Lance Armstrong-Scapegoat

Lance is about the only one who denies everything. The rest have pretty much admitted it.

This could have all been avoided had he come out and said he doped for a period of time and perhaps lost a couple of Tours because of it.

He chose to continually deny any involvement. He deserves everything he's getting.

escapegoat*

didn't tygart say he would have taken away only 2 tours if lance cooperated?

so it's lance armstrong's own fault. he could have saved 5 tour de france titles, and he could have chosen to be allowed to compete in official events that go through usada testing instead of a lifetime ban.

trollism wrote:

Lance is about the only one who denies everything. The rest have pretty much admitted it.

Not even close to true.

Um, ever heard of Barry Bonds?

Millions and millions of dollars and resources wasted to accomplish NOTHING.

no one cares at all about cycling. USADA will always be a joke until they test major sports, which are all doped to the gills.

Lance is clean guys and girls. How can you not believe him? He is the best!

What I wanna know is, all those guys they got to roll on Lance, why didn't they make them roll on everyone? They've been on other teams since, they know who else is doping.

The entire top 40 of the last 2 TDF's was probably juiced to the jugulars.

Also, why did the guys who rolled Lance get short off-season bans? They can ride again, regardless of admitting they took PEDs. This alone smells foul.

He's probably hoping that if he continues his denial, there won't be enough evidence for perjury charges.

Yeah France wrote:

Lance Armstrong is clearly guilty of doping but he appears to be the scapegoat for a generation of dopers. Out of all those caught in his net, he is the only athlete to get a significant punishment. And of all athletes caught, has any punishment ever reached back 8+ years? Certainly not for Riis. I think he is the scapegoat for the black eye that was Olympic sports in the 1990s.

It is also a testament to the lack of unity and cutthroat nature of Olympic sports compared to other sports. He is universally condemned and is losing everything. The same cannot be said for the baseball cheats, they keep their records, WS rings and it is a footnote in history.

Bjarne Riis, who was for years admired as the victor of the 1996 Tour de France, showed some repentance: under no external pressure, I understand, he mailed his yellow jersey back to the race organizers, n'est pas?

Pointless Bans wrote:

Also, why did the guys who rolled Lance get short off-season bans? They can ride again, regardless of admitting they took PEDs. This alone smells foul.

Really that is the most glaring portion of USADA's "evidence" that nobody wants to admit.

It may be "obvious" to say Lance was on drugs, but why is he the only target? Why is it they waited so long AFTER the fact that he retired? Why, if you're trying to make a name for yourself, didn't you gather everyone that doped and everyone they pointed the finger at and shake the entire sport up?

Lance may be guilty, but USADA's evidence doesn't prove that in the least. Just another witchhunt for failed athletes that have since became failing sports writers to "report"

Yeah France wrote:

Lance Armstrong is clearly guilty of doping but he appears to be the scapegoat for a generation of dopers. Out of all those caught in his net, he is the only athlete to get a significant punishment. And of all athletes caught, has any punishment ever reached back 8+ years? Certainly not for Riis. I think he is the scapegoat for the black eye that was Olympic sports in the 1990s.

It is also a testament to the lack of unity and cutthroat nature of Olympic sports compared to other sports. He is universally condemned and is losing everything. The same cannot be said for the baseball cheats, they keep their records, WS rings and it is a footnote in history.

Bjarne Riis, who was for years admired as the victor of the 1996 Tour de France, showed some repentance: under no external pressure, I understand, he mailed his yellow jersey back to the race organizers, n'est pas?

O.o wrote:

It may be "obvious" to say Lance was on drugs, but why is he the only target?

You guys need to move on from this argument. Bruyneel, del Moral, Celeya, Ferrari, Marti

There are many cyclists who have been punished significantly.

They deserve what they get. There have been a few professional cyclists who are clean and have been forced out of the sport because of these drug cheats.

You're a better person than me for having empathy toward such a self centered egotist.

If you have not yet, read the report and you might feel differently about the whole thing.

trollism wrote:

Lance is about the only one who denies everything. The rest have pretty much admitted it.

This could have all been avoided had he come out and said he doped for a period of time and perhaps lost a couple of Tours because of it.

He chose to continually deny any involvement. He deserves everything he's getting.

How absurd. 'The rest have pretty much admitted it". Not so. Many have, most of whom denied it for a long time before caving. Not one sponsor has admitted knowing anything. Lance is being hung out to dry to protect all the others --and I don't mean the riders. I mean the sponsors, providers, advertisers, etc....all those who knowingly benefitted

Mr. Obvious wrote:

O.o wrote:

It may be "obvious" to say Lance was on drugs, but why is he the only target?

You guys need to move on from this argument. Bruyneel, del Moral, Celeya, Ferrari, Marti

Armstrong is the only athelete targeted. Why not Contador too? He rode with Lance for two seasons and is still active.

Also, what about the 8 year statute of limitations that the IOC/UCI operates on?

As they have been saying ever since the days of Nixon, the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

Contrast Armstrong with Hincapie. They both were doing the same stuff at the same time. But, George came clean, explained why he did it, the regrets he has, and how he'd like to see the culture of the sport change.

Armstrong dug in, lied and lied again, and has finally been caught.

I haven't lost any respect for Hincapie. Different story for Lance.

He made himself a deserving scapegoat.

trollism wrote:

Lance is about the only one who denies everything. The rest have pretty much admitted it.

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

Not even close to true.

Not close to true for international cyclists, but USADA has affidavits from most of the US road cyclists who competed at a high level internationally in the last decade. Landis and Hamilton, of course, went down earlier and have had titles stripped and served suspensions. This sweep has also brought confessions from Liepheimer, Hincapie, Zabriskie, Danielson, Van de Velde. Their suspensions are very light, but all have had results erased for a couple of years.

USADA doesn't have the authority to go after non-US citizens competing in Europe, but has stated that they've passed information to WADA and the appropriate national governing bodies. There are a number of "Rider x" deletions in the released USADA documents that I presume are implicated international riders.

The really unfortunate thing here is that if the UCI is guilty of covering up positive test results as Hamilton and Landis have alleged, they have, for the moment not come clean and the system is still very broken.