Lance goes on Dan Patrick show - says he still thinks of himself as Tour de France winner

Armstrong had a doping advantage (monopol on Ferrari, protected by the UCI). It wasn't a level playing field. He's a gigantic fraud.

beau is fat wrote:

Correction:

Summary of Lance's viewpoint: I doped, so did everyone else. I was just better AT DOPING. My mistake? Acting the way I did and treating people poorly.

Lance also stated that he still believes he is a 7 time tour de france winner which I think is great for him to say because whether people like it or not the reality is that everyone doped BUT HE DOPED BETTER.

Show me the money wrote:

Facts? Nobody has the facts in this story (except - see below). Watched the "Armstrong Lie" many times and came away with a greater esteem for Lance after each viewing. This is just one guy's film, but if you study it you can see all parties were involved willingly. If you were in cycling at the time and chose to go head to head against the alpha male in the sport don't cry when you get crushed by him. Another choice would have been to not fight him. Even the UCI was on the LA train. Innocents? There weren't any involved in this business. Lance won 7 straight TDF. That's a fact.

Lol! You studied an Alex Gibney film. Did you study the huge USADA report? Did you watch the SCA trial where everyone was under oath? Did you study the Jeff Nowvitsky(prosecutor for the US government) report on LA?

Did George Hincapie willingly put himself forward to testify under sworn testimony? Did Johnathan Vaughtners put himself willingly forward to testify under sworn testimony?

Lance defrauded the US government. USPS almost certainly used US government paid for vehicles and other transport systems to traffic illegal and prescription narcotics accross international borders.

You also completely changed the subject about the credibility of all of Lance's accusers.

As for the Armstrong Lie. All of it is opinionated emotional statements and Alex Gibney completely avoided any facts. If you want facts, read the reports and interviews I have listed above in the first paragraph which are all legal documents.

Show me the money wrote:

Lance won 7 straight TDF. That's a fact.

What you seem to have missed, is that the "cheating" that has been discussed goes beyond 'just' doing the drugs. For example, look up "dropping the dime" by an insider, and consider how that can be used as a weapon to squelch competition. Look up the alleged bribing done even early on in the career.

Sure. Studied in the sense of looking for insights into this episode where so many parties are all after a single guy. I was trying to figure out why this was the case. Many parties trying to have the benefits of being associated with Lance, and then trying to claim they were damaged LOL. I read much of the material online, but I have a hard time moving past Lance's cancer experiences and then calling him a cheat. I don't find the accusers credible. Even if some of what they say is the truth, or their belief in the facts as they see them, I don't put much faith in what they have to say. Lance saw what the Tour leaders were doing. He started doing what they were doing only he was better at the game than them. He also worked harder on the bike than they did. His efforts, and those of a strong team, resulted in 7 TDF titles.

Show me the money wrote:

He also worked harder on the bike than they did. His efforts, and those of a strong team, resulted in 7 TDF titles.

You've watched too many commercials or consumed too much of the Lance-flavored Kool-aid. Ben Johnson and Marion Jones both think they worked harder than their competition too, which resulted in Olympic titles (according to your logic).

You may be right. I like Ben too. Great 100m runner. Lance was a little different. He won 7 straight TDFs. His competitors were playing the same game just not as well. Win once, and you may be dealing with a lucky outlier. You go 7 straight wins like Lance did while the competition is going all out, adapting their methods etc and you go into legendary territory. That's what makes Lance so interesting. A lot of the accusers did not make good moves. They may have been in the right on some matters, but exercising their rights wasn't a good move. It's like that in life sometimes. You may have the right of way while riding your bike, but try exercising your right when a Mack truck clearly is not going to stop for you. The smart bike rider yields to the truck even though they have the right of way and the truck driver is breaking the law. Better to live and have your rights trampled in this case than to be right and splattered. Lance's accusers could see going against him would be a bad idea if they wanted to remain in the sport.

I didn't think anyone could be this stupid. You have exposed yourself as a troll or a complete imbecile. This will be my last post on this thread.

Show me the money wrote:

....exercising their rights wasn't a good move. It's like that in life sometimes....

Thanks for the deep thought, oh wise one.

Show me the money wrote:

. A lot of the accusers did not make good moves. They may have been in the right on some matters, but exercising their rights wasn't a good move. It's like that in life sometimes. You may have the right of way while riding your bike, but try exercising your right when a Mack truck clearly is not going to stop for you. The smart bike rider yields to the truck even though they have the right of way and the truck driver is breaking the law. Better to live and have your rights trampled in this case than to be right and splattered. Lance's accusers could see going against him would be a bad idea if they wanted to remain in the sport.

This is compelling logic. What you're saying, if I'm reading you correctly, is that they (Lance's accusers), above all, should have known that Lance was akin to an oncoming truck in his psychopathic determination to protect his phoney reputation and ill-gotten gains, and should thus have avoided confronting him; yet, they did not, and were crushed. Therefore, Lance is a guy worthy of our esteem and they (Lance's accusers) are greedy, phoney, and ultimately stupid.

I don't think you're a troll. This actually has the ring of authentic stupidity. Some people really do love the power and charisma of apparent "winners" to the point of brain damage.

To simply say "I doped like everyone else" is the wrong discussion.

Doping was the very least offence he committed.

All doping is not equal. Putting aside different physiological responses, Lance had a more sophisticated program, and even doped during the tour.

Could Lance win any Tour without having forced his teammates to dope? Contador won despite lack of team support and internal team conflicts. Lemond also won despite lack of team support.

Comparing Lance to other riders in the tour ignores potential clean riders who did not participate in tours, having been squeezed out by the dopers.

Rather than comparing Lance's doping to other riders in the tour, which riders in the history of the tour forced their teammates to dope, or used their influence with the UCI to conceal their doping? Ulrich? Pantani? Merckx?

A lot of people have a hate on for those who play a game and do so by the written and unwritten rules to achieve success. It's the way of the world. To ignore reality is denial and a hallmark of losers everywhere. In a sport where dopers ruled Lance decided to dope. He wasn't the guy who started doping in cycling. The accusers aren't stupid in my opinion. They just made bad choices to try to go up against Lance, who was just one element in a mutually beneficial arrangement of business interests. Lance didn't destroy anyone. Going up against Lance was going against the sport of cycling as a whole. One is delusional if they thought they could do that and remain in the sport at that time. Like the guy on the bike who tries to assert his rights against the truck. You lose every time. What makes it worse is that the accusers would also have lost against a medium sized car at that time like the domestique Hincapie.

The real winner was the cyclist who was the first non doper.

No, Ben was NOT the 100m Champ in 1988.

No, Marion did NOT win 5 Olympic medals in 2000.

They got caught and were trying to advance their chances, illegally, against their competition to win. They cheated, they got caught, and neither won medals, so no, it's not a fact (as you said).

Lewis had questionable tests with the 88' Trials, not the Olympics, where he was tested. Read up on it and learn the facts.

Abs6pack wrote:

beau is fat wrote:

Correction:

Summary of Lance's viewpoint: I doped, so did everyone else. I was just better AT DOPING. My mistake? Acting the way I did and treating people poorly.

Lance also stated that he still believes he is a 7 time tour de france winner which I think is great for him to say because whether people like it or not the reality is that everyone doped BUT HE DOPED BETTER.

All I can do is sit here and laugh at how naive some people are. Especially making comments based on their nonexistent levels of knowledge about cycling, LA, the UCI, the tour etc...if you don't know why try to comment?

I've seen some pretty dumb points made by people just like the ones I described above:

-You don't win 7 STRAIGHT TDF titles because your starting hematocrit is 42 instead of 45.

-If you honestly think that there were riders in that field that were riding clean and who also had the ability to beat lance if he were to ride clean, you are a complete idiot.

-He doped better? The protocols were VERY well known throughout the peleton. Everyone knew what levels were safe to ride at, everyone knew the time windows when they had to be clean, everyone knew that EPO was the best drug at the time, etc.

-Its sad that we can't appreciate one of the best athletes the USA has had in an olympic sport ever. Go watch some races, dude was a badass. What he said summed everything up: "doping was a NECESSARY EVIL of that time." I agree it sucks but its what was done in that period. Moral of this bullet is dont hate the player, hate the game.

Pot meet kettle.

Excellent arguement, good on you sir. Well done. Informative and thrilling.

Premature postulation on that last one. Here goes:

1) He said "many" of Lance's accusers were "liars and dopers" , not "all", so it was silly for you to respond with 'NO, not all". You are correcting him on something he didn't incorrectly state. Most who testified against him WERE "liars and dopers themselves", certainly.

2) The biggest crock of all in this affair is that guys like Andreu or more importantly Landis, Hamilton, Hincapie etc, were "forced" (as Rekrunner stated) to dope by Lance. They were exactly in the same boat as Lance: they faced pressure to do what everyone else was doing (dope), or not succeed in the sport (or try and out everyone, which pretty much no one did). They played along, cheated and lied like Lance (hell, Andreu lied to his own wife about it at first), and rode the Armstrong gravy train. It's absurd to excoriate Lance but then turn around and not have much of a negative opinion about someone like Hincapie. Just because Lance was the superior athlete and the top dog doesn't make him any more of a "bad guy" then the other dopers. If Andreu could have won some tours, he would have kept up the doping. Let's not have absurd double standards. And almost all of the only admitted to PED use once their careers were over, OR they were already pretty much nailed.