Nor, for that matter, would I desire any “help” that you might be able to offer.
“More”? Not necessarily. I think that there are riders who are competing at Armstrong levels this year. They are bringing a great deal of heart to this year’s Tour, and I salute them. They are all worthy.
What you said is something I tend to forget. In all honesty, I’d rather learn nothing at all about athletes because nothing good can come of it. I haven’t heard anything all that negative about lance that wasn’t complete conjecture, I just get a little sick of seeing his name everywhere. A month or two ago he was on the cover of like 3 magazines at the magazine counter. Maybe I should just pile the publicity thing I have a problem with onto the umpteen other things I dislike the press for.
I hold nothing against Lance himself but when people start to win in long strings, I get bored and tend to take that out on the person who is winning (when perhaps I should take it out on the rest of the field). I would love it if I could see there being a few people Lance would have to overcome, (Ulrich is proving not up to the task, and Basso can’t time trial) then I would probably look a little more foreward to the rest of the tour.
So you are pitting him for being great at and dedicated to his job? That makes sense. If you felt the issue was serious enough to pit, others may feel it is serious enough to point out some of the pitfalls in your flaming.
Eh. It’s a bike race. A guy on a bike is winning it. Big whoop.
This year’s race was practically over after the first day in the mountains. It’s not Armstrong’s fault, the competition is so weak.
That said I follow bike racing and he really is rather dull. This year it seemed he won by attrition. After the TDF were will he be? I bet he does 2 more races the rest of the year. Before the tour I think all he did was Daupine and the Tour de Georgia. As much as I like his story surviving cancer and all that I will be glad when he retires.
By the way isn’t testicular cancer associated with testosterone abuse?
:rolleyes: Among many, many, many other possible causes.
Unfortunatly Testosterone use is strongly associated with professional cycling. 
I’m with you there. In order for me to get excited about a bike race, the bicycles need to have training wheels and the athletes need to have their baby teeth.
Which proves what with regard to Lance Armstrong again?
Right. Nada.
I never said it proved anything. However it is naive to assume any professional athlete is clean. Cycling has more than its fair share of scandals. Who would have thought D Millar was a doper?
Another reason I look forward to LA is that it is really tiresome hearing his fans refuse to even entertain the possibility that he has used drugs to enhance his results. I don’t think you can realistically follow the sport in light of the last several years of scandals and not worry.
Look forward to his retirement I meant
Ahem, well, since this is a pitting of the Tour, I have to commend today’s stage for being among the least suckalicious yet.
Mr. Ullrich seems to have found most of his form back. Not enought to actually succeed in attacking, but enough form to actually make one, enough to at least make Mr. Armstrong find himself relatively alone at the finish.
I’m still holding out hope for some more attacks on Thursday and possibly some TT upsets. Granted, no one has a real chance here to really threaten LA, but at least things are getting vaguely more interesting.
Perhaps this thread should have gone IMHO, but considering that it’s considering Pit-space with threads on toilet-seat pee, pitting other posters, Wal-Mart greeters, dildos in Texas, and open-letters to roomates, it actually feels quite comfy here.
Lance is in Yellow, all is right with the world. 
[Timmy from South Park]Uh, damn it all!!![/Timmy from South Park]
A coupla general points:
You don’t like cycling? Fine. No problem. Go watch one of thousands of other sporting events. But posting to a cycling thread just to ridicule it is like going into some-one’s living room and dropping a load. Cycling fans don’t go into NASCAR threads to poop on them. If you think it’s easy, just try riding a bike 5,000 km in 3 weeks.
As to USP’s tactics. If you think that Lance’s wins are somehow “boring” because of good tactics, well, what about Indurain or Bjarne Riis? They won their Tours using the same dedicated team structure. And it’s not like the other teams couldn’t adopt the same tactics. In fact, Rabobank and Phonak built their Tour teams in exactly the same way for the same reason – it works. Interestingly enough, those two teams were also Euro-heavy teams built around an American GC contender.
And for Armstrong doping. Yeah, it wouldn’t be exactly surprising if he was doping. But Millar doesn’t prove anything about Armstrong. There isn’t any evidence of doping. There’s a bit of heresay testimony which wouldn’t be allowed even in the CAS. Millar, I might also point out, did have high 'crit levels on some tests. High 'crit levels are officially not doping controls, so the statement “He never tested positive” is accurate. Armstrong hasn’t (to my knowledge) had any questionable 'crit levels. Being the most-tested athlete in this year’s Tour, I’d think that he’d get nicked for at least that if he was using blood doping or EPO.
My informal discussions with very keen cyclists including professional cyclists is that the whole sport is drug dependant from top to bottom.
I don’t really care, as long as it’s a level playing field. The whole drugs in sport thing is much less black and white than many seem to realise, once you start analysing it. If LA uses a new streamline body suit (like he did yesterday) that’s fine. If he employs a doctor who devises an advantageous weird diet which gives him an advantage that’s fine. But certain sorts of drugs are not OK because of certain fairly artificial rules. Whatever.
Either those in the tour are able to take banned substances and get away with it or they are not. I strongly suspect the former. You cannot escape the fact that Millar has admitted to taking banned substances but never failed a test.
If I’m wrong and you cannot get away with it, then fine, presumably those on the tour are generally “clean”.
If I’m right and you can get away with it, then many on the tour will be doing just that. To believe otherwise is immensely naive. If some on the tour are on banned substances then LA is either superhuman (such that he is able to beat everyone else by a considerable margin despite others being on performance enhancing drugs) or he’s on them too.
I know what I’m going with and I don’t care, as long as its even stevens for everyone. My real concern is that tokenist anti drug efforts may just have the effect of unfairly punishing those who don’t have access to the best doctors etc (to make sure they don’t fail tests).
Just a not about Ullrich. I have nothing aginst the guy, but think about his win back in the '90s. He was the hottest thing on the Tour. Got a 2nd place in his first race, and a win in his second. Then, suddenly, he’s no better than #2. If any of the cyclists screams out “doping”, it’s Jan. I think that, back when he got his win, pretty much all the cyclist were doped up. And now that the testing is so much better and more comprehensive, he just doesn’t seem to have the umph.
Granted, it’s all circumstantial. But if anyone wants to float the charge that Lance is doped up… well, I think the shoe fits (did fit?) Jan much better.
If it’s even-steven for them all then the racing has more potential to be entertaining. Professional sports are really just entertainment after all. That said it’s kind of hard to root for someone who may be winning simply because they have a better pharmacist. Further more it might be the ones that win are the ones willing to take the most drugs or the most dangerous drugs.
Exactly. I’m not blaming Armstrong for doping being such a problem in cycling. He wasn’t the one who created it. It was there before him, is a contemporary problem to him, and will be there after him. But, what I cannot stand to think is that Postal’s team advantage goes beyond on the bike, but into having more money and more time to develop dependable doping strategies. If anabolic steroids are being used, it seems like they would have a cumulative effect, and I’m pitting Armstrong for going to dope so early, as a poster with an indirect personal conection seems to have claimed.
I’ve been thinking about dope a lot over the last few days, and exploiting a few connections around town to try to get a clearer idea of this, and everything that I’ve heard directly from people connected to Postal, ex-Posties, etc. all points definitively to one thing. Postal dopes. They dope early, they dope often, they’re smart, they’re systematic, and they have loads of resources going into how to do it. Think whatever you want, but that’s the truth.
Since this is the pit, I have to tell you to go fuck youself with a big-pointy stick over this one. When Ulrich started this tour, it seemed obvious that he was off of his form over last year. Watching him race lately, he’s a whole new rider. Back on form, not suffering, and certainly again deserving of a second place finish. The rumor flying about now is that Ulrich was sick and on anti-biotics in the first week of the Tour. No doubt we’ll see the truth come out in a few weeks after the Tour. If he was sick, T-Mobile wouldn’t have wanted to admit this during the Tour, but would want to afterwards.
Watching Ulrich TT up l’Alpe yesterday was inspiring; LA was great, but Ullrich was right up there. They’re both on a level above the vast majority of the rest of the peleton. It was most certainly not a lack of “umph.”
Today’s stage: Damn you Kloden! He timed his counter-attack perfectly and put the hammer down so hard that no one even wanted to follow him at first. Everyone thought he would win. So he sat up! It was his to lose, and he did just that. Fuck! Don’t ever sit up inside of 2K! Uhhhhgggg… damn it all!
I don’t! Parity is boring. With parity, anyone could win at any given time on the right day. It’s more interesting when there’s an individual whose skill, talent and physical attributes put him far above his competitors, who are already the best of the best. Would you want to see basketball without a Magic Johnson or Michael Jordon? Or boxing without a Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson? It is these breakout stars that elevate interest in a particular sport, and people like watching them precisely because their skills and abilities put them above everyone else.