Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 18, 2013 - 09:25am PT
Horace Rumpole & I think that compared to the Olympic and UCI officials who are still making high salaries ,Lance and all of the riders who did the actual work are saints !
no real need to demonize him. most hyper-driven athletes are total jerks anyway. Armstrong will pay out 50 or 60 million in lawsuit damages and his foundation has done more for humanity than most of us ever will
how'd that line from that stones track "you'll never make a saint of me" go-"
Saint Lance the persecutor
Was a cruel and sinful man
Jesus hit him with a blinding light
And then his life began
I said yeah
well i'm not a jesus freak -but that guy was and likely is a cruel and sinful man
Regardless the UCI and the rest of those that silently condoned LA and his actions, LA still needs to bear the brunt of it all. For it is he that allowed it all to happen and to continue for as long as it did.
He continues to behave accordingly btw.
Shall we start with Betsy! LA's attitude towards her was less than authentic. Despicable comes to mind. And that is NOT my term but that of many others. He continued his self-centered arrogant attitude towards this entire fiasco when discussing Betsy last night. That sealed his fate as not being one bit remorseful in his supposed coming out.
Sadly, many of those die hard LA followers out there will continue to defend his behavior and shun the burden of this entire issue onto others such as the UCI etal.
I don't think that Lance possesses many, if any, redeeming qualities, but I get a kick out of the pundits who say that the real victims are the competitors who got cheated out of the podium. And, pray tell, who are those cyclists? Consider that when Lance was stripped of his Tour titles no other competitors were given them in his place.
They ALL cheated.....professional cycling is a farce.
The problem is creating an even playing field. Drug deception technology always seems to be ahead of drug detection technology.
If you had two classes, one for users and one for clean riders, the class for clean riders would become the most prestigious. That being the case, it is likely that someone would cheat and use drugs in order to win.
The only way to create an even playing field is to have no restrictions on drugs. It could be a devil's advocate sort of thing. The rider has to decide between powerful, but dangerous, performance enhancers- the more performance enhancing the more dangerous and, perhaps, life shortening.
Appears Lance's true abilities were exhibited in his first two TDF appearances and his very last.
'92 He finished 97 after DNFing after stage 12
'95 He finished 36
'09 He finished 23
His natural abilities never met the mark required to be a true Champion, did they now.
So obviously he could not complete with those doping until he started doping too. This is the point you miss in your tirades. All top level riders were doping in that period (and now most likely) or they were not at the top level.
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