New Yorker Magazine on Armstrong

[djg21]

A great take.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/01/what-lance-armstrong-did.html#ixzz2IBa2avs0

[Louis]

I bought it all for many years, and no doubt hell also hath no fury like that of a gullible, humiliated fanboy.

Ha!

[alessandro]

Specter's 2002 profile (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/07/15/020715fa_fact1) of Lance was one of the things that made me believe him. I thought the New Yorker's legendary fact-checking was beyond reproach, and I respected Specter as a science writer. LA has a bit of a reality distortion field around him. Over time, as I learned more about cycling, in part from boards like this and The Clinic, I formed my own opinions.

It's worth asking: When did the stars fall from your eyes?

[slidey]

Predicting 4 pages, at least...and, GO!

[1/2 Wheeler]

Predicting 4 pages, at least...and, GO!

I'm predicting that by this time tomorrow there will not be a single Lance thread on the first page of GD.

[mistermo]

Specter's 2002

It's worth asking: When did the stars fall from your eyes?

Stage 18 of the 2004 TdF. To anyone, it should have been obvious from that point on.

[malcolm]

Specter's 2002 profile (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/07/15/020715fa_fact1) of Lance was one of the things that made me believe him. I thought the New Yorker's legendary fact-checking was beyond reproach, and I respected Specter as a science writer. LA has a bit of a reality distortion field around him. Over time, as I learned more about cycling, in part from boards like this and The Clinic, I formed my own opinions.

It's worth asking: When did the stars fall from your eyes?

I think most folks that started following cycling many years ago never had stars in their eyes. I started watching, what little bit there was pre Greg Lemond and to me it's always been a sport where any advantage was exploited. Like most pro sport. It's still entertaining and amazing to watch, but if history tells you anything and if you pay attention it always does, competiton brings out the very best and worst of human nature. We are driven to win and for many as the competition heats up this means at all costs. This is true of all sport, hell Tonya Harding had her boyfriend crowbar Nancy Kerrigan for christs sake.

[Grant McLean]

It's worth asking: When did the stars fall from your eyes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdMdJAdzpYQ

[christian]

I think most folks that started following cycling many years ago never had stars in their eyes.

I think that's right. I never thought he was clean, just as I never thought Indurain was clean, or Tony Rominger, or anyone else. Clasica San Sebastian 1995 stands out as a moment I took notice and said, "Nah, I don't think so." Not that I cared... (more below)

2004 TdF would have been the last moment anyone who actually follows cycling should have shed any illusions whatsoever.

Armstrong's problem wasn't the doping; it was that he wasn't willing to put up with the chatter and had to try and control the narrative. The old school guys rode their bikes, ignored the chatter, and if they got popped, they dissembled about tainted supplements, winked, took their two-year vacation and came back.

If Lance had done that, instead of trying to steamroll everyone into believing he was really, really, really clean (even with obvious evidence to the contrary), he'd still be a seven-time Tour winner. Pride comes before a fall and all that.

[Hawker]

A great take.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/01/what-lance-armstrong-did.html#ixzz2IBa2avs0

Yep, we'll written and well stated.

[tuxbailey]

It's worth asking: When did the stars fall from your eyes?

After his third consecutive win I didn't have a doubt in my mind that he was using PED. It is just statistically impossible for him to keep winning a three week race year after year. But I still enjoyed watching it, just no longer believing that he was a superhuman :)

[Ray]

After his third consecutive win I didn't have a doubt in my mind that he was using PED. It is just statistically impossible for him to keep winning a three week race year after year. But I still enjoyed watching it, just no longer believing that he was a superhuman :)

Yeah, it was sometime during that 2001 race, where he was dominating and didn't even look like he was trying that any lingering doubts I had vanished and then I was SURE he was doping. Oh, and that's when the team started getting so overwhelmingly strong as well. It just didn't add up. I didn't exactly discount the rumors in 1999, but I was enjoying the spectacle so much that I at least remained agnostic. And maybe through 2000, but he had that terrible stage in the mountains that year when Pantani went off early and then Lance couldn't respond to Ulrich on the final climb, so that extended the period of doubt. But in 2001, no WAY anyone rides like that clean...

And it was also somewhere around that time when I started hearing the stories about how he treated people - the first I was aware of was Kevin Livingston I think, who'd been his most loyal friend throughout the cancer ordeal and who got dumped unceremoniously when he asked for a raise, who had another job fall through, and then got ALL of Lance's wrath when he took a late offer to ride for Ulrich on Telekom. And then other stories started to surface. And then I concluded he wasn't just a doper, which I didn't honestly have a lot of problem with, but it was also increasingly obvious that he was a total asshole, which bothered me then and now... Oddly, I still rooted for him in the race through all seven wins. I didn't start wanting him to fail until he tried to comeback and more or less turned the team against Contador, who was clearly their strongest rider. I rather enjoyed his final race when he just couldn't hang at all - by then I wanted him to suffer a little, and not in a good way. Now, everything is out and he'll go through plenty of hell going forward. And he deserves it. But I don't have anymore active feelings about it. I wanted it to come out, but now it has. Deeds done, case closed, more or less...

-Ray

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . because it was his behavior rather than doping accusations which first put me off. When he first won the Tour in 99 I was sky high and had posters of him at my desk at work.

But shortly after that the stories started to add up and the 2004 chasing down of Simeoni really cemented my regard for him as a bullying thug. His treatment of Livingston and others also just added fuel to the fire very quickly.

In the past few years I've found his downfall to be so ironic--he would have gotten away with it all if he'd only been a nicer guy. But from the very beginnig I've found him to be a fascinating character and psychological study--and an object lesson. His upbringing seems to have been so instrumental in forming who he is as a person today.

From the obsessive, meticulous preparation and drive to win at any cost that were such vital ingredients in his success as an athlete-to his wives and girlfriends resembling his mother. It's all gone together to demonstrate to me what I've found out about myself the past 5 years or so . . . I've found how
difficult it really is to really step outside yourself and see yourself as others do. Seems like his inability to do that has been a major contributor to his problems.

BBD

[cmg]

USADA/UCI will never let him race no matter how much talking he does. That's a fantasy. I remember him dropping out of the tour in 1996 in the rain after an intense media build up as the next great thing. i sat thinking no way this guy ever going to win the tour..............

[hockeybike]

Fastest TdF cyclist, best doper, best liar, best at beating the cols, best at beating the tests, till he wasn't, and till he wasn't. Shame. HAH!

[slidey]

This is actually my biggest concern, that the douches will allow the bikedouche to race again. How can you be so sure that they won't, especially after the lovey-dovey words of McQuaid right after Oprah-Lance Day 1?

USADA/UCI will never let him race no matter how much talking he does. That's a fantasy.

[achurch]

And that Bonds and Clemens end up in the hall of fame.

I hope none of it happens, not because they have harmed me and I am being vindictive, but because the incentive to dope is already so high that if the repercussions aren't also ridiculously high we will continue to make doping the most rational decision for athletes hoping to make a living in their sport.