Lance Armstrong

• dlazz

  supposedly admitted doping in his interview today.
  
  http://espn.go.com/sports/endurance/story/_/id/8844549/lance-armstrong-admits-doping-interview-oprah-winfrey-report-says
  
  
  Do you think less of him and his accomplishments because of this?
  
  IMO, no. He beat cancer and won the Tour seven times in a row. That is an accomplishment no matter what.
• dlazz

  ccrunner609;1366196 wrote:he beat a bunch of dopers........no big deal. There hasnt been a clean rider in the top 5 of those tours for years.

  That's basically how I feel. And he didn't just beat them, he did it consistently.
• xKoToVxSyNdRoMe

  

  No for the reasons you gave at the end. He has done an insane amount for cancer in terms of raising money. If he doesn't dope he loses to a bunch of guys who did and doesn't become nearly the icon he is/was, and things like Livestrong probably don't get nearly as big as they are.
• sportchampps

  Nope he's still a hero
• hasbeen

  

  Where's the 'I don't give a shit' option?
• Laley23

  

  More I dont give a shit. But everyone cheats in cycling, so I still think he is the best.
  
  He is an obvious liar though. No clue why he lied for so long when everyone knew he he was cheating.
• Sonofanump

  
• Zoltan

  [video=youtube;ZmzeKNiMkAs][/video]
• gut

  Great athlete and I enjoyed watching him compete.
  
  But he's also the biggest fraud in sports history, not so much for the doping as linking his off-the-bike image to being clean. Ginormous hypocrite. This is the guy who after being ravaged by cancer and struggling to overcome it said he would never put any poisons or unnatural substances in his body.
• TedSheckler

  

  Yes I think less of him. His whole schtick was that he did it clean. He's a fraud and a cheat (just like the rest of them). The whole thing he's stood for over the last however many years is a lie. He beat cancer....congrats. It doesn't take the fact away that he has lied to the entire world.
• BoatShoes

  Cheating pays off.
• sleeper

  

  Best cyclist of all time.
• Raw Dawgin' it

  

  TedSheckler;1366303 wrote:Yes I think less of him. His whole schtick was that he did it clean. He's a fraud and a cheat (just like the rest of them). The whole thing he's stood for over the last however many years is a lie. He beat cancer....congrats. It doesn't take the fact away that he has lied to the entire world.

  How many people has LiveStronged helped? I'm sure the people his foundation has helped don't give a shit that he doped. How about his sponsors and foundation give back all the money they've made because of his doping.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  Raw Dawgin' it;1366384 wrote:How many people has LiveStronged helped? I'm sure the people his foundation has helped don't give a shit that he doped. How about his sponsors and foundation give back all the money they've made because of his doping.

  This. If you're going to penalize someone monetarily for doping, then you need to penalize the people that said doper made rich.
• TedSheckler

  

  Raw Dawgin' it;1366384 wrote:How many people has LiveStronged helped? I'm sure the people his foundation has helped don't give a **** that he doped. How about his sponsors and foundation give back all the money they've made because of his doping.

  So he raised a bunch of money. He did it under the lie that he won the TdF 7 times while clean. How many years did he stare straight into the camera and lie? How many times has he lied to the Livestrong Foundation? He is a holier-than-thou, piece of crap. There are millions of heros out there that have beat cancer. They do it quietly without lying to the public. Let's honor these people, not this self-serving fraud.
  
  He helped a lot of people. I get that. He gave hope to people, with his charity. The problem is the fraud. The way he used Livestrong, and all the people with cancer it was supposed to help, was beyond cruel. The whole time, he hid comfortably in public opinion over his charity and his personal story of beating cancer.
• Raw Dawgin' it

  

  TedSheckler;1366468 wrote:So he raised a bunch of money. He did it under the lie that he won the TdF 7 times while clean. How many years did he stare straight into the camera and lie? How many times has he lied to the Livestrong Foundation? He is a holier-than-thou, piece of crap. There are millions of heros out there that have beat cancer. They do it quietly without lying to the public. Let's honor these people, not this self-serving fraud.
  
  He helped a lot of people. I get that. He gave hope to people, with his charity. The problem is the fraud. The way he used Livestrong, and all the people with cancer it was supposed to help, was beyond cruel. The whole time, he hid comfortably in public opinion over his charity and his personal story of beating cancer.

  If he doesn't do that, then there are tons of people with cancer who don't get helped from his charity. He's a fraud for lying, but in the end he's just another athlete who lied about taking PEDs. Unless he gives back all the money he and his charity made then it's pointless to even bring it up since he will suffer zero consequences. If baseball really cared about cleaning up their game, they'd give back all the money they've made from Clemens, McGuire, Sosa, Bonds, etc etc.
• BORIStheCrusher

  

  [video=youtube;Hb72h8M5L8U][/video]
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  I disagree with the extremes on this. On the one side, I think it is a fallacy to say that without Armstrong's foundations, lots of people with cancer don't get help. That is impossible to say. You can only say that about people who donated to Livestrong solely based on Lance's participation/leadership - or in other woods, without Armstrong's role, these people would have never been philanthropic with those same dollars. I don't believe that would have been the case. Whatever money Livestrong raised was likely not a net addition to philanthropic causes. It was partly a net addition, but also a lot of it was transferred from other likely causes (cancer or non cancer). So simply taking this dollar amount and saying that Armstrong provided this much good is not accurate. My point here is that he certainly has done good, but I never regarded him as necessarily anymore good than other high profile people who give similar efforts to fundraising.
  
  On the other side, I don't think he's a bad person either. He got caught up in the lie. It happens to good people all the time. The longer you perpetuate the lie, the harder it is to extract yourself from it. I believe every human being has experience with this. As a member of the species, I can't completely condemn a man for this.
  
  Bottom line, I think he's a decent person who made a terrible mistake by lying. He painted himself into a corner on it and therefore the end was only going to be ugly.
• Heretic

  

  He's done a lot for cancer/charity/whatever, and as others said his success in his field was what led to a lot of that. So that's good.
  
  On the other hand, he's a pro bike rider. Like I give a fuck about his lol "accomplishments". Whoo..you ride bike better than Europeans. That's sooooo cool!
• Scarlet_Buckeye

  

  What about all the people he basically trampled and ruined their lives to get to where he got? Small sacrifice for a greater good...?
• thavoice

  Scarlet_Buckeye;1366534 wrote:What about all the people he basically trampled and ruined their lives to get to where he got? Small sacrifice for a greater good...?

  Yeah....heard some of them on Mike and Mike this morning.
  
  There was a lady that was hired to give massages to the cycling team. SHe was used as a drug mule by him. He absolutely tore her to pieces when she testified or whatever.
  
  He did raise alot of money..but destroyed some smaller people around the way with his lies.
  
  
  
  I gave up believing him when he came out and said he was not gonna fight the charges. Until then I believed him.
  
  
  What else I found interesting........when they vacated his victories there were 4-5 isntances they couldnt even give it to someone else becuase there was no one in the top 3(or was it 5) that was clean as they failed as well. Totally dirty sport and they do TONS of testing so you know that athlets in other sports that didnt test much know the ways around it too
• Gblock

  more of a scumbag for leaving his wife and kids to chase famous tail...and for slandering former co-conspirators who transported and helped him aquire his drugs/doped blood.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  It's a great case study for do the ends justify the means?
  He cheated and because he cheated, he was able to create this great thing called Livestrong.
  No cheating, no Livestrong.
  
  Just because everyone else did it does not make it morally right. It's the thing we are all taught as kids, "If everyone jumped off a bridge would you...", etc.
  So, he lied, cheated, and bullied his way to the top, making Livestrong, and purging people that did not agree with him.
  
  Since Livestrong is such a great cancer program, does all that positive outweigh or negate the cheating and bullying?
  
  I have no idea really, and go back and forth really. But, to me it does taint and tarnish everything he has done. Livestrong is a great thing, but it was built on the back of a huge deception and lie.
• gut

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1366491 wrote: I don't think he's a bad person either.

  That's very debateable. He destroyed, or tried to, a number of people that got in his way, some who had been close personal friends (such as the LeMonds, not to mention cheating on his wife). And as far as colleagues on the bike go, he was widely regarded as a Class A prick (not just because he kept winning, but a lot of it did stem from his global thermal nuclear defense of his "clean" reputation).
• Automatik

  

  Absolutely.
  
  I always thought he was a bullshitting fraud, now it's just confirmed.