L'Equipe continues hatchet job on Armstrong . . .

[Flubber]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


I think the real deal on Armstrong wasn't that he was so "dominant" but that he spent virtually his entire training year to peak for the tour, and he had a good number of talented teammates to shield and shelter him and help him conserve energy until those few stages where he was ready to cut loose.

I wouldn't consider Armstrong to be anything near the cyclist Merckx was - Merckx took on anybody, anywhere, and fought to win virtually every time he rode.

Preaching at the choir here -- I have stated in a number of threads that while I agree that Armstrong was a dominating Tour de France cyclist he was not such otherwise.

So in essence there are two arguments

1. A person can be clean and be THAT good.

2. Armstrong really wasn't that dominant when you consider that he competed differently than almost anyone else around

[MichaeltheGreat]

But either way, some Froggies apparently still can't handle it.

[Flubber]

Re: Re: Re: Re: L'Equipe continues hatchet job on Armstrong . . .

Originally posted by Ming



Just stating that some people question the "independent" review that people claim exonerated him.

True-- I don't know that he was clean but in the later years of the tour he prvided blood and urine in seasona and off pretty constantly and was giving it to people that really would have LOVED to catch him in something.


Yet they found nothing. There are two potential easy explanations

1. he was clean or
2. his doping was so sophisticated that regular AND random testing was unable to detect it


I still choose to believe number 1, fully in the knowledge that I might be wrong.

If 2 is the case we might as well give up testing altogether since all you catch are the cheats that are the worst at it.

[Spiffor]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: L'Equipe continues hatchet job on Armstrong . . .

Originally posted by Flubber
all you catch are the cheats that are the worst at it.

ding ding ding

[cubbyphan1138]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


I think the real deal on Armstrong wasn't that he was so "dominant" but that he spent virtually his entire training year to peak for the tour, and he had a good number of talented teammates to shield and shelter him and help him conserve energy until those few stages where he was ready to cut loose.

I wouldn't consider Armstrong to be anything near the cyclist Merckx was - Merckx took on anybody, anywhere, and fought to win virtually every time he rode.

I'll call BS on this one. Not a huge cycling expert, but to me and I suppose to most other casual fans the Tour is like the majors in golf. It's worth more than all the minor events combined. When people talk about the greatest golfer ever, now one cares at all that Sam Snead won the most tournaments ever. The discussion comes down to Jack and Tiger cause these are the 2 that won the majors. In the same way, all other cycling events are just training for the tour.

[Sava]

Lance is a dirty blood doper.

You guys should just accept this and move on. Deal with it.

There's more than enough info out there than just a bunch of frenchies trying to dirty his reputation. Lance is dirty. I'm sure of this. You guys can stick your head in the sand all you want. He's just another run of the mill scumbag who cheated to get an edge.

Could he have had success if he didn't cheat? Probably. But we'll never know.

But it doesn't matter. There could be concrete evidence proving his guilt and the Lance-asslicking society would still worship him.

[Barnabas]

Sava, then share some of the information you have of Lance being a cheat...

To me this just looks like the french being annoyed because a yank dominates their sport, the french are also annoyed by spaniards always winning the roland garros tennis grand slam and invented doping stories about nadal and other spanish tennis players..

the french are like that

[Lawrence of Arabia]

there's just two things that make me weary about lance:

1. he was beating guys who were dirty.

2. he always had the strongest team, year in and year out. they would take guys from other teams, sign them, and the next year, they would be going up the mountains like no other.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
there's just two things that make me weary about lance:

1. he was beating guys who were dirty.

2. he always had the strongest team, year in and year out. they would take guys from other teams, sign them, and the next year, they would be going up the mountains like no other.

Lance's team has a special secret performance inhancing rubber that their tires were made out of.

So, basically the atheletes weren't on dope their bikes were.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Sava, then share some of the information you have of Lance being a cheat...

Well, the problem is, I have heard and read a lot of stuff that you guys probably have not been privy to. I'm not going to do your internet research for you. The stories about Lance and what I've heard go back many years. You can search the web yourself if you want. It's out there. I don't care enough about this crap to put forth the effort.

My opinion about Lance is based on more than just the rumors and such. There is a pattern of behavior here. Aside from that, there is enough questionable stuff where I say to myself, where there is smoke, there's fire. I look at someone like Barry Bonds, and Lance is no different. A star athlete just looking to have even more success.

Bonds has already a hall of famer before he started using performance enhancing drugs. Lance probably would have had a ton of success without the drugs and blood doping, or whatever he did. But seeing guys around him who used the stuff, combined with his competetive nature probably drove him to do it.

There will probably never be a smoking gun, so to speak, but it doesn't matter. The people who are truly clean don't even have this kind of stuff happen to them. If Lance was truly clean, it would have never gotten to this point.

And the response from the meatheads is just laughable. Most of this is just french-bashing. Which is sad, really.

It can run both ways. The frenchies probably have had their pride wounded... and... Lance is a cheating scumbag. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

But, as with any controversial subject in the news, people want to see it as a black and white issue. Either you are a cheese eating frenchy surrender monkey or you are a mouth breathing member of the Lance-asslicking society.

Just remember, there are a lot of people in the wonderful gray area that don't buy into the bull****... that look at the situation objectively, the evidence that's out there, and have formed an opinion based upon all the information available. My opinion is, Lance probably cheated. To what extent, I don't know.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by cubbyphan1138


blah blah blah, but to me and I suppose to most other casual fans the Tour is like the majors in golf. It's worth more than all the minor events combined. blah blah blah

At least you admit your ignorance. Yep, you got it, big boy. The Tour de France has a higher level of exposure in the US outside the cycling community only because an American (LeMond) finally won it.

Go back to NASCAR or whatever it is you might actually have a clue about.

[mrmitchell]

The frenchies probably have had their pride wounded...

French national pride is a lot stronger than one sports event. This has far more to do with selling newspapers.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

yeah Richard Virenque is a dumbass - he got caught.