Finally! Someone ELSE is saying what I’ve been saying for YEARS!
OK. I like Lance Armstrong as much as the next guy. Or at least as much as the next Non-French guy. What’s not to love? He went over to France and kicked all their butts in their bike race for 7 years in a row. How sweet is that? Sounds like a Great American Hero.
I hope he didn’t dope. I hope all the smoke that surrounds Lance Armstrong doesn’t mean that there is a fire. But that’s not the way it usually works out, does it?
Here’s the logic I have been using for years with my friends, my email groups, and anyone that will listen: OK — you mean to tell me that Lance’s biggest rivals and even some of his teammates have been busted for doping — and the only guy that was winning the Tour de France during those years was the ONLY ONE NOT doping?
Let’s look at the list. And this is all I can remember from the top of my mind, without doing internet research:
1998 tour winner Pantani is now dead cuz of his doping, couldn’t touch Lance during his 7 year stretch
1997 tour winner Ulrich out of the sport for doping, finished 2nd to Lance many times, but couldn’t beat him
former teammates Hamilton (banned for doping) and Landis (banned for doping)
I’m sure there are many more that a more educated cycling fan can tell me about Lance’s teammates, connections with blood-doping doctors, etc.
Here’s where the logic fails for me: Either doping doesn’t work, or Lance just figured out a better way around the system. How could one man — the only man to win during those hugely doping years — beat all of the rest of the field of blood dopers?
And now finally someone else is saying the same thing. And it’s in America. I imagine they have been saying this stuff in France for years.
ENERGEIA 
I think the nature of the sport makes the comparison of Armstrong and Bonds moot. I remember watching the Tour de France several years ago with a roommate who had been a cycling nut most of his life. He told me that since the inception of the sport, “performance enhancing” has been an accepted part of competition, mainly because of the physical bounds that the sport pushes the athletes to. In cycling, most of these athletes need performance enhancers just to finish a competition (or at least be competitive in finishing). You don’t need that to swing a bat.
And it should be mentioned that there is a big difference between certain kinds of doping. Injecting something, like A-Rod, is much more condemnable than drinking a shake, like Papi probably did – not just from a layman’s perspective, but biologically they are much different. So the term “doping” – in any sport – can hold very different meaning depending on the context.
Here’s a piece that says some of this better than I can:
http://deadspin.com/5738218/the-case-against-the-case-against-lance-armstrong?skyline=true&s=i
I think another important factor in why Bonds gets vilified and Armstrong remains lauded is that Bonds is and always has been a prick. He has gone out of his way to be confrontational, off-putting, rude, and immature to just about everyone he’s been involved with. I know that has little to do with his performance on the field, but it *is* hard to separate the man from the athlete.
So maybe the comparison with Bonds is not the best, and that’s not what I’ve been saying for years. My point is that with all the smoke — I hope there is no fire — but as more and more info comes out about his contemporaries doping, are to believe the only guy in the Tour de France NOT on performance enhancers is the one who won it seven years in a row? Gosh, that would mean that Lance Armstrong is stronger than all his competitors WITH their blood doping enhancers. Either the drugs don’t work, or…. there’s some other explanation.
JIGuy is a serial LIAR. Resides quite crbmootafly within the American Teflon Class- hence the decision to drop the suit. It would have been IMPOSSIBLE physically to have competed for those 7 Tour titles without being supplemented by PED’s because it was so heavily ingrained within the sport during the early 2000 s. Every one of his top competitors has been busted and/or associated with doping- oh yeah ,i forgot , Lance has some other worldly physiological attributes .load of bull roar. Just take a look at his Livestrong Foundation and what they spend on travel in a year- close to $2 million bucks! Lovin those private jets eh Lance? Closest competitor- National Cancer Institute- $160,000 That gives you a pretty neat and tidy summation of this guys character- He’s a fraud! Feb. 4 2012
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Hurtin’ you are spot on with this.. Armstrong competing clean and consistently outperforming those who weren’t? Like I tell the kids, you can tell me all day but if it doesn’t jive with what I see you better have a real sturdy explanation.