How many other convicted dopers have been made to pay £78m ?
It's a good job his Uber share investment has paid off!
No. But I do think its unfair that no-one else (to my knowledge) has been treated the same. Given the high profile of a lot of other dopers, their earnings from winning and sponsorship must be substantial (in the millions). How much has Contador, Schleck, Vavlerde, Hamilton, Hincapie etc had to pay back of their winnings and sponsorship?
As I understand it, he hasn’t paid back his earnings because he doped. He’s done it because he defrauded US companies because of doping. A slight distinction.
To be fair, you would struggle to pursue Pantani and Simpson for financial redress........
Either allow doping or ban the dopers for life.
Armstrong has been treated disproportionately but I have no sympathy.
Now I would like to see the same level of reprisals on all the other dopers.
Either allow doping or ban the dopers for life.
It's been shown fairly well that the policy of life bans didn't work, especially when trying to catch the leaders - Like Armstrong. Rehabilitation where possible is by far the best solution. Allowing drugs is not an option.
But as this is now disparaging into another one of those threads can we not give the idiot any more thought and hope he just crawls off and isn't heard from again
Armstrong does not deserve your defence., He killed others careers, he brought the sport into disrepute like no other, he is a nasty arrogant bully and probably a psychopath.
Sociopath maybe.
Problem is though that he was essentially put there by the media. He saved the TdF from what had been a torrid few years with scandal after doping scandal. Riis, Ullrich, Pantani (who won in the year of the Festina Affair). The Tour was screwed.
Then along comes a charismatic English-speaking clean-cut guy with a nice heartwarming / heroic cancer survival backstory to save the day, allow the sport to access USA (whcih even in the days of Lemond winning it had never managed to do) and everything is nice again. TV laps him up, he's good for publicity = bigger wages = stardom. Lance was the first truly global cycling superstar. Others had sort of managed to be heroes in their country (Cipollini / Pantani in Italy, Indurain in Spain, obviously Merkcx / Hinault) but no-one had gone global.
Once you're there of course, alongside the adulation and the people clamouring for interviews & photos you get the accusations. In that situation, you have to defend yourself - it's not like the first person who says "have you ever doped?", LA is going to hold his hand up and say "shit, you know what, I have, sorry everyone, I'll leave the room."
The entire team, the entire Tour, hell the entire [b]sport[/b] was built on doping and cheating and the culture is rotten to anyone from the outside. But to those inside, it's normal. That in itself is an incredibly toxic problem, it's why change is usually only driven by historical problems with sexual & racial abuse/discrimination cases because a board of white males have been in charge and their "culture" has gone unchecked for decades.
It's been like that from grass-roots upwards for decades - all the young riders coming through. Here, take this recovery pill, have this injection.
If you don't you won't be able to help the team, if you can't help the team you're of no use to us.
All thsoe kids coming into the sport, wanting to make it big; being bullied and abused until either they doped or until they dropped out, broken and depressed. Or until they'd taken EPO and died of a heart attack aged 23.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/02/blood-doping-what-is-it-and-has-anyone-died-as-a-result-of-it
You only know about the Armstrong cases because it was so high profile and it was high profile because the media put him there.
all that money was obtained under false pretences ie fraud.
YOu can say that about any cyclist (or indeed any athlete) who has cheated. The problem is that USPS, Trek, Oakley etc didn't suffer as a result of Armstrong doping, quite the opposite, they did very very well out of it. There's a real knife edge here.
And once you reach that - well should Trek give back the profits of every bike they sold as a result of TdF publicty because that was obtained by cheating? What about the rest of the team that shared these winnings? What about the other athletes who got more money because the Tour was now a bigger marketing tool? Where does it ever end?
Even now, for all that people say "ignore him, he'll go away", websites and magazines know that LA stories will give them ad revenue. In many respects, he also saved a lot of people who wouldn't have had jobs in and around the sport had he not given it that publicity boost way back in 1999. Look at the bigger picture.
sociopath is a subset of psychopath and is just a milder form of the same thing - medical words go in and out of fashion - I don't think sociopath is used anymore
Rest of yo9u post I find it hard to disagree with bar IIRC one at least of the contracts that he had to repay had an anti drug / health promotion clause - thats why he had to pay it back. Defrauding by not fulfilling contract rather than cheating in the sport.
Yes he has been made a scapegoat to some extent but given the careers he ruined on the way and the fact he as it appears the worst exponent I find it had to have the slightest sympathy for him and I would like to have seen him going to jail.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to entertain the possibility that now he’s stepped back, and is considerably older, he’s been able to rethink what he did. Is that not common for people to do?
You forget. He's a pyschopath. He only does remorse if it benefits him personally.
A “gentleman” eh?…shall we let Betsy Andreu and Greg Lemond be a judge of that?
You mis-read that. He meant 'IF I had been a gentleman' but he is acknowledging he was the opposite.
Anyway - arsehole, yes, but I still think he's contrite. Some people cannot help themselves, but whether or not you are genuinely sorry after you screw up that's the question. Or are just pretending to be.
No way is he contrite Molgrips - simply incapable of it. That line about being a gentleman is more "poor me"
You cynical old git!
That utter bellend David Millar makes a fortune out of being an ex-druggy. He rolls out his doe eyes and like a puppy begs for our compassion. They should all be treated the same in my opinion. I admire Lance to an extent for not hiding who he is, even if you don't like it. I cannot abide that smarmy cheating odious pillock Millar for cashing in on his so called redemption. There are many faces of bad character, Lance's isn't the only one.
Molgrips - its because he is a psychopath he is incapable of contrition or remorse - these sorts of emotions do not exist for him.
I would not be confident in that diagnosis tbh.
DavidB - what would Millar or anyone else have to do to earn forgivness from you?
When I heard he benefited from Uber I assumed he was getting lift during races.
I'm no fan of Millar at all, too many people are too happy to lap up his excuses, but I have to take my hat off to you for sustaining that level of hatred DavidB.
Wonder how easy it is to find ex-pros who have that level of experience for media work, who you know were clean?
Not to repeat myself but where does this £78 million figure come from? As far as I can see he paid $5m to the government in a civil case...when he made $33m under his last team contract alone.
Even if he lost some crumbs along the way, he still massively benefited from doping.
Is it just me that thinks a demonized chap like Armstrong, and a demonized company like uber make good bed fellows.
Personally I think he gets a disproportionate amount of hate. Sure he's a nasty piece of work, but I'm sure many of the others were as well. Ulrich for example, prostitute bashing cheat but attracts far less hatred than lance.
As for David Millar.. I too am a bit cynical of the chap. Cheated, got caught cheating, now held up as a bastion for anti doping. In reality he played lip service to it, but if he really wanted to clean up the sport he could have spilled the beans far more than he did.
Molgrips – its because he is a psychopath
tj, c'mon, you're a nurse, and you know better than this, surely?
In what way? that I souldn't be making diagnosis on t'internet?
Its pretty obvious to me he is a psychopath and as one he is incapable of feeling remorse. Its a one of the traits.
DavidB – what would Millar or anyone else have to do to earn forgivness from you?
Easy not capitalise on his cheating as he already has. Own up, go away, stack shelves. Instead he sells shedloads of books, punters for thousands and probably gets BC funding to say "just say no" a few times to some kids.
Not to repeat myself but where does this £78 million figure come from? As far as I can see he paid $5m to the government in a civil case…when he made $33m under his last team contract alone.Even if he lost some crumbs along the way, he still massively benefited from doping.
Legal fees, numerous other payouts along the way (he's including other cases, not just the one from the US Government). Possibly some of that sum comes from things like contracts that were terminated as a result of his confession as well.
Easy not capitalise on his cheating as he already has. Own up, go away, stack shelves. Instead he sells shedloads of books, punters for thousands and probably gets BC funding to say “just say no” a few times to some kids.
Sometimes, the best people to show you the wrongs are the people who have actually been there. Plenty of redeemed criminals who go into schools etc and talk to kids about how their lives went off the rails, how they ended up in jail.
Plenty of convicted fraudsters, hackers, burglars etc end up turning "good guy" to tell the authorities how they hacked the network, what the flaws were, what they looked for when scouting houyses. Singletrack and road.cc have both featured a convicted (and now redeemed) bike thief in articles about what locks to use, how to lock your bike etc.
Its pretty obvious to me he is a psychopath
rigghhtt, just guessing like the rest of us then 🙂
Sometimes, the best people to show you the wrongs are the people who have actually been there. Plenty of redeemed criminals who go into schools etc and talk to kids about how their lives went off the rails, how they ended up in jail.
Plenty of convicted fraudsters, hackers, burglars etc end up turning “good guy” to tell the authorities how they hacked the network, what the flaws were, what they looked for when scouting houyses. Singletrack and road.cc have both featured a convicted (and now redeemed) bike thief in articles about what locks to use, how to lock your bike etc.
I so agree with this. But that is not what he does. Try and get David Millar to come to your school/cycling club, try and do that without speaking to his agent. Those guys you mention rarely make a mint as a result. Millar lives in luxury, drives a mint car, hangs out with the "Monaco set". I know plenty about him via other channels. He's everything but the character you picture above.
But boy do I admire him. Stoic and steadfast in his opinions
See also Hitler 🙂
Do you think Millar's been totally honest about how much he doped crazy legs?
@crazy legs - source tho????
I agree 100% with TJ.
No other professional cyclist has ever made anything close to the money LA did.
The punishment was proportionate IMO.
and with this statement as well. The problem with Lance is that he really IS a psychopath. I mean, clearly I don't know him personally, but everything we gather from him and about him - from his words to his body language to the reports we get from former friends and colleagues - suggests that he really is one of those who has risen to the top precisely BECAUSE of his psychopathy, and the public (who sense this) simply do not want him to continue benefitting from it.
As I understand it, he hasn’t paid back his earnings because he doped. He’s done it because he defrauded US companies because of doping.
The UCI also changed the rules so they could use effective financial penalties. Not sure when that came in.
Ultimately though he was an utter arsehole who did his best to destroy the careers of anyone brave enough to say that he was a cheating arsehole. As such I do think he deserves a far harsher punishment than someone who cheated but didnt have the same effect on others.
Its similar (although obviously not identical) to how we distinguish between manslaughter and murder. Some poor sod gets killed but its the associated factors which makes the latter worse.
He does seem to be a bit dark triad.
And I'm not talking Chinese gangsters 🙂
The problem with Lance is that he really IS a psychopath.
He certainly shows some charastics of being a psychopath, but so do many driven high achieving people. But that's a long way from a clinical diagnosis. I would have thought some of the medical professional people on here would be aware of the pointlessness of internet diagnosis 🤔
Yeah but you can file that under "this is different".
Is it just me that thinks a demonized chap like Armstrong, and a demonized company like uber make good bed fellows
He gave money to a hedge fund not directly to uber.