quick question for the legal beagles - he made £300K from the Times, and they want it back, with interest.
The case never came to court SFAIK, but the fact is that a writ was issued. Does this count as perjury/making a false statement?
Can the DPP do anything about it - IF Lance Armstrong does fess up?
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Oprah was carefully chosen by armstrong because she is a patsy interviewer, wont delve too deeply, ask the wrong questions and will allow him to present his story in the best light.
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If he took performance enhancing drugs he effectively stole medals from honest competitors and should therefore be called the cheat that he is.
No sympathy from me!
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I would be very surprised if most of his competitors were not using drugs during that period. A lot of hypocrisy going on here. Drugs give you a slight edge ; they do not transform you from a no-hoper to a top athlete. Armstrongs achievements were huge and not just down to drugs. He was a great athlete and his recovery from cancer was remarkable. Regrettable he took the path he did but I don't join in with the lynch mob.
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I agree that cycling was probably the most dirty sport going and has been for a large number of years, I doubt any tour was won by a completely drug free athlete. Few competitors however, were as vehemently aggressive and litigious when accused as Armstrong, so the vultures will be particularly vicious.
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Yes Armstrong did what nearly everyone else was doing but he did it more efficiently and ruthlessly and the brought him the success he craved. As a politician, a career which he originally intended to follow he would have been unstoppable. It will be interesting to see what career he does now adopt. I doubt we have heard the last of a man who is in many ways is quite remarkable if not very likeable
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>> I would be very surprised if most of his competitors were not using drugs during
>> that period. A lot of hypocrisy going on here. Drugs give you a slight edge
>> ; they do not transform you from a no-hoper to a top athlete.
>>
They transform a donkey into a racehorse. EPO is reckoned to give the user a 30% advantage over clean athletes. Three times TdF winner Greg Lemond reckons he quit the sport because he suddenly found he was struggling to stay with the sprinters on mountain stages when they were cruising up without breaking sweat. Previously he could have ridden away from them on one leg.
There were many clean cyclists whose careers were destroyed because they wouldn't dope. At least two, Simioni and Bassons were forced out of the sport by Armstrong because they spoke out against doping. Plenty of top riders doped, but Armstrong took it to a whole new level. During his career he spent one million dollars with Dr Michael Ferrari, one of the main experts on the use of EPO - not something most pro riders could afford, so there goes the "level playing field argument. He put his whole team through the same sophisticated doping programme that he used, with expert medical guidance they were able to take just enough to be effective but not enough to be detected by the tests in place at the time. It's significant that many of his former team-mates who never failed a test while riding for him tested positive after they left and rode for lower budgeted teams. There are also allegations that he tipped off the testers that rivals were doped if he thought they were a threat.
Add to that the 100,000 dollar "donation" to the UCI who can't explain where the money went, the offer of an even greater amount to USADA and the allegations that he was being tipped off about drugs raids and you can only conclude the we had not just another cyclist trying to gain a bit of an advantage but a Mafia Don type figure who not only eagerly took part in what was going on but did everything he could to make sure it continued unhindered, with himself at the top of course.
There is far more to come on this story than an admission on an American junk chat show and a lot of people who were complicit in all this are really sweating about what the future holds.
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Nicole Cooke retired yesterday, she mad a long statement but if you skip to what she had to say about doping it puts the level playing field nonsense to bed -
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jan/14/nicole-cooke-retirement-statement
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>> www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jan/14/nicole-cooke-retirement-statement
Thanks RR, it's a good read. One small part of it:
I have been robbed by drug cheats, but I am fortunate, I am here before you with more in my basket than the 12 year old dreamed of. But for many genuine people out there who do ride clean; people with morals, many of these people have had to leave the sport with nothing after a lifetime of hard work — some going through horrific financial turmoil. When Lance "cries" on Oprah later this week and she passes him a tissue, spare a thought for all of those genuine people who walked away with no reward – just shattered dreams. Each one of them is worth a thousand Lances.
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>> I have been robbed by drug cheats, but I am fortunate, I am here before
>> you with more in my basket than the 12 year old dreamed of. But for
>> many genuine people out there who do ride clean; people with morals, many of these
>> people have had to leave the sport with nothing after a lifetime of hard work
>> — some going through horrific financial turmoil. When Lance "cries" on Oprah later this week
>> and she passes him a tissue, spare a thought for all of those genuine people
>> who walked away with no reward – just shattered dreams. Each one of them is
>> worth a thousand Lances.
>>
Quality statement.
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>> Quality statement.
Worth reading the whole thing IMO if you haven't already WP.
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>> Quality statement
While it is admirable of this girl and others to try to turn back the clock on a long-established and widespread practice - good sense too because many of the substances and techniques used to enhance sporting performance are damaging to health - I think it unfortunate that this discussion is conducted in such a good guys/bad guys way. I dislike the term drug cheat. It tends to demonise quite large numbers of naive young athletes who were and perhaps are more or less compelled, often by national teams, to drop some uppers, fatteners, strengtheners and fatigue eliminators, at risk to their own health and longevity.
It isn't just in cycling either but quietly present in many track and field athletics, and in football down to local club level. Until official complicity is properly understood these unfortunate (if sometimes highly paid) front line troops will be carrying the can. It's hypocritical to heap all the blame on them.
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>> When Lance "cries" on Oprah later this
>> week
>> >> and she passes him a tissue.
>> Quality statement.
The last great weeping scumbag was called Hansie Cronje.
Denied, denied, denied... until the evidence stacked up, then appeared with his pastor, and said 'the devil made me do it'.
Well, that's alright then.
Worked with bookies to influence match results.
Also used his young and impressionable teammates to contrive results.
And recall the TV Preachers weeping and a-wailing, "Oh Lord, I have sinned!"...?
Expect a lot of references to 'God' and 'my family' in Armstrong's 'confession'.
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If he cries I shall vomit. The man does not have a remorseful bone in his body, everything he has done has been done in a calculating manner for the benefit of Lance Armstrong, by Lance Armstrong.
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That's what make him such an interesting person. (Not likeable - interesting). He was the ultimate sports professional, driven , single minded, couldn't bear the thought of losing and prepared to go to any lengths to win.
I suspect, though we will never know, that he would have been successful without the drugs given his personality
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He ain't going to confess. The people who are suing would have a field day and it would cost him $millions...
Great publicity for Oprah.
Media circus.
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>> ultimate sports professional, driven , single minded, couldn't bear the thought of losing and prepared
>> to go to any lengths to win.
But as pointed out earlier I think it wasn't 'just' that, it was the speaking out so strongly against drugs. If he'd kept quiet perhaps his colleagues wouldn't have dobbed him in.
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From The Telegraph:
'...the chatshow host today confirmed that he has confessed, but did "not come clean in the manner I had expected."
Winfrey said she was "satisfied" with Armstrong's answers during her interview, which will be aired over two nights because of its length.
She said she was "mesmerised and riveted" by some of his answers.
Winfrey thought the entire interview was difficult for the Texan and said he was "emotional" during it.
But she said Armstrong "certainly had prepared himself".
"I feel he answered the questions in a way that (suggested) he was ready," she added.
Asked if Armstrong was contrite during the interview, Winfrey said: "I choose not to characterise...'
It seems this might not be what some of you are expecting.
tinyurl.com/abpuhf7
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Tue 15 Jan 13 at 16:01
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Its exactly what I am expecting. Its not hard to mesmerise rivet and satisfy Oprah, Armstrong prepared was a given.
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>> Asked if Armstrong was contrite during the interview, Winfrey said: "I choose not to
>> characterise...'
>>
>> It seems this might not be what some of you are expecting.
>>
>> tinyurl.com/abpuhf7
>>
Oprah does not do difficult interviews. That's why Lance chose her...
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>> . He was the
>> ultimate sports professional,
Depends what your definition of professional is.
He doesn't fit mine.
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He used drugs to help him win competitions and he attempted to intimidate those who either didn't use drugs or who used less drugs.
Can't say I really care what spin he or Oprah put on that..
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Armstrong is preparing the ground for what may come out in the near future. His former manager Johan Bruneel is due to appear before USADA shortly where he is attempting to defend his case and fight a lifetime ban from the sport. Lance has fired some warning shots that if Bruneel makes a partial confession implicating him (Armstrong) in organised doping he is prepared to bring the whole house of cards tumbling down. There are a lot of very powerful people in cycling who are crapping themselves at the moment at the thought of facing criminal charges should the truth ever come out.
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I don't care, one way or the other, probably since I think that cycle road racing is nearly as exciting as watching paint dry. I accept the riders are supremely fit.
The Velodrome stuff is, however, a different ball game in so far as it's entertaining.
Last edited by: Roger on Wed 16 Jan 13 at 00:47
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The Lad's just come out with:
So, finally Armstrong's found the ball to confess.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 16 Jan 13 at 19:21
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>>I don't care, one way or the other, probably since I think that cycle road racing is nearly as exciting as watching paint dry. I accept the riders are supremely fit.<<
If you think that TV coverage is boring, try watching an ordinary road section of the TDF in the flesh! Nobody really trying, No ' racing.' The only excitement is whether all the helicopters will miss the powerlines.
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Another looser!!!
Lance Armstrong: Man buys 7,000 DVDs before Oprah interview
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21145592
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Cycling, athletics, tennis, football, everything: the audience, the mass TV audience that helps pay for it all, wants and expects records to be broken regularly and performances to improve continually.
Flesh and blood, even highly trained from earliest youth in ways that blight life and make any sort of normality impossible, ways that are not far short of torture even for athletes who very often have strong sado-masochistic tendencies, can only do so much. Even with selective breeding added.
So what 'drug cheats' are doing, or (as so often) being made to do sometimes even without their full knowledge, often at cost to their health, longevity and ordinary life satisfaction, is trying to satisfy that market demand.
All sport enthusiasts should take that to heart and drop the moralizing twaddle. Try to show a bit of understanding of what they are talking about.
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AC,
Armstrong was more than just a drug cheat. He forced the retirement of at least two other riders because they spoke out against doping, he had the contracts of riders on his team cancelled because they wouldn't dope, he threatened the wife of one former rider who spoke against him, he tried to get non-believing journalists frozen out of the sport and he ruined Greg Lemond's cycle manufacturing company by putting pressure on Trek to drop the brand. He committed perjury when he sued the Sunday Times, again when he sued his former massuse, then again when he sued a sponsoring company who wouldn't pay him a bonus because they knew he doped and he used US taxpayers money to fund his team's doping programme when he was sponsored by US postal.
Cycling fans don't care about records, in road racing the test of endurance is what makes the spectacle and it doesn't matter whether the average speed of the TdF is 25mph or 20mph, no-one cares. Armstrong is an exceptionally nasty and vindictive piece of work without a shred of integrity or honour.
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Yes RR, I have already gathered that Lance Armstrong is quite a piece of work, far from the nicest. No doubt in his case not all of the moralizing is twaddle.
But he is just one unusual, very high-profile case. And there can't be much doubt that whatever sporting association or authorities he was connected with either actively colluded or turned a blind eye. Just as many others do including national olympic bodies and various levels of the football, tennis and other authorities.
Don't forget these cases get some sort of media coverage every time some hitherto lily-white athlete fails a drug test. Often it isn't the athlete who should be getting a kicking from the tabloids but Dr Feelgood-Runfast who should be struck off for getting the timing wrong with the sophisticated substances, blood doping and so on.
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Lance Armstrong confesses to Oprah - Ian (Cape Town)
