As an outsider looking in, just started cycling a few years back, that has not and never will follow professional cycling it appears to me that there is a direct relationship to how much you loved-loved-loved LA back in the day and how much spittle forms at the corner of your mouth when you screech about him now.
If you rode a Trek, wore a yellow bracelet and rocked a USPS jersey in 2002, your barely contained rage comes through every time his name is mentioned. Maybe you defended him from attacks from your non-cycling friends “who just didn’t know” and now suffer the shame of having to acknowledge that Daryl your fat next door neighbor, the one who’s drunk every football weekend on Natty Ice (and makes amazing fucking ribs) was right all along…ouch
It stings, I get it.
I’ll tell you what though…this YouTube video has got me through more VO2 intervals than all other things combined.
Yup. In the 90’s I raced with a young dude who was a monster. He moved to Italy to race and was back home within a year, citing the rampant doping at all levels.
I have no problem saying Al Capone was the greatest mobster or that Pablo Escobar was the greatest drug dealer or that Trump was the grea…mmmm never mind. Perhaps we need an applicable definition of ‘success’ and ‘failure’.
Let’s be honest here…it was not some moment of moral clarity, or his kids getting in fights defending him, that made him come clean. He came clean because he had no other option…he was painted into a corner and the only way out was for him to confess.
I dont agree with that, he could have stuck to his story all the way to the end. Coming clean did not help his case with the Federal Prosecutors one bit. He didnt get any sponsors back, he didnt suddenly make any friends from it.
“Moral clarity”? No, probably not, I agree with you, “extreme overwhelming guilt”? yeah probably.
Here in Canada, it’s difficult to access this episode of 30 for 30 without a VPN subscription yadayada. Has anyone been able to find a torrent/download link that they could share?
His confession was the direct result of one thing and one thing only…the USADA report. He could no longer deny his activity because his closet supporters (Hincapie, et al all confessed and testified to his guilt.
It wasn’t some internal “overwhelming guilt”, it was “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
I don’t really see how it is a false equivalence. It’s pretty much the exact same cheating. Armstrong took an illegal performance enhancer. Wiggins got a fake TUE so that he could take an illegal performance enhancer. Pretty much the same crime.
“Fortunately, there were a few riders, like me, who rode without [doping]…I managed my career in the circumstances of the time.” – David Moncoutié
Wonder why voldemort couldn’t manage his career without doping, lying, cheating, stealing, coercing, bribing, harassing, threatening, dating multiple mini moms, etc, etc, etc? Heroic or weak?
Armstrong wanted to win – it was the main thing that drove him. Moncoutie could make a good salary on a French team, particularly if he played up the eau claire angle. Post-Festina, Christophe Moreau did the same thing at Credit Agricole (clean, that guy would start the Tour with a hematocrit in the low 40s…ouch).
Lance didn’t want to be the “best American” finishing 100th or 50th at the Tour, and maybe picking up a stage win now and then. He had big ambitions, and in that era, big ambitions meant getting dirty. Ruthless was also quite useful.
Saiz, Riis, and Godefroot were both dirty and ruthless (add Ferretti to that list). The problem for them was that their star riders during the Armstrong era were simply dirty. Bruyneel and Armstrong was a match made in black-soul heaven.
Pretty sure every competitive cyclist wants to win. Appears that he didn’t have the mental wherewithal to stop that want from controlling him. Perhaps he should have cited ‘mental illness’ as the root cause behind his illegalities and repugnance. A shame such a weak ego had to cause so much pain & suffering outside of its host.
Oh well. Guess he’s still useful for making money off of.
Sure, but wanting to win at that level, in that era, meant sticking whatever needle in your arm or leg that you had to. Otherwise, you really didn’t want to win. You may have liked to have won, but you and the rest of the peloton knew you were not in it to win it.
Armstrong’s want was just greater than anyone else’s – to the point that it made him a sociopath. If Eddy was the Babe Ruth of cycling, then Lance was the Ty Cobb (who was, by all accounts, a pretty terrible human being when he was playing).
Ah…and that’s the catch. As another ‘never positive’ doper (hint: Jaja) once said, “Some riders want to win, other riders need to win.” lxnce was not in control of his egotistical needs; they controlled him. I’m starting to feel less and less disgusted by him, knowing that he was merely a shell of a human; akin more to a drug addict who breaks into cars to steal change from the cup holder (and maybe relieve himself in the backseat) rather than some kind of amazing Icarus-esque hero of the people.
Kind of like how Lantern Rouge (5 /5 ) is enamoured with VDB. You can’t deny the sheer thrill of those performances, but everything surrounding them is pure and total .
/5 
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