f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Lance Armstrong to confess?

Does anyone really give a **** whether he confesses or not? I for one am sick of hearing about him!

yellowvanman

Not a cycling fan, but his achievements post cancer, and the work he did for his charity made him a real sporting legend.

Whilst it is pretty clear he did take drugs, it was in an era when all his competitors did also, therefore effectively a level playing field?

After having made such a big issue of denying it, I not sure what would be in it for him to now come clean? It will guarantee he will be successfully sued for the money he took off various people for 'wrongly' accusing him of cheating?

Maybe he see's it as the only way he can move forward?

Who knows, but regardless a very sad sporting chapter.

jef

iTrader: (13)

maybe he feels guilty and wants to clear his conscience?

or maybe hes more interested in dropping all others involved in it, right into the sh*t along with him lol

i dont know much of him, but appears to have a bit of a strong character - so could easily be thinking, if im going down -so is everyone else.

unlikely ill be reading it anyway, not read any of the other related rubbish - cyclings of zero interest to me.

hodgy0_2

Everyone else has gone down

And to the previous poster who says, quite rightly "well everyone was doing it"

lance was, absolutely, but his ultimate crime was to hound out through aggression and law suits anyone who either tried to ride clean, or of pointing out the obvious

That he was a cheating cVnt

jef

iTrader: (13)

hodgy i really dont know much of it, who else has "gone down" so to speak -or been punished - i agree he was using PED'S but i keep reading he was the master organisor, pressuring more than ten fully grown men into use or face expulsion - he that strong a character not 1 single man could stand up to him, or not one annonymous memer of a cycling organisation couldnt report him??
ive read claims he was the ring leader, and forcing others to cross borders smuggling PEDS, really? for a whole teams use, he was that untouchable that no-one could stand up to him or his manipulation - risked jail sentancing or atleast criminal charges for his behalf and his behalf solely?
plus he was the sole employer of the entire medical team that administered and cared for the whole team using PED'S, baring in mind epo administration woudlnt be too difficult, blood doping and swapping maybe abit more invovled.

listen i honestly dont know, maybe this one man could manage it all alone, but that would be my question - was it alone and against every single other persons will?

jef

iTrader: (13)

ultimatley i do beleive he was cheating, theres not much evidence against it and i do beleive he was manipulative to the point of making others do things, but i just cant beleive it was his sole action, to oranise the buying then cross border passing of illegal drugs, without willing assistance somewhere along the line - have all these other people been brought to justice and the riders who admit to using, but claim to only do so under king armstrongs rule - whats happened to them?
or the the other teams using the same medics, but claiming innocence - a beleivable scenario? i dont know, dont follow cycling, you seem to know more than me, what do you think?

hodgy0_2

in answer to most of your questions - yes


off course he had help, everyone was doing it -- in fact it was so bad that the governing body has not promoted the winners of the 2nd place to 1st place (to replace the disqualified LA) in the Tour because they have no confidence in any rider over the period LA was winning the Tour

In fact every single well known rider of the period has either been caught or confessed to doping

if you are asking "how can cyclings governing body have allowed that to happen" -- you are not alone

so he did not go against many "wills"

The only rider who spoke out was Christophe Bassons - and he was hounded out cycling by LA

“The interest that the Festina trial brought to him (Christophe Bassons) led to an invitation to write a column during the 1999 Tour de France for Le Parisien, a newspaper in the same corporate group as the Tour de France itself. Bassons wanted to write about the "suspicious" speeds he was seeing. As he later told Bicycling, "The 1999 Tour was supposed to be the "Tour of Renewal," but I was certain that doping had not disappeared." Ian Austen wrote in Procycling:

On the whole his columns were largely innocuous if entertaining looks at life in the peloton. If anything, he sometimes went out of his way to dispel doping rumours. After the stage into Blois, which passed at record average speed, Bassons warned readers: 'Don't get any ideas about the record speed. With a wind like we had, it's normal to ride this fast.' But two columns stuck out. After Lance Armstrong showed that not only had he recovered from cancer, he'd risen to the top of the pack, Bassons wrote that his performances had 'shocked' the peloton.

Stage 10 occurred on July 14 and was from Sestrieres to Alpe d'Huez. Nobody had been talking to him. The entire peloton planned to ride slow for the first 100km without telling him. Bassons only heard about this because a mechanic from his team told him. Bassons decided he was "fed up" and decided to ride ahead of the others ("attacked from the start"). As they came to a flat spot, "all of the teams rode together to close me down". As the teams rode by him, they stared at him.

" . . . " . . . and then Lance Armstrong reached me. He grabbed my by the shoulder, because he knew that everyone would be watching, and he knew that at that moment, he could show everyone that he was the boss. He stopped me, and he said what I was saying wasn't true, what I was saying was bad for cycling, that I musn't say it, that I had no right to be a professional cyclist, that I should quit cycling, that I should quit the tour, and finished by saying [*beep*] you. . . . I was depressed for 6 months. I was crying all of the time. I was in a really bad way." - Bassons, from BBC Radio 5, 2012 10 15[8]

Bassons said Armstrong also asked him why he was speaking out; "I told him that I'm thinking of the next generation of riders. Then he said 'Why don't you leave, then?'" Armstrong confirmed the story. On the main evening news on TF1, a national television station, Armstrong said: "His accusations aren't good for cycling, for his team, for me, for anybody. If he thinks cycling works like that, he's wrong and he would be better off going home."