Lance Armstrong charges

I need to read up on doping, so forgive the stupid question.

In the interview with Oprah, he mentions that doping before the event, and staying clean for the event was a big part of avoiding detection, for the most part, and that the victory was "phoned in".

Surely it's a bit of a stretch to assume that the monster distance coveted on the tour was his for the taking?, no matter how much he'd doped before hand. Is/was he that self-confident, or are the medical applications of doping really that powerful that they can carry over when the substance has left your system.
 
People saying it happens in all other sports should show evidence of what they are saying before tainting them all like cycling has been.

Most other sports don't actually benefit from performance enhancing drugs unlike cycling and athletics. The latter has hopefully taken action to limit things and luckily for it, Usain Bolt has done an immense amount to restore its image.

I've seen people on the internet trying to tar the achievements of Federer/Nadal/Djokovic in an attempt to make this seem not as bad, and that disgusts me more than anything. Cycling has never been as popular as sports like Tennis and in a few months hardly anyone will care. People saying Football is rife with performance enhancing drug taking is another thing that annoys me. When asked for evidence they will just say "it's all covered up" or point to fringe cases. There are very few high profile cases (Premier League).
 
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The use of PEDs is rife in most professional sports where big money is involved.

Drugs testing in football is lax, their own rules here state that you can miss two drugs test in an 18 month period without fear of ramifications. Many tests aren't conducted because players no show and they might only be tested once every few years. Results are covered up, bans are issued in secret...

There's been a sudden increase in the past decade of footballers, with no previous heart conditions, dropping dead on the pitch with cardiac arrests. I'd bet good money it's because of something they're taking.

Boxing is plagued by it as is MMA, where some fighters can even legally apply to use testosterone replacement therapy!
 
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EVH said:
I need to read up on doping, so forgive the stupid question.

In the interview with Oprah, he mentions that doping before the event, and staying clean for the event was a big part of avoiding detection, for the most part, and that the victory was "phoned in".

Surely it's a bit of a stretch to assume that the monster distance coveted on the tour was his for the taking?, no matter how much he'd doped before hand. Is/was he that self-confident, or are the medical applications of doping really that powerful that they can carry over when the substance has left your system.
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Given that they implement physiological changes, yes they can last for months.
 
muon said:
People saying it happens in all other sports should show evidence of what they are saying before tainting them all like cycling has been.

Most other sports don't actually benefit from performance enhancing drugs unlike cycling and athletics. The latter has hopefully taken action to limit things and luckily for it, Usain Bolt has done an immense amount to restore its image.
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Why has Bolt "restored athletics image"? Am I the only one who finds it incredibly suspicious that the 100m runners of today are so much better than those in the 1980s who we know were doped up?

muon said:
I've seen people on the internet trying to tar the achievements of Federer/Nadal/Djokovic in an attempt to make this seem not as bad, and that disgusts me more than anything. Cycling has never been as popular as sports like Tennis and in a few months hardly anyone will care.
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What are you on about?

muon said:
People saying Football is rife with performance enhancing drug taking is another thing that annoys me. When asked for evidence they will just say "it's all covered up" or point to fringe cases. There are very few high profile cases (Premier League).
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Have people said this? The question is, why is testing so bad in football? You can't have any doping cases if you don't bother testing!
 
Ooh we get the waterworks in part 2!

Surprise surprise he wants to come back into sports.... parts of that interview were just unbelievable, I really hope the ban isn't lifted.
 
oli collett said:
Why has Bolt "restored athletics image"? Am I the only one who finds it incredibly suspicious that the 100m runners of today are so much better than those in the 1980s who we know were doped up?
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We're veering away from the topic but I've got my suspicions. I hope I'm wrong because I want to believe that people can be so exceptional cleanly but it does seem odd that Jamaica has so many of the Worlds best sprinters (both mens and womens) all at once - they've traditionally been strong but this is beyond parallel.

Jokester said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/21087593

Yup, Lance Armstrong is a ****.
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"I deserve to be punished. I'm not sure I deserve a death penalty."
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It's not a death penalty, that's just hopelessly emotive language. There's absolutely nothing I've yet seen or heard that suggests he's paying anything other than lip service to repentance. It appears that he's sorry for himself rather than what he did.

However I'm generally a believer that if an athlete has served their punishment for drugs offences (whether I agree with the length of sentence or not) that they should be allowed to compete as normal albeit they will probably always have more testing than others.
 
@Oli collet...

Sports science is a lot more advanced nowadays than in the 80s: training regimes are better, diet is better, techniques have improved, track technology has gotten a lot faster...

And Bolt is a big deviation from the standard sprinter because he's massive: his legs are as big as some of the other athletes.

However, there have been questions raised over Jamaica's drug testing regime. But Jamaica does sprinters the same way Kenya does long distance runners...

But that's an aside.
 
Bigsy said:
Ooh we get the waterworks in part 2!

Surprise surprise he wants to come back into sports.... parts of that interview were just unbelievable, I really hope the ban isn't lifted.
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Of course he does. At least he was honest about it. What would you have wanted him to say?

If he had said anything otherwise you would have been the first on here brandishing him a lier.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't seems to be the fate for LA now.
 
uniQ said:
Of course he does. At least he was honest about it. What would you have wanted him to say?

If he had said anything otherwise you would have been the first on here brandishing him a lier.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't seems to be the fate for LA now.
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Because its obvious hes saying sorry, not because hes actually sorry but because he has to do it to get what he wants.
 
uniQ said:
So what would you have had him said differently that would honestly change your responses so far?
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It was billed as a no holds barred interview but he still very much answered things on his own terms - did he really tell us anything we didn't already know? His refusal to name names and discuss others was really frustrating, we can only hope he does this further down the line.
 
uniQ said:
So what would you have had him said differently that would honestly change your responses so far?
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Err like I said for him to actually be remorseful.

For him to come completely clean, not just say what he needs to get what he wants.

He totally dodgy the hospital room/Betsy Andreu thing, wouldn't admit it. Wouldn't come clean about Michele Ferrari, countless other things that I really can't arsed to type out again, just read my previous posts.
 
He came off a lot worse in this second part of the interview I felt. He wasn't very remorseful and its clear he has his own concerns he cares about over other issues, such as the ban affecting his ability to race other events.

I don't think Opera is a bad interviewer, but she didn't really push him. However, the fact he wasn't willing to give up some information or point fingers suggests those were the terms he agreed to when he decided to do the interview, regardless of whether it was billed as 'no holds barred'.
 
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