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all pro athletes use performance enhancing drugs. sure, that statement may be a little off, but not by much. all baseball players and football players use steroids (give or take 5%). i dont know cycling, but i see no reason why it would be different. if its a paying sport (and most non-paying also) people will use drugs to help them if they can get away with it.
This is where it gets interesting. Why did the USADA take up where the federal authorities had left off? Because, in February this year, the federal authorities dropped the case without charging Armstrong. The principal federal investigator’s statement was perfunctory: "The United States Attorney determined that a public announcement concerning the closing of the investigation was warranted by numerous reports about the investigation in media outlets around the world." But the unspoken subtext was clear: there was insufficient evidence to find Armstrong guilty in a court of law.
I guess it's a good thing the scum-bag was into human slavery and the sex trade.
Well, Lance made a mistake, but he did more for humanity....
Blood money is still blood money.
Not impressed with cheaters....
Mircea
Exactly.
People need to realize that this moral "but good things came from such lies" is a schizophrenic ethics leading to strange moral justifications leading to dangerous logic. "It's okay that that drug lord sells dope to the kids because he is donating iPads to the school to further their educational needs" sort of madness.
Really, do people think all that money by his sponsors was well-spent promoting an enriched cheater promoting lies under the ruse of sympathy for cancer awarewness? Is that how cheap a serious cause has become?
many years ago(i believe the man is dead now) a very popular crew chief of a race team in nascar once said, "if you are not cheating, you are not winning". it didnt mean that you had to break to rules to win, just read the rule book and find out what was NOT in it. if there was no rule against something at the time, then it isnt cheating.
the problem with the average person though is, the they want to apply new rules retroactively, and label those that used PEDs before they were made illegal as cheaters.
and lets be clear here, unless you have proof beyond a reasonable doubt, you cant make a criminal case against anyone.
I think the media is portraying Lance Armstrong in a much more negative light than what is needed. Cycling is one of the dirtiest sport especially in the new millennium (just look up "list of doping cases in cycling" in Wikipedia) and I've heard from multiple radio hosts, avid cycling fans and sports fans alike, that it wouldn't surprise them if >80% of the cyclists in Tour De France used some sort of performance enhancing drugs...And I don't disagree with them. Cycling 200km a day for 20+ days is NUTS!
Now let's look at it like this: if no one in the whole race was using performance enhancing drugs, then wouldn't you think that Armstrong would still be the best cyclist to emerge out of the whole group? But unfortunately PED use is pervasive in cycling, and it makes sense for the cyclists to use drugs in order to level the playing field with everyone else violating the rules. It's sad and it's scathing to the integrity of sports but that's just the reality.
Obviously not every cyclist gets tested on a regular basis for PEDs and only the elite ones like Armstrong will be the subject of most scrutiny. But when they do get tested, with the advances in science and technology, scientists are able to come up with newer and modified substances that are not on the list of banned substances that allow the cyclists to pass the test surreptitiously. And when committees like USADA includes more drugs to banned PEDs, there will be substances in altered form that will be able to bypass the tests undetected.
I'm not saying what Armstrong did is right (if in fact it's true) nor the pervasive use of PEDs in sports, which is the reality of sports today. But out of this came something good, the LIVESTRONG Foundation which raised hundreds of millions of dollars for a good cause to help cancer patients and to provide hope. Whether you think he did this for his own stardom or to sway the attention away from his doping allegations is up to you, but you can't deny that this philanthropic organization is bad for the world, or not enough to overshadow the blemish in his lustrous cycling career.
I'd be willing to guarantee that if any other cyclists used whatever PEDs that Armstrong used for his Tour De France career, he would not come remotely close to winning 7 TDF titles in his career. This allegation is much to meager in contrast to the accolades and accomplishments that he achieved in his career and I think that all this diatribe about Lance Armstrong needs to stop.
Sympathy? No, None, Notta in this household.
oh I never doped, I never took illegal drugs, I never did that, such a liar.
large corporations and politicians give money to different causes, and are not exactly the most liked people on earth.
the man is toast. lying is almost never acceptable behavior.
many years ago(i believe the man is dead now) a very popular crew chief of a race team in nascar once said, "if you are not cheating, you are not winning". it didnt mean that you had to break to rules to win, just read the rule book and find out what was NOT in it. if there was no rule against something at the time, then it isnt cheating.
the problem with the average person though is, the they want to apply new rules retroactively, and label those that used PEDs before they were made illegal as cheaters.
and lets be clear here, unless you have proof beyond a reasonable doubt, you cant make a criminal case against anyone.
Errr no. He cheated, lied, manipulated, intimidated when these rules were clearly in place.
You guys can drool over a cheat, justify it, pretty it up as much as you like. Where I'm from, a cheat is a cheat... And it's dirty, unfair, dishonest ....
Errr no. He cheated, lied, manipulated, intimidated when these rules were clearly in place.
You guys can drool over a cheat, justify it, pretty it up as much as you like. Where I'm from, a cheat is a cheat... And it's dirty, unfair, dishonest ....
really? so if the rule book does not say no nitrous oxide allowed, its not ok to use it? smoky yunick used that loophole to qualify one of his race cars in the mid 60s. nascar then made a rule that said gasoline only as a fuel, but since nitrous oxide is NOT a fuel but rather a fuel oxidizer, it was STILL legal to use, even though the intent of the rule was to stop its use. and that is just one example in one sanctioning body.
as to the lance armstrong thing, did the rule books specifically say NO PEDs? or did in list substances that were banned from use? it does make a difference.
This is where it gets interesting. Why did the USADA take up where the federal authorities had left off? Because, in February this year, the federal authorities dropped the case without charging Armstrong. The principal federal investigator’s statement was perfunctory: "The United States Attorney determined that a public announcement concerning the closing of the investigation was warranted by numerous reports about the investigation in media outlets around the world." But the unspoken subtext was clear: there was insufficient evidence to find Armstrong guilty in a court of law.
The writer of that piece doesn't understand what hearsay means. Armstrong's former teammates are direct witnesses to the doping.
The quote that you highlighted is directly followed by this: "Admittedly, the federal criminal investigation was not actually into doping allegations; it was into potential wire fraud, mail fraud, witness tampering and drug distribution, with the focus on whether Armstrong’s cycling team had obtained money by deceiving sponsors, including the US Postal Service."
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