don't see the word "maras" in the post that he was responding to, you might want to get your eyes checked, because it's there clear as day.
Read it next time before embarassing yourself.
This whole thing is about publicity and they will have lance on all the ads for next year showing him break the tape. Honestly why are you people getting so pissed off. Its not like its Oprah or Katie Holmes, Lance was a top athlete who brings good publicity to the sport. To all you who say he was drugged when he was cycling just get over yourselves! Some people out there are just that good and if he wasnt that good than he was really good at somehow passing all the mutliple weekly drug tests he had to take. Honestly do you think anyone outside this sport is going to care about the boston marathon or any other marathon. Now people might actually care or at least acknowledge that our sport exists because of guys like lance bringing in the publicity.
"its just natural" wrote:
"This whole thing is about publicity and they will have lance on all the ads for next year showing him break the tape."
Yep. Publicity is good -- the more Armstrongs and Hucakbees and Katie Holmes who run marathons, the better --but misleading publicity is bad.
Anyone without expertise or a long memory (which means MOST people) who sees that publicity shot will assume that a retired bike racer with admittedly halfassed training won the damn race, thus destroying the efforts of many people who are trying to get the sport's top runners taken seriously.
I am a big supporter of Armstrong's running exploits. But I despise the "Traveling Carnival and Medicine Show" that Nike and TV have built around him.
I like the photo that is two past Lance's tape -- where some dude is crawling just a few feet from the finish.
Ha!
I am not an arm pumper but if I ever narrowly beat Lance in a race I'm going to diplay a huge victory celebration.
What I want to know is where the 2:50 letsrun Boston marathoners were at this moment (yeah, yeah, I know...you're all sub-2:30...)? Why didn't one of you jump into the chute and outsprint him to his own tape?
That would have been a very special moment captured on film/pixels. I'd have cracked a smile for that antic!