I don’t understand why you keep saying things like “people suddenly got upset”? Many, many of us were upset while it was happening. Is your argument “people didn’t think he was a jerk until they found out he was a jerk”? Well…of course that’s true.
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Ok @Pbase , this is a fair response. “People” is a poor word choice as clearly multiple folks (likely including yourself) were well aware of his antics the entire time and never cared for them - I can get behind and respect that.
“People” represents the overwhelming majority of folks who got upset only once he became the “disgraced Lance Armstrong” and that is what I find comical. It’s not an argument, it’s just funny.
I’m not arguing with anything you are saying as it appears you’ve long thought what you think. To assume most are in the same camp as you is wrong, and for me to assume most feel how I feel is wrong.
Fair enough.
I just don’t understand why you think people would know someone was a bad person before they know he’s a bad person. I mean, that’s true of all things. I didn’t know water was wet until I knew water was wet.
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If a person is not willing to look the slightest bit beyond the highlight reel to develop an opinion then that’s on that person, is what I’m saying. A very large group of people apparently didn’t care enough to look beyond the highlight reel, but chose to be very upset once things were put directly in front of them. If you don’t care enough to do the homework on the front end, it’s comical to get upset with what you don’t like on the back end.
I dont disagree with your water analogy.
Interesting. I don’t agree, but thanks for explaining.
I never liked him much, never wore a yellow bracelet, and always thought he was too brash/Texas/whatever for my taste back in the day.
I know people that wore that stupid yellow bracelet for years. I’m just not a jump on the bandwagon type of person and would never wear a bracelet to identify with a celebrity or a cause.
I remember that press conference where Lance was shouting - “I am clean!”. I also remember news commentators saying - “The man donated his own money to the doping association, how can he cheat?” And now everyone is agreeing he cheated. So what? Does this mean it’s OK to cheat if you do not get caught? Or you get caught when it does not matter? That’s a philosophical question, or is it?
Point #2. In the past people used to compete with each other to figure out who can do better. Now we have science so advanced that we actually know why some people can do better. How will this affect the sport? Now parents can submit children for an evaluation to find what sport is better for them. Do all the tests and see if the child has a potential or he or she should forget about high achievements. In a broader sense - does inheritance play a bigger role in human life when we try to persuade ourselves?
On a side note I have to say that I also was diagnosed with asthma when I started swimming in a pool. Over the years the symptoms changed and now I have runny nose when I start going to the pool. So I gave up. Interestingly now the biggest thing that stops me from going faster is the muscle pain. In the past it was shortness of breath.
How much was actually Lance destroying people’s lives, lying, and cheating versus Lance being the prominent figure for the cycling industry doing this left and right? It doesn’t seem like the postal team was the only one running off of doping, just that they were most successful in doing it.
I’ve always wondered how big the difference in reaction would be if he was just another European and not the only American cyclist most people on the street can name. At the top level of competition, most athletes are or can be perceived as pricks. They can even be adored for that type of behavior, Michael Jordan. Every team was trying to cheat WADA, he just made the longest, most public run before getting caught.
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Lance sued a journalist in 2004 for $1.5mil for reporting (correctly) that he was doping. He was aggressive in targeting people that called him a doper, not just saying he was clean but actively seeking to punish people who said otherwise.
I can’t believe that a person would be ok with defrauding someone out of that much money (for telling the truth) and still be able to look at themselves in the mirror. I can’t think of a scenario where I would actually like that person in real life if I were to meet him.
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My guess would be little to no difference. People broadly like American Lemond because he seemed like a nice guy. People dislike European Moscon because he seems like a dick. I would say nationality only really came into it because Armstrong brought with him a legion of fans who were new to cycling and knew very little about the sport (though not just American fans, he did a lot to raise the profile of the sport in the UK as well, and I’m sure in a lot of other places).
Anecdotally those new fans largely seemed to be the people who insisted he was clean when he was winning because of his cancer story (while more seasoned fans were highly sceptical), and then when he was eventually proved to be a doper pivoted neatly to the narrative of “everybody dopes in cycling and Lance was still the best”.
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Have a look at what Lance did to Betsy and Frankie Andreau.
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While it was happening it was so obvious, some of the lives ruined or or trying to discredit:
Greg LeMond
Franky & Betsy Andreu
Filipo Simeoni
Emma O’Reily
David Walsh
and other ex team mates and ‘coleagues’…
When I saw him chase down simioni it was so blatently obvious what was going on… even the (UK) tv commentators were saying he shouldn’t have done it live!
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He had gotten away with it too many times. He thought he was untouchable. Just like all his shenanigans with the dope testers.
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I think Peter Attia’s interview is the best one I’ve seen of Lance. I watched it awhile back… somewhere in there, Lance mentions having had a near 500 watt FTP at the height of his doping.
As for all the BS surrounding LA, it’s been hashed to death for over a decade since Floyd Landis first spilled the beans. Hard to believe that people are still debating this. There’s nothing to debate. Minds have been made. Save your breath, people.
The larger whole of society DGAF what happened with Lance and cycling. They were happy to see him fall because it was a big, juicy news story. But they didn’t actually care.
Meanwhile, plenty of former dopers continued to work in pro cycling. Like Jonathan Vaughters. According to Phil Gaimon’s books, that guy was a real asshole. Why was/is he still working? Should’ve booted that guy to the curb.
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Because he created a team / structure that has employed hundreds / thousands of people over the years?
I dunno, just a guess.
Equating his doping to -7’s is simplistic, at best. To his credit, Vaughters left USPS to seek out cleaner pastures, apparently raced clean for the rest of his career (bee sting incident, anyone?) and created a structure that has been going on for almost 2 decades. Almost zero similarity to Lance’s doping history.
(The above is NOT an endorsement of Vaughters as a person or individual…just noting that trying to equate him to LA simply because they both doped at one point is a false equivalency)
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I think Americans are more competitive by nature. Europeans are less aggressive. In 2007 Michael Rasmussen quietly left team Rabobank when he was faced with doping allegations. Since then he was cycling with regional teams participating in local competitions. Who remembers poor Rasmussen who almost won TDF that year?
I certainly remember how painful it was to watch him on a TT bike, lol
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Lance Armstrong isn’t real. He can’t hurt you.
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But you may be able to summon him by saying his name 3 times while looking into your bathroom mirror.
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I guess that is partially my point. It was so obvious at the time there was a culture in the peloton/industry/media of trying to silence those speaking out about doping and threatening the current hierarchy.
How many other riders were blacklisted like Franky but didn’t win a tour with Lance and are just forgotten when the less successful riders and smaller teams were brought down?
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