Lance Armstrong ESPN column

You are missing a few elements of the big picture. It's simply not true that "Lance wasn't doing something that the others weren't".Lance was doing many more things than the others.Many people seem to think it is *only* about taking drugs for your own personal gain. That the only issues were doping, cheating, and lying. Looking at it narrowly like that, it almost seems unfair some teammates got 6 months while Lance gets life.All of Lance's teammates were not doping for their own victories, but for Lance's. Maybe Hamilton or Landis actually could have beaten Lance head to head, but their job was to be soldiers for Lance, and carry him to victory. Lance was always carried to victory. Could Lance even have won once without team support? LeMond won against strong team adversity, kind of like when Contador beat Lance in 2009.But what many things makes Lance different then the rest of the peloton?- Most of the peloton was doping for themselves. Lance pushed his teammates to to take drugs, sometimes against their will. If you didn't you were off the team, and sometimes prematurely out of the sport.- Lance took a strong anti-anti-doping stance against his competitors. Speaking out at all was "not good for the sport".- Lance sued a newspaper for printing the truth in a book review, chilling one of America's great values "freedom of the press".- Lance attacked the credibility of one of the top doping labs, and managed to get their funding cut.- Lance had an intimate relationship with the UCI, creating an apparent conflict of interest.- He used the same techniques to get Congressman to look into how USADA is funded.- We don't know why the Federal suit was dropped suddenly without warning, but it looks like some mysterious powerful forces at work behind the scenes.Did Ulrich do any of these things? Did Pantani? Hamilton or any other "postal-disco crew"?

Puhleez, spare me. Lance was heads and tails better than everyone else and Postal wasn't always the strongest team. Some of the TMobile teams with Kloeden and Ulrich were better.

You're typical of a Lance-hater. You want to take away everything that he did. It's stupid. Barry Bonds was still the best hitter of his generation. Marion Jones was still the fastest woman.

Virtually the entire peleton was doping for all seven tours that he won. The only clean riders were watching from home.

The competition that Lance faced was far greater than LeMond ever had to deal with. The riders were faster, stronger, and more aggressive. LeMond wouldn't have been a top-20 rider in any tour that Lance won.

Don't forget that LeMond had his own miracle comeback. Think that was completely natural?

Every great tour champion from Merx to Anquetil to Hinault to Indurain to Armstrong was dirty.

Lance is just hated more because 1) he is American, 2) he is brash, and 3) he is a colossal d!ck.

You can't take away that he demonstrated amazing competitive courage, trained harder than his competitors, and just generally wanted it more.

^ what he just said!

Realism wrote:

Ted Underhill wrote:

For the 1 millionth time, I think most people would accept the cheating in the context of the era in that sport. They seem more than willing for every other rider. I think it is hard for most people to get past the complete ass-holery that he continuously displayed.

This

Disclaimer: I am a petty jerk with issues. I will not debate that.

In my own small shittty world I've been where Lance was. I did something I was very ashamed of and steamrolled anyone who questioned me or tried to speak the truth about it. Over a decade later, it is hard to say what I am more ashamed of--the act itself or what I did and said to people. To this day I have not come clean or apologized the way I should. I imagine it is refreshing for Lance to be free of the embarrasment, deception and anger. Everyone knows now he's an ass_hole. There is nowhere to go but up. So I can appreciate what he feels and where his life is headed. To be exposed as the person he is and still to be wealthy and surrounded by people eho love you is incredible. He wins again.

llort_vbo wrote:

Lance is just hated more because 1) he is American, 2) he is brash, and 3) he is a colossal d!ck.

I agree with everything you write except for what I quoted above...

The real reason that he is hated is due to his celebrity status. No one cares about Floyd Landis because Floyd Landis wasn't on every other issue of People. He didn't marry Cheryl Crow. No one knew who he was outside of people who follow cycling.

People love to hate people. People love to see someone fall from grace. Armstrong's demise was entertainment for the masses.

And you're nothing more than a typical Armstrong apologist. He had access to better drugs than everyone else and had UCI protection (others not so much).

Should Marion have kept her gold medals? Same for Ben Johnson? Everything they did was taken away. Why should it be any different for Lance. Was Ben Johnson hated more because he was 1) Canadian, 2) he was brash.... ?

And, yes, Lance forced clean riders either out of the Tour or out of the sport.

LeMond was far more talented at stage racing than Armstrong. You're clueless.

"Trained harder than his competitors..." Ha, ha. Funny sh*t. Stop drinking the kool-aid.

I don't want to take away anything from Lance. I'm giving him full credit for everything he did, on and off the bike.

He doped like the rest of the peloton, but that's only a small part of the story, and where the similarity with other riders ends.

You think that his competition was faster, stronger, and more agressive than Lemond's? I think we all know why. Things changed drastically in the early 90's, and then changed back around 2007. Do a simple time analysis in the post-Lance years (when the passport was introduced), and you see the times slow down to 1980's era ranges again. Give Lance a 1985 bike (and 1985 doctors), and I'm not convinced he would be heads and tails better than the 1985 peloton.

I think Lemond's miracle comeback wasn't that miraculous, and have no reason to doubt it was completely natural. His 1989 and 1990 performances were comparable to 1984-1986.

I don't know about hating a brash American -- a lot of people loved Lance, because he has charisma, but I think you understate point 3.

I don't know about amazing competitive courage -- you'd have to explain why "courage" is the best word, but I certainly agree his excessive desire to win at all costs, lead him to significantly advance the field of doping, which allowed him to train harder.