ESPN's Rick Reilly was one of Armstrong's staunchest defenders for years. Guess not so much anymore. He also tweeted his reactions during the Oprah interview. Like Reilly, I really bought into the myth he sold everyone. Watched the tour, have a US Postal jersey (have to post the picture myself wearing it the day he won his 5th TdF). Really believed him, until that Alpe d'Huez time trial -- as I've said before, there's no way someone who is clean can annihilate competitors who are all doping like that. But I was still willing to forgive him. but the way he treated the Andreus, Emma O'Reilly, Greg Lemond (my first and now only cycling hero) and so many others is simply unforgivable.
If I was Lance my official response to the media would've been to "mind your own f-ing business" who the hell is anyone to deserve and apology from this guy.. Also the studies show the other direct competitors were all on the juice as well. So our juice head was better than all other juice heads. Who would've thought the TOUR would be this dirty of a sport.
You know he did a lot more than doping, right? A lot of very bad things indeed. And "they were all doing it!" Is no excuse either.
who cares, it doesn't matter to me nor does he owe me and 99.9% of the worlds public anything. Especially an apology.... and name the other "very bad things" he did as well.
Now, I could go and get links regarding careers destroyed, bullying, bribing of officials and how he's tarnished the sport of cycling more Han anyone else, but as you say, who cares? So I don't see why I should bother, do you?
Like I said who really cares... besides the other best competitors were on the sauce as well, so the playing field was even. Regardless of all that who the hell are the general public to need an apology. Is this earth shattering news, NO it isn't. It honestly doesn't matter at all, its a blip on the radar of importance if you ask me. So in regards to that I don't need an apology and Lance should've told everyone to go scratch and sat home and enjoyed his hundreds of millions.. Also this man raised tons of money for cancer research directly cause of his TOUR wins.
While I agree in principle, that's not strictly true. For one, Lance was on the cutting edge of doping technology so he probably had more effective methods of cheating than other cyclists. For another, EPO affects people differently. From what I understand, it works by raising the hematocrit levels (volume percentage of red blood cells in blood.) The average level is men is 45%, but individuals obviously have different levels. Back when Lance was racing, there was no test for EPO, so cyclists' hematocrit levels were tested and couldn't exceed 50%. If your natural level was 48%, taking EPO to get to 50% is going to give you a smaller boost that someone who is naturally 44%. But yeah, everyone was cheating (you have to go back twenty some odd places to find a name that hasn't been linked to doping.) Now whether using EPO is worse than the guys who just were putting extra pints of blood in or popping testosterone pills, I dunno. What I don't like is that cyclists are being offered a 6 month ban (instead of the standard 5 year ban) if they offer evidence against Lance. I think USADA and UCI need to be going after the team doctors and team owners who finance all this. Lance is taking the fall for the entire sport.
The Federal Govt. has joined the Post Office's lawsuit in trying to get the $40 million the PO gave Armstrong in Sponsorships, plus triple that amount in damages.
So, are the sponsors going to pass that money on to people who bought their products that were advertised with Armstrong?
The thing is, some of those product products and sponsorship money went directly to Armstrong's Livestrong charity. So unless you can make a direct claim that those in charge of the charity (besides, obviously, Armstrong, who has since left Livestrong completely), knew of Lance's doping and/or evidence that some of the money earmarked for Livestrong was funneled into Lance's doping activities, I very much doubt any money that went to Livestrong will ever be recouped.
