I would say if you are competing with professional triathletes at the age of 15 you are an elite specimen
Did you see the part where he was effortlessly cleaning up local endurance sports? Did you note that everyone around him was also doping?His off-the-couch abilities are at a level that only a few people have. His early struggles in pure road racing were learning the sport, losing that upper body strength, and getting the right coaching/team/help.
EPO, as it has been stated in a few places, adds about 10% to your aerobic fitness. Cancer treatment was also a big helper, stripping ~7% of his unneeded upper body mass; you add 10% power and remove 7% weight… that takes you from really good to all-time greatness. The rest of the s*** he was doing was just letting him train longer and keep lean. Doping is not going to replumb your entire cardio system, it’s not going to give you narrower shoulders, it’s not going to give you more slow twitch muscle, it’s not going to give you a metabolism to delivery 1400cal/hr.
What I found interesting is the level of a-hole LA was from the get-go and the degree to which he’s seemingly mellowed over the years. I can forgive the 18yr version of someone pretty easily. With that starting point, the adult version of him is a relative saint.
Once we let Madoff out of jail for causing the Financial Crisis, I’ll think about forgiving the other guy.
Can we stop trying to rehabilitate Lance? The 00’s are over and he should rightfully be remembered as a disgrace. Still can’t talk about cycling to others without it being nothing but doping jokes.
I agree with this. There are so many great cyclists in the world right now. Why do we need 15 documentaries about one of the biggest ass-holes in history. We get it, he doped and then ruined the lives and careers of some of his closest ‘friends’ to try to keep his name clean. We need more things like the Movistar series that focuses on the current sport. There is enough drama and intrigue going on now that you wouldn’t need to talk about Lance for years. Get people interested in what is going on now and the current players.
Not excusing what Lance did but as a 2x cancer survivor myself the treatment does MUCH more to strip your gains than help. Yes it can cause weight loss but it kills your fitness when you can’t get on the bike for 6 months. At least it did for me. It took me a 6 months to get back to my precancer fitness.
Cancer treatment is NEVER a “big helper” except to kill cancer cells and lots of other cells along with it.
Totally! When I hear the younger Lance talk it is so cringe worthy. He’s such a punk! You want to punch him in the face.
Overall I was surprised that Vaughters, Julich, Hamilton, et al. were part of this tell all story.
David Walsh rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe he has a lot to be bitter about but I don’t agree with the hyper focus on Armstrong. They made a big deal about Armstrong destroying everybody in 1999 and beating Zulle, the world TT champ, in the final TT. Armstrong only beat him by 10 seconds ergo Zulle must be doped to the gills as well if they are only 10 seconds apart in a long TT. When Walsh talks he makes it sound like Armstrong was the only one that went through this magical transformation. What about the Gewisse team or the Mapei team taking 1-2-3 at Paris Roubaix. Or Pantani? Ullrich? The all were doing it.
So, did we learn anything new?
I think Lance admitting to doping in his first pro season is new information for me. Though the claim is that he won his first worlds with the light weight drugs, not EPO.
It was fascinating that in his first year back Armstrong went from not being able to finish races and on the verge of quitting to 4th in the Vuelta.
I assure you that it had nothing to do with his cancer treatment. There are better ways to gain fitness than undergo chemo and radiation. Trust me
30 for 30, the show: The show was great. Most interesting was the progression of PED from steroids to EPO. And particularly, that it was the US drug company AMGEN (sponsor of the Tour of California), that developed EPO. Fun fact: It was the Italian cycling team, Festina, that made most use of EPO first, not Lance or any other American.
Lance vs. Jordan: What’s missing in prior comments comparing the two is that Jordan was great, but did little to change the game of basketball. It was already one of the big 4 in the U.S. (in order: Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey). Ironically, Jordan’s greatest contribution was to the apparel industry (Nike’s Air Jordan).
However, Lance fundamentally put U.S. cycling on the map and introduced cycling in the U.S. to the masses. It is a huge business here largely due to what he did. He also raised awareness bringing it to new levels in many other countries as well. What is less recognized is how so many coaches in sports other than cycling used his highly disciplined approach to bring their sports to new levels.
Editor Note: As @TonyLPowell points out in a later post, Jordan impacted countries outside of the U.S. As such, I will confine my comparison of Lance vs Jordan’s impact to the U.S. only.
15 minutes in and he reaffirmed how much of a dick he is. To this day he still tries to to explain and justify everything. But entertaining TV for sure.
No doubt of the stripping of fitness, but it didn’t resize his oversized cardio plumbing, damage his lungs, or hurt (long term) the other system in his body. It did strip him of most of his muscle, so he had to rebuild it all. It also helped him lose those 20lb of excess upper body muscle that he couldn’t on his anorexic diet, which was key for both climbing and TT.
If this was football, his career would have been over. Since he’s a steady state cyclist, he just needed to rebuild that muscle (here, I see no issue with perf enhancing drugs out of comp). Being ABLE to rebuild the minimum amount of muscle was a HUGE benefit for him.
Note: it says 20lb here - How Skinny Are the Top Tour de France Riders, Really? - Outside Online
Yes we can but let’s be honest, cycling = doping. If not Lance it would have been someone else but cycling arguably wouldn’t have risen to the level of prominence without Lance. So yes the doping jokes get attributed to Lance. How amazing would it be if Lance was the only doper? I mean we could all move on and enjoy our clean sport. I truly wish that were the case.
Yet, if Lance never existed who else has tested positive for doping at some point in their career and then was caught, denied it or both?
Chris Froome? Check
Levi Leipheimer? Yes
Bradley Wiggins? Yup
Alejandro Valverde? Indeed
Tom Danielson? Several times
George Hincapie? Admittedly
Jonathan Vaughters? Wrote a book about it
Alberto Contador? 4 titles stripped
Miguel Indurain? Never tested positive, sounds familiar?
Tom Boonen? Just a little coke
And let’s not forget, Eddy Merckx, not once, not twice, three times, all denied, all led to results being voided.
So so many others could be on the list. This picture does a nice job of covering the issues with the sport. The problems are/were well beyond the damage that could be caused by any one individual:
Wow, that is ironic when you look at it that way. 
The only thing worse than a discussion about Lance is the inevitable "but what about … " discussions immediately after.
Look, Lance keeps trying to come back and be back in the limelight. We shouldn’t allow him. He destroyed cycling for an entire generation and made pro cycing nothing but a debate about doping since.
It’s sad.
To be clear, I’m not blaming AMGEN. They developed the drug for legitimate purposes. It was the published research about the benefits of the drug that led to endurance athletes (not just cycling) to realize the benefits. With that as a background, it is easy to imagine how athletes in all sports look to the drug research (that they don’t fund) to benefit their performance and thus, why WADA and other anti-doping agencies face a never-ending battle.
I will agree with parts of what you say but I don’t agree that he alone destroyed cycling for an entire generation. Cheating was prevalent, he’s the one we all talk about. I wish that weren’t the cast but it is. As I said above, I don’t think you remove Lance from history entirely and end up with a clean sport. The “but what about” conversations simply elude to the fact that it was bigger than one person.
To your point, there are still many people associated with doping still highly prominent in the world of cycling. When they are long gone, not just Lance, all of them, then maybe the narrative will change.
heh yeah, kinda funny in a way that his biggest mistake wasnt actually cheating, it was just being a mega jerk about it.
He seems really similar to MJ in that thing it takes for them to be the greatest ever, makes them just really unlikable as a person and not really someone you would want ot be around. Weird that we collectively fantasize as a society about wanting to be these types of people because of their success, but in reality I think it would be a pretty unhappy life compared to most of our unknown random existences.
Doesn’t really sound like MJ has changed much in his old age, Lance at least seems to have mellowed out somewhat. Probably has a lot to do with the fact he had lots of opportunity for growth given he got ripped from his pedestal and became a pariah.
I understand, but it is ironic. I went to the ToC and knew AMGEN was the sponsor, I guess I never really thought about the irony until you pointed that out.
Lemond is just bitter, and really he seems like quite a jerk himself. Funny too given it’s not like he was “clean”.