Lance Armstrong stripped of Tour de France titles for doping

Anyone watch part one of the interview with Oprah tonight?

The guy is an absolute sociopath and a total scumbag banana split to boot. Surely no one could side with him still after watching some of that. Some of his responses were just unbelievable. He comes across as a truly horrible person.

Link to a stream anywhere?

This all strikes me as the public being angry because of how little they know about juicing than anything else. Nearly all those Olympic stars everyone was so in love with just 6 months ago have been on something, at some point. Some of them are walking chemistry experiments.

First 15 mins of interview. Rest should be in the sidebar.

I actually feel bad for the guy:

The BBC wrote:Asked if doping was part of the process required to win the Tour, he said: "That's like saying we have to have air in our tyres or water in our bottles. It was part of the job.
"I don't want to make any excuses, but that was my view and I made those decisions."
In a key exchange Winfrey asked: "Did it feel wrong?
Armstrong replied: "No. Scary."
"Did you feel bad?"
"No. Even scarier."
"Did you feel that you were cheating?"
"No. The scariest."
Armstrong continued: "The definition of a cheat is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe. I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field. I didn't understand the magnitude of that. The important thing is that I'm beginning to understand it.

He's got to pretend for the hand wringing world as though his views on the matter has changed. On top of that he's lumped with all these sad individuals who apparently he "let down." People literally in tears at the news that a man they've never met doped. He's then got to pretend he gives a crap about these maladjusted individuals.

Armstrong said he had not been afraid of getting caught. "Testing has evolved. Back then they didn't come to your house and there was no testing out of competition and for most of my career there wasn't that much out-of-competition testing so you're not going to get caught because you clean up for the races.

"I didn't fail a test. Retrospectively, I failed one. The hundreds of tests I took I passed them."

Hardly any out of competition testing, hint hint.

I almost felt bad for the poor sods who didn't manage to clean up in time for the Olympics and were told to stay at home. The Albanian weightlifter has literally given up the sport. It must be pretty brutal being disgraced like that in front of everyone when you know everyone else is doing it.

To be fair he lied to people who have survived cancer by saying that he came back and did what he did with willpower and determination. They have a right to be pissed off.

As do the people who are long time fans of cycling who believed they were seeing incredible sporting feats. You don't have to have met the guy to have been suckered by his lies.

As I said in the thread about the New Years honours, it would not surprise me in the least if it turned out our cycling heroes were all cheating dopers.

We would be very naive and arrogant to assume that British athletes are any different to the rest of the world. And when you think of the pressure they must have felt during their home Olympics it'd be no wonder if some/most of them took performance enhancing drugs.

There was a picture a while ago showing the top of every recent Tour de France and how many had been doping but I can't find it so this will have to do, pictured are the found dopers...

It's ridiculous.

EDIT:

And those were the ones that got caught, think how many slipped under the radar.

Dreadful, what a hollow sport.

Harry Bizzle wrote:He's got to pretend for the hand wringing world as though his views on the matter has changed. On top of that he's lumped with all these sad individuals who apparently he "let down." People literally in tears at the news that a man they've never met doped. He's then got to pretend he gives a crap about these maladjusted individuals.

What, you don't think it's possible to make a hero of somebody you've never met [such as a sportsman] and then feel let down when you find out they're a fraud?

What an odd post.

Can't wait to catch this over the weekend.

Did he have a little sniffle and a tear??? Wanker, dirty cheating wanker.

Dangerblade wrote:
Harry Bizzle wrote:He's got to pretend for the hand wringing world as though his views on the matter has changed. On top of that he's lumped with all these sad individuals who apparently he "let down." People literally in tears at the news that a man they've never met doped. He's then got to pretend he gives a crap about these maladjusted individuals.

What, you don't think it's possible to make a hero of somebody you've never met [such as a sportsman] and then feel let down when you find out they're a fraud?

What an odd post.

I think if I really gave that much of a crap about cycling I'd not be so utterly detached from the reality of it.

So Lance was a manipulative, cheating bully then

I thought he came across terribly, I think the only thing no to make him look worst is if he actually put out hits on people he was suing at the time

The guy's a banana split, and I hope he is sued for every single penny he has.

I don't follow cycling, but I find the fact that someone can just cheat, and then lie continually for years, even under oath, and then suddenly repent just because it suddenly suits him so utterly disgusting.

He'll prob get away with it too. couple of years and nobody will care.

I think he's innocent.

I suppose in a perverse way Lance is entirely correct immigration that it was a level playing field. Virtually all the top riders were doping doping so in a way his achievement is probably as impressive as it always was.

captain red dog wrote:I suppose in a perverse way Lance is entirely correct immigration that it was a level playing field. Virtually all the top riders were doping doping so in a way his achievement is probably as impressive as it always was.

If you're certain everyone got exactly the same % increase in performance and had access to the same level of cheating, then yeah. If not, no.

I suppose they all the same genetic, training and budget limitations as well, eh?

Lance Armstrong stripped of Tour de France titles for doping

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