Probably already been posted up here but apparently the TDF can’t be won clean So lance claims

I’ll pop the kettle on.

Misquote, he said it couldn’t be won clean in his era. He’s clarified via twitter, and the full quote is clear. Just a provocative headline in the L’Equipe story.

And yes, story is a couple of days old.

Oooo… cake and biscuits too??

Wasnt Lance Armstrong, the world famous cyclist, who suffered from testicular cancer, and survived, gave a lot of us men hope,for a cure or prevention and raised millions for his charity, and probably helped get thousands riding bikes.

or shall we dwell on his drug use.

I’m with project on this one.

Classic case of the higher you get, the further you fall but in LA’s case he and others are digging a big hole to make the fall even further.

He has a point about the people running the sport. Everyone from this doping era should be purged from their positions and banned from being involved with any sport for their complete and utter incompetence in dealing with this issue and allowing the sport to be tarnished. It stinks of corruption and greed to me. How can the sport continue with these jokers still involved.

what lance meant was the HE couldn’t win the tour without drugs so he chose to dope.
Forget those who could have won but didn’t because cheats finished higher. They’re just a footnote in history now.

Since the very beginning drug assistance has been an integral part of the TDF. A hundred years ago, it was openly accepted. Plus other forms of cheating, including sabotage and violence.
Honestly! GTF over it. It was deemed unfair, reluctantly made illegal and people carried on. Some have been exposed, some have been vilified. Some have gotten away with it because they stayed under the radar. Mostly by not winning. Some have found new ways to not get caught.
And it goes on…
Have you watched the moto GP. It’s much more entertaining and not a mention of drugs anywhere.

Fairly convinced Project has a point.

Even retired, clean and with 1 less testicle he is still faster than most of us!!

Mistakes were made, judgement was poor, apologies have been made, dirty laundry aired etc. just get over it.

What if it was LA’s doping that gave him cancer in the first place. Would that make you guys revise your opinions at all?

He upped the doping stakes in ’99 and because of that, to be in the race, you pretty much had to dope.

Cause and effect.

Also don’t look to closely at lthe difference between livestrong.org and livestrong.com, as you might not like what you find (for example LA allegedly creamed off big % for his ‘personal appearnces’). There was a bit of a stink about that and tax deductibles on some of his charidee rides in the US.

The guys a doper, just get over it… 😉

I’d say that most of the cycling world are over the whole thing but then he starts up again with the interviews and publicity thing on the eve of the TDF.

I think he has a point, the UCI have not cleaned house properly. But I think that the LA pointing this out takes an awful lot of weight out of the argument. One of the biggest beneficiaries of that corrupt culture bemoaning it, after being finally brought down.

He may be a cancer survivor but he’s still a nacicist and a bullying cheat. Being a “inspiration” does not excuse being a shitbag…

What if it was LA’s doping that gave him cancer in the first place. Would that make you guys revise your opinions at all?

He was on Human Growth Hormone and Testosterone prior to his testicular cancer.

Nobody will ever know for certain that the drugs he was on directly caused the cancer but you certainly can’t rule it out.

Higgo, it’s also subject to some debate about why he wasn’t ‘popped’ beforehand for T as apparently one of the symptoms is a spike in testosterone…. It *should* have showed up in his tests! I wonder whether he was trying to mask it at all (seen he knew he’d taken T prior)?

But as you say, we’ll never know for sure.

Wasnt Lance Armstrong, the world famous cyclist, who suffered from testicular cancer, and survived, gave a lot of us men hope,for a cure or prevention and raised millions for his charity, and probably helped get thousands riding bikes.

I think you must be talking about a different LA. The one I’ve heard of is a sociopath, a bully and made millions from his charity – millions which might have been better donated to charities which actually do something to help find cures for cancer rather than largely acting as a LA publicity machine. LA is also the person behind the best organized doping ring in cycling which undoubtedly helped perpetuate widespread drug use for much longer than it might have otherwise. Oh, and I think you’ll find the chap which helped get thousands riding bikes has rather better sideburns.

Don’t imagine that LA ever did anything which wasn’t for his own benefit.

…raised millions for his charity…

I’ve got no interest in road racing and haven’t really been following this whole saga, but I’ve heard this so many times without any background information that it’s got me wondering.

So, how much was raised and what was it spent on ?

Yeah and we shouldn’t dwell on Saville’s activities either, cause, like, he fixed it for so many kids…

Terrible argument. He cheated. He made money (a lot) for himself by misleading sponsors and fans.

You can’t brush that away because he also owns a charity. Next you’ll be letting people off in court for murder if they have a direct debit for a donkey sanctuary.

Wasnt Lance Armstrong, the world famous cyclist, who suffered from testicular cancer, and survived, gave a lot of us men hope,for a cure or prevention and raised millions for his charity, and probably helped get thousands riding bikes.

or shall we dwell on his drug use.

his charity is a scam,and he was a lying cheating junky. also testicular cancer has a over 99% survival rate..

aa – Member

what lance meant was the HE couldn’t win the tour without drugs so he chose to dope.Forget those who could have won but didn’t because cheats finished higher.

No. If Armstrong hadn’t doped, another doper would have won. If that doper hadn’t doped, another would have won. It’s absurd to say “he couldn’t win without drugs”, when nobody else could either. The best clean result for the lance years was 4th from Kivilev.

Ok, so the race order would most likely be shaken up more than that with the differences in team riding etc, but if you just subtract the proven dopers til you get to a presumed-innocent rider, this is what you get, and that’s really the best we can do. The record proves clean riders could not win the tour.

3dvgirl I think You need to read up on his story.

UCI should have changed its leadership. Was Cadel clean? Will we ever know considering George H came clean and was never caught.

Will we ever see the Spanish blood results? Sad really.

3dvgirl I think You need to read up on his story.

I HAVE.. the guys a publicity seeking moron.. i couldn’t care less what disease he had, lots of people get many diseases that are far far worse and it don’t make them heroes, he is a lie cheating manipulating lump of cat shit.

Right..

Was Cadel clean?

I believe so.
And Sastre too.

Wasnt Lance Armstrong, the world famous cyclist, who suffered from testicular cancer, and survived, gave a lot of us men hope,for a cure or prevention

No, he was a fella who got cancer and team of doctors gave him a we’ll established drug regime and he got better. He was the same fella who a team of doctors gave him a we’ll established drug regime and he went faster than other fellas taking the same drugs.

He does deserve all the adulation he got for the latter. The former goes to the drug company.

Northwind,
my point is that there were strong clean gc riders during the la era who were denied wins. They WOULD have won gc’s aplenty if if werent for lance and his type.
You mentioned kivilev, theres one, and nardello, and sastre and cadel. Not a whiff of drugs use between them.
I’ll say it again, it was impossible for la to win without drugs. It does not mean it was impossible for others to do so.

aa – Member

I’ll say it again, it was impossible for la to win without drugs. It does not mean it was impossible for others to do so.

And yet none ever did. Inconvenient truth. (oh and worth mentioning, in this context “clean” still means “was never caught or never admitted to doping”, not to sully good names but it has to be borne in mind.)

You can’t ignore other doping riders- Lance is talking about the reality, not the fantasy clean tours which never happened. He’s not saying “You couldn’t have won a clean tour without cheating”, he’s saying “You couldn’t have won the dirty tour without cheating”. Who can dispute that when nobody came close in all that time?

Nobody disputes that clean riders were deprived of their rightful wins (though, if everyone was riding clean, who knows?) You might even say that the dopers were denied their chance to win fairly too, though that’s probably a bit charitable… But would they have chosen to dope if they were competing against clean riders? We’ll never know.

But what I’m talking about is this desire to twist his words. Because sadly he’s completely right- in a sport of cheats, it was honourable and brave to race the tour clean and lose but that was the choice, nobody raced clean and podiumed.

who needs drugs when you have Benny Hill at the wheel….

Wasnt Lance Armstrong, the world famous cyclist, who suffered from testicular cancer, and survived, gave a lot of us men hope,for a cure or prevention and raised millions for his charity, and probably helped get thousands riding bikes.

He is not the messiah he is a very naughty boy.

guess you have all read tyler hamiltons book,if what he says is true I was surprised to read how blasé la was about the doping(talking really loudly about it in cafes,keeping the epo in the door of his fridge when everyone else wrapped it in foil and hid it at the back etc).Makes me think the powers at be thought it was better if he wasn’t caught when he was still racing.

Do we REALLY think there were parts of the pelaton clean then and now?

Sorry desire for money/to survive/the prestige of cycling at rhe top level means everyone sells out.

At club level how controlling/anal are people?

The retrospective Ashenden tests of the 99 (post Festina scandal) tour was actually pretty clean. Most teams were quite scared of police action rather than just sporting sanctions.

Sadly I think Lance could have won it clean, maybe not seven times but at least twice, there were a few years when the competition was pretty weak and he had an exceptionally strong team but I guess we’ll never know. Same as Millar who could have won the worlds TT clean such was his form and ability the drugs werent much use outside a grand tour.

We should never forget the likes of Christophe Bassons, there were parts of the peloton who were clean back then and I’m honestly sure that all the major teams are clean now, Sky, BMC, Garmin, OPQS and Cannondale. As we saw in the Giro though, the likes of Vini Fantni will always arouse suspicion such is potential value to be gained.

Do we REALLY think there were parts of the pelaton clean then and now?

Yes and it is the same people who were telling you for the last 15 years that LA was dirty but you did not listen then so i doubt you will now.
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At club level how controlling/anal are people?

I defer to your vast amount of personal knowledge about club level cycling ….remind us all about your career would you

More importantly Liggett and Sherwen appear to made absolutely no mention of the Texan so far this year. That tells you exactly how far lala has fallen.

hora – Member
Do we REALLY think there were parts of the pelaton clean then and now?

Does anybody really think anything hora has to say on this subject has any credence, given how long he kept on claiming LA had been stitched up despite the vast amount of evidence against him?

Regardless of all the to-ing and fro-ing one thing is certain.

Lance Armstrong is a bully who has ruined careers. The man deserves everything that has been thrown at him.

Lance Armstrong is a bully who has ruined careers.

And that what makes him stand out. All the rest, Ullrich, Riis, Pantani, Millar, Vinokourov, Basso, etc, got on with racing and doping. Armstrong ruined peoples’ careers and lives with his bullying.

I think he has a point about having to dope to win though. He would know, he was leading it.

George Hincape was endorsing a paint of computerised sunglasses at the top of this page.

Fantastic.