Gosh, really? Tested, huh? Well, now I am convinced.
I thought with LA’s high profile even outside cycling, and with his constant refrain that he never failed a test, and with him getting comprehensively busted recently, the penny might have dropped with a few more people who don’t follow the sport closely: testing doesn’t work. All it does is catch the complete dopes who don’t know how to dope correctly, and provide a figleaf.
Wait, so it’s common knowledge within Amgen that players X, Y, Z, etc. cheat with their help? How hasn’t there been an extensive investigation? Or at least a whistleblower or two?
The only way L.A can get anything like credibility is to unreservedly come clean, not about himself, since we are all aware of his activities.That does not mean apologies at all, his handlers must understand that apologies would not be enough or even relevant.
We know that he was made aware of when testers were coming around, all we have at the moment is a few individuals from UCI hierarchy under some doubt, but not much concrete.
We have utterly unbelievable statements from the highest officials possible in UCI expressing support for all those involved in the drug cheating, even during investigations when it was clear that those officials should keep quiet and let the investigations take their course.
These statements were pretty clearly intended to influence the direction of those investigations. Seems to me that although L.A was one of the main players, there were untold numbers of other enablers and players involved - we know of bribes paid, or offered, but to whom? and of course these are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg.
If were we able to get high enough into the anti-doping labs, the regulating bodies and also the suppliers, we would probably find connections to other sports and athletes, not just doubt or suspicions, but real proof.
Now if L.A were to start that process rolling, he could still protect his brand. Don’t forget that in some cases, there is a statute of limitations on his testimonies, so he could readily negotiate a deal.
He could even be seen to be proactive, rather than just some cheat trying to save what remains of his ass - that is almost his style anyway.
Get serious everyone, Lance is clean… he said so in 2005 in his Nike Commercial.
(in case the sarcasm doesn’t translate well: I kid, I kid)
FWIW, USAtoday is reporting that Lance will confess on Oprah.
Re Tennis:
If I recall there were rumors of Nadal being caught up in a blood doping ring ages ago.
The amount of stamina that tennis requires would make it a pretty large target for autologous blood doping (you can’t test for it yet either save for cracking the 50 percent barrier I don’t think)
Yep, I’m hearing the same thing. I wonder what will constitute a “confession”. Totally admitting everything, apologizing, and so forth? Or some kind of other weaker deal.
That wasn’t very subtle. I hope he’s wrong.
There’s a new rumor about this or something like it every couple of months. When people produce evidence, it’ll deserve more consideration.
I’m just saying there are rumors. He happens to be my favorite. That’s why I picked him…certainly not the only one I’ve heard.
I know… I know… it was a subtle as a headbutt, and for that I do apologise. To be fair, when you’re quoting the words of a third party you’re engaging smack bang in the middle of hearsay so it’s only right not to name names. Still, my conversations with the chap in question were profoundly illuminating. To this day, Amgen (the company) estimates only 40 - 60% of all the EPO they’ve ever made has actually been used in theapeutic hospital settings. The rest has just plain “gone into the ether”.
But if we can get back to the main thrust of this thread… in many respects I personally can’t wait for the day Lance Armstrong is a person who doesn’t rate highly in the news headlines anymore. So long as he is relevant in any way, a whole bunch of other people get to be relevant by talking about him heaps - and I feel a bit of shame that I kinda fall into that trap occasionally myself.
I’d much rather be talking about Cancellara smashing Boonen’s candy ass up the Kappelmuur. Or Cadel Evans taking the lead in a Grand Tour while Wiggins and Froome do their Senna-Prost impersonation.
The culture of a given sport is the criteria which counts, above all else. Think of golf for example. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve seen big time players in the lead in Majors pull out because they accidentally filled their card out incorrectly the previous day. That’s a really strong culture of ethics at work.
I actually choose to believe cycling has gone through a massive cultural upheaval in the past 7 years since Armstrong’s first retirement. Some of you might say I’m naieve, however, I’m speaking to enough pros on a regular basis to get the vibe they’re absolutely just sick to the gills with being tarred by the same stinking putrid brush that Armstrong painted the whole sport with during his reign. These current blokes are proud men. They’re getting into loud arguements on planes now with strangers who make flippant remarks about them all being on the gear. For me, that’s a really good sign.
I know everyone is saying he’s going to “come clean” on Oprah, but I have to wonder why he would do so when he could be prosecuted for perjury. He needs to wait until the statute of limitation is up on that.
Still, I can’t believe I’m setting my DVR to record Orpah for the first time in my life!
At this point I don’t have any prediction one way or the other. I’m reading comments by people who know about the legal/business side of LA’s affairs who are saying “he won’t confess, he can’t afford to do so” and yet there seem to be others who purport to be insiders suggesting that he really is going to confess. No idea.
I knew the Justice Dept. giving Oprah the power to offer plea-deals would pay-off
I wonder if he will confess in such a washy washy non-committal way that it won’t have anything of substance a lawyer would be able to use against him.
If he ever wants to be seen as something other than a cheat and bully, he has to redeem himself. A mea culpa on national tv, along with a pre-arranged guilty plea in one of the softer districts allows him to close the sinner stage of the media circus. That means he can then go for the redeemed sinner play and try to reclaim some of his former glory.
And remember, the only people who really know how strong/precarious his situation is are Armstrong and his advisors. They may well have decided that it’s a house of cards ready to tumble, in which case it’s better to be seen to have confessed of his own accord.
You’re obviously referring to Agassi. Guess I can’t say I’d be hugely surprised - he was amazingly fit late into his 30s, and tennis is every bit an ‘endurance’ sport as cycling, so EPO to speed up recovery time between matches makes sense. (Although…how would some white lab coat know who was doping or not?)
Flip side - the idea that Agassi’s career was ‘in the gurgler’ until he found a ‘new training regime’ is kinda wrong. Agassi won his first $1 million in prize money faster than any player in history, won the most consecutive matches by a male teenager (a record that last for almost 20 years until broken by Nadal), was ranked No. 3 in the world in 1988, and made three grand slam finals before he turned 20. And the Agassi of the late 90s was a fundamentally better player: better serve, better tactics, heck, he was even better at the net. And there are enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that he did in fact change his nutrition later in his career (no more McDonald’s runs during grand slams) to support the idea that he always had talent, just had more success when he simply got in better shape. I’d certainly like to think so. Besides, if he was going to confess to being a meth head, one wonders why he wouldn’t admit to EPO as well; it certainly seems less embarrasing than taking crystal meth…
Lance’s confession - if that is what he is going to do - is probably the single biggest case of ‘too little, waaaay too late’ that I’ve ever seen. Think of all the people he’s destroyed over the years…is he going to apologize to Landis? Betsy Andreu? Paul Kimmage? And that’s just for starters…
His divorce from Brooke Shields more or less marked the moment he improved as well. He declined a lot when they were dating and got married, but turned it around afterwards.
Not really - it would move the playing field from “who is the best cyclist” to “who has the best group of doctors and pharmacists on his payroll”, and it also might get to the point where cycling ability plays little part in determining the winner, at which point people start asking, “Who cares any more?”, and stop watching the sport.
If you mean it’d be easier to get rid of the anti-doping rules - no, because some of this stuff is actually illegal.