Does Anyone Care About Lance Armstrong?

[Wales2004]

I heard this morning that he was stripped of his Tour de France medals which was to be expected under the circumstances.

[ChitHappens]

Don't give 2 chits!

[quartermainefan]

He will become the subject of a biopic (assuming it is legal to do one about him). His fall from grace is of epic proportions and he probably is now the most disgraced athlete of all time.

[Ann_SS]

I care. I like cycling. Years ago, when the doping charges first started to dog Armstrong, I had my doubts, but his ugly intimidation and bully tactics convinced me of his guilt early on. He tried to destroy Greg LeMond's livelihood, the last great American cyclist. He engaged in bullying and witness intimidation of Filippo Simeoni during the tour. Of course, the American media including ESPN never covered the ugliness surrounding Armstrong in any depth. I am glad that Armstrong has been exposed and stripped of the Tour de France titles. The USADA report shows that he treated his young teammates with the same disdain that he treated his public accusers. He bullied them into doping with him and threatened them constantly. Armstrong is still rich, but he has been rightly exposed as fraud, bully, and cheat.

Oh, hopefully the UCI will be the next to be exposed. The USADA reports strongly implies that it was complicit in helping Armstrong get away with doping.

[JackPeyton]

Not really, but if it isnt true i feel bad for the guy.

[All My Shadows]

Yeah, I couldn't care less. He rides bikes, has one nut, and now he's a fraud.

[Wales2004]

Well it says a lot that the cycling union has opted not to appeal. In a a way, he's kind of lucky that this broke as a morning story because the sports shows are completely stuck on yesterday's football games and predicting tonight's. Whatever time they have left has been devoted to commenting on tonight's baseball game.

Hopefully, whatever charities and people benefit from the attention he brought to cancer research won't suffer as a result.

[Eric83]

All of this is unnecessary IMO. Is there even any concrete proof?

LMAO

[Wales2004]

So the sports talk people have time to discuss him today.

ESPN's Mike and Mike seem to have more of a problem with what the UCI president said and how he said it.

The major issue for him today is the possibility that he might have to repay millions in earnings from the Tour de France wins and insurance money.

It doesn't look like they have any positive test results and they seem to be relying on information that his team suppliers knew how to beat the tests.

[Ann_SS]

All the ESPN commentators and reporters who know little about cycling have been complicit in covering for Lance for years. They have ignored the doping allegations as jealousy, etc. The UCI president was absolutely right about Lance.

But he is so rich, he won't miss a few millions.

The USADA report is very thorough. It does not only rely on the eyewitness testimony of his teammates, it also has emails and receipts that show his guilt. Lance did have at least one positive test. However, he made a huge donation to UCI and he was let off the hook. This is why people are talking about UCI being disbanded because it was clearly complicit in Lance's doping.

[Wales2004]

I pretty much hate how ESPN monopolizes games, I know that the Fox, CBS, and NBC show games and cover sports on their cable counterparts with analysis, etc. but they are no where near as dominant as ESPN which blurs the lines constantly. They pick and choose what "news" to report and tend to avoid anything unfavorable to all the major sports though they care less about telling on baseball than they do on their big money maker the NFL. It took a significant amount of time before they reported that rape charge against Ben Roethlisberger. I don't get their adoration of Lance Armstrong.

I kind of found him a bit smarmy but I think it has to do with his first wife and then Sheryl Crow.

That's interesting because Seth Everett on Fox Sports Radio this morning basically dismissed the whole thing because he took issue with how the information was gathered. He said that none of the 500 tests Lance Armstrong took were positive. Anyway, I should have learned my lesson from the whole defense of Ryan Braun who was deemed not guilty by his peers and certain media because of the delay in transporting his test to the center and the questionable idea that not refrigerating the sample could somehow manufacture steroids in it. The arbitrators ruled in his favor on a technicality but he was vindicated.

[VirginiaHamilton]

Same here.

[Wales2004]

I briefly subjected myself to Mike and Mike this morning. In that spectacularly incredible moment, Greenberg was explaining how Lance Armstrong was both a good person and a bad person and how we all get to choose. So, according to him the people who are touched by cancer will find him to be good because of all that he has done.

My position is that he's a bad person who has done or may even continue to do, some good things. He has runined and attempted to ruin the lives of others for the sake of protecting himself. It's great that he's done charitable things which may have led to lives being saved. Whoever benefitted from this will undoubtedly be grateful to him and may even vigorously defend him, but that neither negates or overshadows the destruction for which he's responsible.

He used cancer to sheild him from the horrible things he did.

If he's a good person then he will go back and try to fix all the damage he's done but I doubt he will try because he's all about him. Maybe some of his giving comes from the heart but it also helped make him sympathetic to his staunch defenders for years.

[Money]

The fact that this dude went after people with law suits, freakin' lawsuits, and actually won, all the while guilty as sin throughout his career is jaw dropping. It's already being reported that his charities are taking a hit. It's a shame that all his good work will now be tainted but why would anyone want to be associated with this egomaniac.

[Ann_SS]

Armstrong is more than a bad person. He is a sociopath and repulsive bully. Greg LeMond, Simeoni, the Andreus, Emma O'Reilly, and many others will never get their businesses/livelihoods destroyed by Armstrong back, but at least now that the truth about his cheating and bullying is indisputable. They are vindicated, their reputations are restored, they are safe from Armstrong's victimization, and maybe can profit from telling their stories. I also hope that they get to testify against Armstrong and his enablers again. Hopefully, they will also help take down Lance's doping protectors at the UCI.

As for his charity, it was partly a money making scheme for him and his rich friends: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/sports/cycling/lance-armstrongs-business-brand-and-livestrong-are-bound-together.html