What is Lance's endgame?

3200guy wrote:

djäveln wrote:

he was hoping the world would end 5/21...so...he's toast.

I think Lance is an atheist or at least an agnostic, so I doubt he's hoping something supernatural will help him out.

Really? Out of all the legitimate points in this thread that you could have responded to, you chose that one? The one that was very obviously a joke? And you answered it SERIOUSLY?!

In the immediate future assuming Lance is called to testify the question is whether he is given immunity. All the other athletes have been given immunity.

Personally, I believe Lance doped. So if given immunity he is faced with telling the truth and admitting it or lying under oath. He can't take the 5th. If he tells the truth and admits to doping there is a chance the Feds could never get a strong enough case to go to trial against the US Postal team for defrauding the government and I then assume Lance's testimony wouldn't come out unless there is another leak (I believe grand jury testimony is supposed to be secret -some lawyer tell me).

If Lance isn't given immunity it means he's a target for spearheading the whole operation. He could then plead the 5th and the case would have to go to trial.

Lance's endgame is simple: he should come clean and fully admit to all the PED use he has ever done. No more lying. None at all. Just the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

This is the only possible cure for his moral cancer, and it lies in his own hands.

he is the target----if he is compelled to testify under grant of immunity, as you point out he cannot take the 5th, but any testimony given could not be used against him--this only happens if the Feds decide they cannot go to trial because they cannot prove anything---i think in this case any hearing would be public like baseball(congressional investigation into steroids in cycling?)---so as to give Lance the chance to hang himself(perjury to protect his legacy) or to come clean publically and justify the government resources spent

Great answers. I just feel that after the Palmeiro finger waving incident, I don't understand Lance's strategy of being so aggressive in his denial unless he is genuinely innocent (unlikely), or somehow knows that no physical proof will ever come to light.

I think if Lance just came out and said yes, I did it, the public would be a lot more forgiving (a la Andy Pettite). The McGwire defense of simply saying nothing is another alternative strategy (although this still makes him look guilty). The continual denial of people like Marion Jones and Floyd Landis only makes them look much worse once the truth comes out (i.e. not only cheaters but pathological liars).

Lance's biggest error in all of this has been his ripping on his critics and pulling strings to make them miserable (the Andreus and others). If he hadn't done that, he could come clean at this point and say "gotcha" with a smile and write a tell-all book on how he beat the Euros at their own game and laugh all the way to the bank. Instead he is looking more like a petty control freak whose ego is more important than the sport itself.

He is a control freak in some domains, but he is not a petty one, even if he can be petty at times.

I don't think this would work with Armstrong. He can't say I cheated once, realized it was a mistake and never did it again. If he did cheat, it was frequently and systematically.

Closer, but McGwire pretty much admitted he doped with a lot of his quotes.

Agreed. I think he's really following the Roger Clemens lead. Deny and call every other eye witness a liar. In the end, people who want to believe you, will believe you, and those that don't, won't. At this point, I don't think he has much of a choice.

Ask Jason Giambi about the secrecy of Grand Jury testimony.

Is it taboo to wonder if PED's help cause Lance's cancer? I mean, getting testicular cancer at that age is very rare and since he developed it after it is alleged that he injected himself with steroids, testosterone, EPO etc. I'm just saying...

whatawaste wrote:

Honestly, all of these "trials" are such a frickin' waste of money. Who the f cares if Lance juiced? Doesn't matter to me if he did. Just like it doesn't matter to me if Barry's head grew bigger because he was on something. It just doesn't matter.

late to the party wrote:

Who sponsored Lance again?

The US Postal Service. And still the question remains. Who cares? They were sponsoring the team for positive publicity and they got that in spades. Even if he did take drugs, how exactly did the US taxpayer "suffer" as a result of that that we feel the need to spend all this money to prosecute him?

I hate Lance for lying and ruining other lives, but I feel like the public doesn't think so. I also would want him to go to jail, but I hate the fact that it will utilize taxpayers money. So, it contradicts my belief of small government and wanting Lance to go to jail but having to use taxpayers money.

About PEDs giving him cancer, one of the article that's run by Sports Illustrated. There's a link to that in one of the threads here on Letsrun. His doping doctor, Ferrari, was afraid he might have given him cancer with the aggressive PED regimen he was on according to Landis.

born to screw wrote:

3200guy wrote:

I think Lance is an atheist or at least an agnostic, so I doubt he's hoping something supernatural will help him out.

Really? Out of all the legitimate points in this thread that you could have responded to, you chose that one? The one that was very obviously a joke? And you answered it SERIOUSLY?!

*facepalm*

At this point I think our culture is ready to accept the truth-- nearly every superstar has used some form of PED at some point, even if many can rationalize their usage as just to recovery from injury, or just what the others are doing.

He should stay aggressive, it's clearly his nature, and pull a Nicholson from "A Few Good Men."

"...you can't handle the truth..."

BTW Does anyone really think Tiger Woods hasn't used HGH, and Actovegin, in Dr. Galea's "platelet enriched plasma" injections while recovering from knee injury?

Or believe there was just B12 in Hitler's pick me up injections?

Think about it...If you won the hardest sporting event in the world and someone claimed you cheated when you didn't; how would you react? Would you tweet and then just shut-up? Well speaking for myself, I would go absolutely bonkers. I would immediately take a lie-detector, I would challenge my accusers face-to-face and I would go on every national network and demand retribution from each and everyone. I would sue the heck out of each one just like the Duke lacrosse boys did to their prosecutor. I would make them spend the rest of their lives regretting the day they lied about me. Instead...we get a tweet from Lance telling us we are wasting tax dollars. Speaks volumes if you ask me.

You have to ask yourself this question and if this is possible. Being a serious fan of Professional Sports how one athlete can rise to the top of any sport (in this case we are talking about cycling) and beat every other athlete consistently when a very large percentage if not all of the other athletes are using PEDs.

It is not possible in my opinion.

Retread wrote:

Is it taboo to wonder if PED's help cause Lance's cancer? I mean, getting testicular cancer at that age is very rare and since he developed it after it is alleged that he injected himself with steroids, testosterone, EPO etc. I'm just saying...

It's not taboo to wonder but it is kind of pointless. You can probably show that use of some of those agents is statistically likely to cause cancer in X% of those who partake but drawing a one-to-one conclusion is just not going to be possible.

Lance's endgame at BEST, if all the legal, congressional, doping organization inquiries come to nothing is he's the Barry Bonds of cycling. At WORST, he could end up the O.J. Simpson of cycling.

hypocrite mayne wrote:

They need someone to come forward with a claim to have sold/provided lance with the drugs personally.

And you also want this drug-dealer to be completely disinterested, and with an unimpeachable legal and moral record in every respect?!

The legal standard in the US is "beyond -reasonable- doubt."

It is not "can we come up with fifty vaguely plausible explanations to weasel out of the fifty different witnesses and bits of evidence all saying that Lance doped."