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The Lance Armstrong Story (aka "The Program") is on BBC1 this Saturday at 11:45pm. A PSA for all you closet dark-side riders....
I blame it all on the chemtrails.
Thanks I will watch it.
Apparently he finally admits what we all knew. He's a lying shit that doped his entire career.
Is it the new one he is doing where he has said he is telling just the truth on everything? OR is it the one that was done a couple of years ago?
I watched that one and couldn't understand why I was so angry at the end, then I thought about it and reckoned it was the way he behaved and then behaved to cover it and how so unphased he was about it all.
The new one I'll probably watch but do it in doses so I don't get as annoyed.
The 2015 film?
Edit: Just checked the schedules, Yep, it's the film.
No its an old documentary. the espn show where he tells all is only released this coming Monday 25/5, with a follow second program on 1/6 - on ESPN.
It's also on Amazon Prime for free.
No its an old documentary
No, The one on BBC1 on Saturday is the film dramatisation with Ben Foster and Chris O'Dowd.
He’s a lying shit that doped his entire career.
Not quite true. The US riders didn't realise the extent to which doping was going on in Europe and Lance got so fed up of being being beaten by dopers he decided he was going to do it, and do it better than everyone else. No sympathy for him whatsoever.
Not quite true.
It seems perfectly credible that he has lied and doped throughout his career.
In time, the abused became the abuser, breaking the rules even as a teenager. "Forge the birth certificate, compete illegally, then beat everybody," Lance says of his early forays into triathlon.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lance-first-look-at-espns-new-armstrong-documentary/
Sociopath.
Hi, my name is dave and I am a Lance fan! 👌🚴♂️😍🤙
Me too, he played the game and blew everyone out of the water #niceguyscomelast
Sociopath.
Nah, worse than that. He's a Psychopath as he shows no remorse or empathy to those he's screwed over and is a complete narcassist.
But in that analysis he's not alone in that most people who are very successful in whatever they do, the top 1%, also display Psychopathic traits more strongly than the average person. Most really successful sports people are pretty unpleasant people and have made very selfish sacrifices to achieve at the expense of others and show no remorse...the ends justify the means. They're not the nice people they appear to be on TV interviews.
Seen this already but will look out for the ESPN piece. I quite like watching stuff about Lance. It's a fascinating episode in cycling history.
...he played the game and blew everyone out of the water...
A world championship is an achievement, but the rest doesn't really look that impressive does it?
Apart from the 7 TDF's you mean? Crossing it out doesn't mean it didn't happen.
What didn't happen?
Apart from the 7 TDF’s you mean? Crossing it out doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
That annoys me too. If you're going to cross out LA then you also need to cross out virtually everyone else, stage winners, KOM/green jersey winners etc for about 15-20 years at least.
The hypocrisy bugs me. Pantani is a tragic hero. Merckx is the greatest of all time. Virenque is the darling of the French media. Millar is a reformed character. Armstrong is the devil incarnate. 🤷🏻♂️
I'm interested to see the ESPN documentary if I can find a UK feed for it.
A world championship is an achievement, but the rest doesn’t really look that impressive does it?
That's a very select result list you have posted. If you look at all of his palmares (including the redacted ones) its pretty impressive. One day classics, tours, Olympic medals etc etc etc.
No special vitriol for Lance the cheat. I HATE everything Lance is for the way he treated those who tried to call him out or stood against him. Horrible, nasty bastard.
That’s a very select result list you have posted.
Sure, but it's the big ones isn't it? And if you're as competitive as Mr Armstrong, those are the ones that matter.
I think it is safe to assume he cheated his way through an awful lot of the other races.
Sure, but it’s the big ones isn’t it? And if you’re as competitive as Mr Armstrong, those are the ones that matter.
I think it is safe to assume he cheated his way through an awful lot of the other races.
Of course, in the new documentary he admits doping from 1 year before world champs I believe. But saying he didn't have an impressive palmare is not true, cheating or not.
To all the Lance fan boys, don't forget, a couple of years ago he got drunk, drove his SUV into a parked car, then got his girlfriend to take the wrap. Great hero😳
It's true to say his record in the monuments is less than impressive, though, isn't it?
especially if he's also now admitting he was cheating before the world champs.
Competitive sport is all about winning.
To all the Lance fan boys, don’t forget, a couple of years ago he got drunk, drove his SUV into a parked car, then got his girlfriend to take the wrap. Great hero😳
whats that got to do with cycling?
It’s true to say his record in the monuments is less than impressive, though, isn’t it?
especially if he’s also now admitting he was cheating before the world champs.
Competitive sport is all about winning.
That's not what he focused on. It was all about the tour, and he won more times than anyone in history or since. Look at Froomes palmare, its very similar.
he won [the Tour] more times than anyone in history
How many times did he win the TdF again?
How many times did he win the TdF again?
7
Better get editing in Wikipedia then!
Indeed, 7.
The problem with Lance was not the doping (they were literally all at it), it was the vicious, sustained, personal, often career-wrecking, attacks, verbal, sporting and legal, on anyone who claimed otherwise.
Was he the greatest Tour cyclist of his generation? Without a doubt
Was (maybe is) he a massive ****? Ditto
To all the Lance fan boys, don’t forget, a couple of years ago he got drunk, drove his SUV into a parked car, then got his girlfriend to take the wrap. Great hero😳
Didn't Tiger Woods try to run his wife over with an SUV and wasn't there something about OJ Simpson and his wife? Winners aren't always saints.
That annoys me too. If you’re going to cross out LA then you also need to cross out virtually everyone else, stage winners, KOM/green jersey winners etc for about 15-20 years at least.
And the rest. See Tom Simpson (1967) and he has a memorial on Mt Ventoux!
Comparing Lance Armstrong to oj Simpson seems fair to me😁
He’s a lying, cheating, bullying, unapologetic kunt.
I know there were degrees of but he is simply the worst of the worst - you’d have to be serious lacking in a workable moral compass to find anything admirable about the man.
Look for a better hero if LA is yours - there’s plenty out there.
Will try and find a UK feed for this. I'm not a fan of Lance but am fascinated by his story. As others have said, loads of dopers over time in sports but it is the way he vilified anybody who came against him (riders, journo's, team-mates) thats what makes him break rule #1
The movie is quite good IMO. It think it's a tricky story to do full justice, but it's a fun watch.
10 points for anyone who spots the classics-related mistake early on in the film.
Oh, and he didn't win those races, but then nor did the other folks who have been caught cheating to win bike races. Such are the rules of sport and that.
That annoys me too. If you’re going to cross out LA then you also need to cross out virtually everyone else, stage winners, KOM/green jersey winners etc for about 15-20 years at least.
Armstrong was struck out because he was convicted of doping offences. As were Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador and various stage winners. Clearly there were many more people doping, but are you suggesting that you can't sanction any offenders unless you detect and convict every offender?
That annoys me too. If you’re going to cross out LA then you also need to cross out virtually everyone else,
Post "Lancegate" quite a lot of other riders did indeed have results deleted. Yes doping was indeed rife, Armstrong arguably did it better than most. Still a nasty sociopath though. I was in awe of him when he was racing, loved watching him. Have no time for him now.
Was he the greatest Tour cyclist of his generation? Without a doubt
No he just had the best doping system.
Nah, he is a lying , cheating scumbag, who threatened the livelihood of others. He and his crew were basically a mafia in lycra.
Any record he holds needs to be erased.
We’re on to page two and the biggest villains of all, the UCI, are yet to get a mention.
The year is 2089.
We finally have hoverboards.
The internet has been replaced with a stream of consciousness, sub-neural informaflow delivered via ESP.
People are still arguing about Lance Armstrong.
People are still arguing about Lance Armstrong.
No they're not.
We’re on to page two and the biggest villains of all, the UCI, are yet to get a mention.
No one comes out of it well.
LA (obviously) because much as he's an amazing bike rider, he's also a ****. But then, so are a lot of top sportspeople....
The media - they built him up, gave him the pedestal, fell over themselves to get interviews wih him, daren't say anything uncomplimentary (cos they'd be sued and lose and because readers wanted the LA stories)
The UCI (and ASO) - they needed Lance. The Tour had come off a couple of horrendous years including the infamous Festina drugs bust, suddenly here was this charismatic all-American hero, touching back story, saviour of the race. Brought millions of $$ of American money into the race, was the lever to get into the American market.
The sponsors - they knew (or suspected) but USPS, Trek, Nike and Oakley made millions off the back of Lance.
The peloton - the answer to everyone else getting faster was to take more or better drugs.
Related to that, the doctors and team managers who actively encouraged and facilitated doping, got rid of "non-compliant" riders, bullied riders into doping ("if you can't support the leader, there's no place for you on this team" / "if you can't recover in time for the next race, why should we keep employing you"...)
The associates - loads of people could have blown the whistle. Problem was that no-one wanted to hear it and ultimately, every single person in the sport is now benefitting from it! More publicity, more sponsors, bigger TV market, more jobs (in sports writing, photography, commentary), more riders inspired and coming through the (flawed) system, more sales of merchandise)...
The sport knew full well that it wasn't just LA, it was the entire struture from the little people coming through at the very bottom right up to the people supposedly governing the sport at the top. The foxes were running the henhouse. LA was just the right person in the right place at the right time.
I dont necessarily blame "Lance" for all of that, it was going to happen sooner or later anyway. Problem is, once you build a hero, they just fall a bit further. No-one cared about doping when it was little French or Belgian nobodies being caught, the teams could fire them and pretend they had zero tolerance and really, it made no difference. To blow it open, you need a big fish.
Still a fascinating story, much as the guy is mostly an arse.