So you aren’t a 'Merican, but you’re coming over all indignant on 'Mericans behalf? How noble.
Oooh, I love that tough guy nationalist thing you Americans do. It just makes me feel honoured to live on the same planet, while at the same time slightly humbled at my inability to be so upstanding and fine.
By the way, any of my 'Merican friends on these boards are free to borrow my broad brush at any time and use it concerning Aussies when appropriate.
All Americans can buy their own goddamn brush.
Thanks for the props. We’re here to serve and keep you free 
For those wondering about Lance’s marriage, he met his wife Kristin after recovering from his cancer battle, sometime in '97. They were separated in January of 2003, and he met Crow later in the year. Lance and Kristin tried for a reconciliation during last year’s tour, but reported that it didn’t work out. Sheryl and Lance became a steady item by December.
Facts have no place in this thread. Unless you found that out by a quick glance at a People magazine article while waiting in line at the grocery story.
LOL!! Nah, I’ve just been a fan of his since '93 and frequent a couple of cycling message boards. Some have tried to paint Lance as a cad for abandoning Kristin (after she had nursed him through the cancer battle, not!) for Sheryl. Since this is the pit, I’ll throw in an obligatory Folderol!! I say, utter poppycock!!
Oh, geez not this asshole again.
To repeat for those in the back: PROVE IT.
Oh, and by the way, Greg LeMond holds the record for the fastest time trial in a TdF. So where are your doping charges against him?
Oh, yeah, and Lance Armstrong was 4th in the state in 1,500 freestyle when he was 12. I guess he was doping back then too, right?
And, he won the Ironkids triathlon at age 13 and became a professional triathlete at 16. When he showed up in California he held his own in training rides against pros like Scott Tinley and Dave Scott. So I guess he was doping up then to ride competitively with Hawaii Ironman winners. He must have had a nice paper route to pay for all those drugs starting at age 11.
Go smell a bicycle seat, and Fuck Off.
When I read this, I immediately said to myself, “Lance must be a liberal”. Sure enough, from http://www.lancearmstrongfanclub.com/uktimesonline.html
Obvious, I suppose.
Aight’, I’ve lost a lot of energy on this thread so this will probably be my last post. I was earnestly surprised at how personally people took a lot of this, but again, I also appreciate that a lot of people being a bit more reasonable about the whole thing.
First off, here is some evidence of that magical acceleration that LeMond was talking about; I was surprised by how quickly some things changed, a lot more than even I expected when I looked at the numbers. In 1986, Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond finished l’Alpe de Huez in 48:00. Four years later, Bugno wins in 1990 and 1991 by around 39:00 minutes. Shaving 9 minutes in four years? 19%?
What if by 2008 the winning time for a marathon had gone to 1:42 from 2:05:38 today? What if three quarters of the field-could do it?
A 5K from 13:00 to 10:32?
A 200 M butterfly from 1:53.93 to 1:32.28?
Take whatever sport you want, and multiply the current time of a truly elite-level performance by .81. Does that sound reasonable to you in four years?
Like it or not, Armstrong is a member of a generation of cycling that is plagued by dope. But, again, that is not what I’m pitting him for. He’s a victim of it just as much as any other rider forced to use it to be competitive. He might almost have become a victim of it via cancer, but we will never know in the same way that we will never know if a person who smoked and pulled out asbestos from old tile floors for a living dies of lung cancer was a victim of smoking, asbestos, or just a random genetic disposition to it that would have presented itself regardless.
In response to DtC, I don’t have time to look for every possible drug that could be used to dope, and if Postal has a drug or two that no-one else knows about, they’re certainly not sharing and I’ll be damned if I could figure it out, but here is one in particular from Manzano’s grocery list: insulin-like growth factor-1, or IGF-1. When you put it into Google, every other page is hyping its benefits and trying to sell you a little half ounce bottle of it concentrated or warning about its links to cancer.
From http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Insulin-like%20growth%20factor
From http://www.americannutrition.com/misc/IGF_1.htm?OVRAW=IGF-1&OVKEY=igf%201&OVMTC=standard
And
Since IGF-1 is a copy of a natural hormone, someone with a complex understanding of pharmokinetics could easily avoid a positive drug test if they used the drug intelligently. Among other side effects, it an also lead to hypertrophy of the heart (consider the claim that LA’s heart is 1/3 larger than normal, and no one knows what the long term health effects of that are) and other organs (undesired).
But again, this is just a starting place for the discussion. What I’m pitting is a lack of leadership. If he just wants to ride his bike and win races; fine. Categorically deny everything; people like 5que won’t care. They can have their hero; people that are actually following the sport can think more critically about the issue. But actively and vindictively acting to silence people like Simenoi is what annoys me, as well as making broad accusations against people like LeMond who rode in a pre-modern-dope era.
I’ll grant that LA is certainly the greatest cyclist of this generation, but I’m taking issue with some personal aspects of the man. The argument that everyone does it, and therefore there is parity is certainly one that reasonably people can disagree about, but I take issue with the idea that, “They’re pros, they can sacrifice their safety and lives for our entertainment, what’s the big deal?”
I love this sport; watching it and competing in it are more fun than anything else I’ve ever found. But when I see mediocre riders like Manzano pushed like this, these lax attitudes about doping push my buttons, and I see riders like LA, who accept the status quo because it benefits them by being doped earlier and longer than other riders, and having a team with the resources to deliver better dope in a more sophisticated manner than other teams; that’s what this pit is about. If you guys need a bit more, I can dig upsome links to the several pro’s and semi-pros who die each year from heart attacks at 26.
I’d rather not find myself in this situation just so that I can play ball:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/2004/interviews/?id=jesus_manzano04
So what you’re saying is you have no evidence, right?
So what you’re saying, Telemark, is that you are not willing to consider the available evidence (all of which, every single bit, points to doping) and are only willing to consider evidence of some unspecified greater level?
No. Please note thread. Thanks, and have a nice day.
Other than the actual tests, right?
And the question remains, why Lance Armstrong? Why do you focus on him, Princhester?
Have some balls, some intellectual honesty. Say why you point out him instead of others. Point me to the other threads where you disparage athletes who dope up. Tell me how it is different that Ian Thorpe has feet the size of a giant? Does any athlete who excels raise your suspicion? Show me where it does.
An easy compromise - list a few of the other world class athletes that are doped up.
Not every athlete that excels necessarily raises suspicion, but the physically demanding, team organized nature of cycling lends itself to doping.
Some other doped athletes:
Andreas Kloden, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Azavedo Jose, Francisco Mancebo, David Millar, Jesus Manzano, Rumsas, Frank Vandenbroucke…
Hi Brutus, meet David Millar. David Millar, meet Brutus. You could tell him of your recent experiences, but don’t bother, because he’s not fucking listening.
Read my posts, idiot. You are currently so blinded by your pre-conceptions you seem unable to comprehend what I’m saying. Or maybe you just never had the intellectual capacity to do so in the first place. Whatever…
So, we have a cyclist who says he has used EPO, and that means we have to believe Lance, who is not even that cyclist’s teammate, has used EPO. Despite the lack of any evidence, we just have to assume it. Right.
Despite the fact that for someone like Lance Armstrong, who trains constantly at high altitudes, EPO is not even necessary.
Yes, Lance has advantages. He can get the best bikes, the best training. His body is perfect for cycling, and strangely enough his bout with cancer made it even better, in ways tough to duplicate for the others. And then, he is simply better than his opponents. And he trains harder.
I would suggest that you go look up what EPO actually does before embarassing yourselves further.
Lance doesn’t need it, and it is not necessary to account for anything he has done.
But for many of the other riders, who do not train like Lance or have his natural advantages, EPO is a likely explanation for how they can do so well.
Which, of course, accounts for the average times getting lower.
You guys made your mistake when you decided to take this issue away from the general and the average, where you have good evidence, and decided to inexplicably make it personal against Lance, where you have no evidence and there is even evidence against you.
I care fuck-all for Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France, but I have to say that this is quite possibly the most nakedly hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen on the boards.
Why so? If you read carefully you’ll see that I was accusing others of being nationalistic, I was not being that myself. Or tell me where I’m going wrong.
Right, and if making that accusation isn’t “turn[ing] this into something nationalistic”, then I don’t know what is. Really, I don’t. I truly cannot comprehend how you can accuse everyone backing Armstrong of being blind nationalists, and then turn around and accuse them of introducing nationalism when they quite rightly point out that you are being unreasonable (to put it mildly).
Basically, the evidence against Armstrong is so utterly far from conclusive that for you to accuse dissenters of doing so purely on the basis of nationality is pretty lazy. And yes, you started it.