[Quantum]

Odds are the second- place contestants were also doping. I think it's the right call to leave those 7 vacant.

I guess so. The sport is rife with doping and Armstrong is just the tip of the iceberg. I would like to see the titles given to second-place contestants just to spite him.

[Rancid]

They asked Lance Armstrong to return the prize money he got for winning. I wonder if he's going to return it.

[Repeat to Fade]

The sport is rife with doping and Armstrong is just the tip of the iceberg.

Wrong on two counts really. Firstly, it WAS rife, recent results (or lack of positive ones) seems to show it is cleaning up it's act. Secondly that's relative and cycling is probably has no more doping than other sports, it's just more willing to catch those involved. Every sport has dopers, they just don't bother looking. When Fuentes came out and admitted that not only did he dope cyclists but many other Spanish athletes what was the reaction? It was swept under the rug.

[Rancid]

Lies, I know many professional cyclers. They all dope and also tell me that most others dope as well.

[Goldberk]

Lies, I know many professional cyclers. They all dope and also tell me that most others dope as well.

I reckon this is true, the dopers move faster than the testers.

[Repeat to Fade]

I reckon this is true, the dopers move faster than the testers.

That isn't correct anymore. Things like the biological passport have changed the game. You don't have to be found with a chemical in your body anymore, just the mere fact that your blood is boosted is enough. So it doesn't matter what drug you are taking the effects of the drug will be the evidence against you. On top of that you have the policy of not announcing what tests you can do helps. A couple of years ago people were taking CERA because there was no known test for it. But there was a test, it was developed in secret and then pounced upon those that used CERA. Then there is the handy storage of samples for testing later and so Rebellin doesn't have a silver olympic medal. Masking isn't very useful either since not only are those agents banned but a look at the Contador case suggests just how small a trace can lead to a ban.

Compare this to the likes of boxing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/boxing/20068384

[Brother of Karl]

I reckon this is true, the dopers move faster than the testers.

I reckon they also move faster than the non-dopers. Amirite?

[Demosthenes]

I don't get why people cling so futilely to these kinds of false moralities.

So they dope. Big deal. Despite what people like Sephardi will tell you there are long term effects to your health in doing so. In other words, its YOUR risk to take. The idea that anything is "pure" anymore is pure crap.

I feel the same with all professional sports. Big Deal!

[Repeat to Fade]

There is another way we can be rather sure doping is not at the peak it was in the Armstrong era. Cycling despite the incremental advances one would expect in any sport has actually slowed down. The average speed of the peleton is less than it once was. The power to weight ratio of cyclists has also been reduced which mathematically shows that the increase in performance given by doping is no longer in effect.

[Demosthenes]

You guys should also bitch and complain about hackers!

[park]

Pantani's revenge after 11 years.However with no doping you can't win because you would be beaten by the doped athletes

[R_G]

He had ball cancer that spread to his brain.



I say karma gave him fame and money.



Fuck the haters.

[Corporatios]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/more-sport/lance-armstrong-apologises-to-staff-at-his-livestrong-cancer-foundation/story-e6frfglf-1226553992130

It seems he came out of the closet finally, although there are rumours he did it on purpose so he can participate in Triathlon.

I don't get why people cling so futilely to these kinds of false moralities.

So they dope. Big deal. Despite what people like Sephardi will tell you there are long term effects to your health in doing so. In other words, its YOUR risk to take. The idea that anything is "pure" anymore is pure crap.

I feel the same with all professional sports. Big Deal!

Eveybody should face the consequences of their actions. Maybe if fans are always harsh with dopers, it will bring more and more shame to the wrongdoers, till the social/ celebrity stigma is too much to be considered an efficient deterrent.

[R_G]

At the end of the day, Lance Armstrong once again showed it's better to beg forgiveness after the fact.

He had a very nice, glamorous life. Even if he becomes poor right now, he had an exceptional run. Aside from the cancer of course.



It's so laughable how few of the Top 20 finishers were not doping.


Daniele Nardello finished 7th and 10th in Lance's first titles. He would in theory be the recognizable winner as he was never alleged to have doped.

Carlos Sastre would also be credited with two titles, finishing in 10th place one of those years.


Real Winners

[Repeat to Fade]

It's not just about him ending up poor he is looking at a possible jail sentence.

[Demosthenes]

I still can't get over the outrage.

Eveybody should face the consequences of their actions. Maybe if fans are always harsh with dopers, it will bring more and more shame to the wrongdoers, till the social/ celebrity stigma is too much to be considered an efficient deterrent.

The consequences happen when the dope you took messes up your system. Like say, cancer...

Beyond that all this is is setting the arbitrary complain bar at a low level and running with it.

[Brother of Karl]

Lance Armstrong will forever be remembered as a notorious cheater. He ought to kill himself to alleviate some of the shame and dishonor he brought upon his fans, his country, his sport, his charity and himself. Instead, he will probably make more money from his future book about how he cheated than most of us will ever make in our entire lives. No, those with the highest esteem should be held to a higher standard of integrity than the rest of us, because they are the ones who set the benchmarks. We cannot allow him to get away with doping, because maybe then young athletes will themselves decide not to dope in a sport that is supposedly endemic with it. Athletes should not feel that in order to have a chance at reaching the top, they need to put dangerous hormones in their bodies. Especially since top athletes are seen as the healthiest, strongest and most virile among us.

I still can't get over the outrage.

It's not just that he had an unfair advantage. In a perfect world, every biker on the Tour de France would have been given the same bike so that the richer ones who could afford $50,000 custom bikes wouldn't have had that extra advantage. But if the elites in a sport are able to get away with using dangerous hormones to win, that means that everyone who is serious about winning will now have to harm themselves. Willingness to poison yourself should NOT be a barrier to entry in any sport. Same goes for anorexia in gymnastics and so on.

[pugsville]

I a big fan of road bike racing, but doping was just rampant. Armstrong was just better organized, (as he was about anything) so perhaps he doped better but at the very least many of his rivals were too. I was a fan of Pantani and doping MAY have been a major cause in his early death. No Armstrong fan, never liked him, not a fan of his cycling strategy (i favour excitement) not a Cadel fan either.

See this link/ It was rife.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_ ... _de_France

Armstrong's attutde and holy than thou and savagery of his critics who now look pretty vindicated, rubbed me the wrong way. But at the end of day it's just a sport. And doping and the tour well, really who do you think was the first clean finisher in the last 30 years? I stuggle look at the lists, the sport has been pretty stuffed by this doping, but the real harm is the health of the riders who have suffered.

I dont like him and he should lose some of his ill gotten gains, but keep it perspective, he was one of many and it's just a bike race.

[Repeat to Fade]

But at the end of day it's just a sport.

Actually the point here is that it's not. Firstly he took federal money to buy drugs, that is very much now allowed.
On top of that there are the multitude of people who tried to out him and find themselves on the wrong end of a defamation lawsuit. It's not just other riders who lost out, there are journalists who had to fork out thousands of pounds, papers that had to pay millions for telling the truth and they may never see that again. Lance is probably going to end up in jail for that.

That is where the outrage comes from here. It's not about questioning whether Ulrich, or Pantani should have won instead it's about the fact that Lance Armstrong lined his pockets not only with the prize money but with money that he gained in fraudulent lawsuits.

Noone would have cared if Lance had doped so much, Contador is back in the peleton as are many others. What they do care about however is the way in which he went about denying it so adamantly and with lawyers in a court, under oath and lied through his teeth time and time again.

And not only that out of all this it's possible that Floyd Landis doesn't look like so much of a total dick. So Lance has taken that away from us too.

I was a fan of Pantani and doping MAY have been a major cause in his early death.

Pantani overdoses on cocaine, there is no "may" about it.

[Demosthenes]

It's not just that he had an unfair advantage. In a perfect world, every biker on the Tour de France would have been given the same bike so that the richer ones who could afford $50,000 custom bikes wouldn't have had that extra advantage. But if the elites in a sport are able to get away with using dangerous hormones to win, that means that everyone who is serious about winning will now have to harm themselves. Willingness to poison yourself should NOT be a barrier to entry in any sport. Same goes for anorexia in gymnastics and so on.

I get it man, I really understand the anti-doping point of view.

That isn't the issue.

To my way of thinking, thinking this hasn't already been the case for years and years is folly, and hoping athletes won't dope...for...*gulp* integrity is just plain... well, naive. Not to be offensive.

So... if all that is already true and has been true, then getting mad about it just seems... like a denial of reality.