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I hope that Nicole has new projects in life she can put her energy into. If she goes beyond a farewell message she risks becoming a Kimmage-like character.
The agencies know. They have access to lots of confidential information and rarely release anything even if legally they can (the French athletics federation is an exception; it publishes every positive test on its website). They know much more though. They see all the results that aren't quite positive but a clear indication that the athlete is doping. This passport lark is a farce which IMO is used by the majority of national federations like the old East German dope testing programme - it serves only to make sure athletes won't test positive in competetion or in a random test.
As a example a ****************** federation official mentioned a fairly minor athlete had tested positive and it made the papers. The athlete concerned was extremely annoyed, not because he'd tested positive and been named, but because his fellow club members who were on the national team had also tested positive but had not been named. This is again going back to the 90s but clearly shows that federations are more interested in having winning athletes than clean athletes.
and in turn damaging the sport's reputation further,
Who says it's damaging the sport further?
got to the point when Oprah asks him why, after 13 years of lying, he is owning up now. He struggles to answer, the actual answer is because he got caught!
Because... as I mulled it over last night. Basically, it's been worked out that if he can make out that he's "changed", he stands to gain more. "I did it because I was misguided in my determination" sounds a heck of a lot better than "I did it because I'm driven and don't care who I hurt or what I do to get to my goals". Add a couple of sorries onto that and you're set.
But it became fairly apparent that he hasn't changed - well dur - and he is still the same individual with the same view of the world. It's just this week's facade is "repentant Lance"
I accept the point you're making....but I'd have to answer yes and yes.But is whistleblowing to the media, and in turn damaging the sport's reputation further, the right move? See my post above re: sealed dossiers.Supposing her actions scare off new sponsors for the sport, who fear brand association? Has she acted for the greater benefit or not?
For what it's worth I think sport would be better with zero sponsorship. Money is the problem. The sports I've competed in where there has been the least money are the sports where there has been the lowest level of doping. people will still dope for the prestige and doctors will still prescribe to build a faithful client base (see, money again) but talented atheltes will still be competetive, and even win now and then.
I think Nicole was lucky to copete in women's cycling where there is a lot less money than in the men's sport. If there had been more money she'd have had to contend with a whole female peloton of dopers not just a few like the Canadian and Longo.
Saw Djokovic on the news....I fear he doth protest too much.
As a example a ****************** federation official mentioned a fairly minor athlete had tested positive and it made the papers. The athlete concerned was extremely annoyed, not because he'd tested positive and been named, but because his fellow club members who were on the national team had also tested positive but had not been named. This is again going back to the 90s but clearly shows that federations are more interested in having winning athletes than clean athletes.
Interesting you should mention this.
Only a fortnight ago or so, there was outcry in my discipline (Enduro) because the French Federation had enforced a 6 month ban on someone for doping but had withheld their name. Didn't take long to work out who it is likely to be, and that left a feeling that the federation was more interested in a cover up than a proper "ban" as such, even more so as our discipline isn't UCI sanctioned, so it's easy to still compete if you have not been named as a doper.
So that then leaves us with the question of who polices the individual federations. The UCI don't seem particularly well equipped or willing to do this, so the question arises who can.
No one can...the truth will always out though.so the question arises who can
Djokovic is the player that made a massive turn around, from continually injured also-ran to massive run of losing to no-one...
A law unto themselves. And frankly the UCI isn't the answer. In France the federations (with the exception of athletics) are anything but transparent (and as alluded above I know at least one British federation is no better). The gendarmes however are great! A few years ago the local bike club scene got raided. Gendarmes throughout SW France knocking on doors at dawn looking for Pot Belge. They dismantled a whole network. Among those prosecuted for dealing was MTB world champion Christophe Dupouey. Sadly he committed suicide shortly after.
Bloody awesome Lance you pr wunderkind!
Here we have a thread about a lying, cheating, drug abuser and it has turned into an attack on Nicole Cooke. a successful clean British cyclist, because she is at last speaking out.
Whatever else Lance has done, he's certainly spotted that the cycling fraternity will turn upon itself and attack those who have done the least wrong.
I for one have made no attack on Nicole.
Me neither...she'd drop me if I did...
🙂
I don't think anyone has made an "attack" - more voiced an opinion that maybe she hasn't taken the best course of action.
No but the arguments moved on from what a despicable shit LaLa is, to whether Cooke is credible when she attacks him.
Every time I see Lance Armstrong on that Oprah interview I jut want to slap his face. That aside I think Nicole Cooke has a right to be peeved off considering how well these cheating cyclist have done, not only by reaching the top of their sport through cheating but also cashing in on there dishonesty. Why should Nicole be attacked for speaking up 🙄 good on her!
And, by her own admission, she has achieved more than she ever wished to, or expected to. Why is she suddenly playing the victim?
She's on the offensive, now because having retired she can bite the hand that feeds (the drugs). Naming names is more tricky: Where some individuals are already clearly cheats, you can say the truth. For the majority of cheats, without hard evidence you risk losing a law-suit for damaged reputations.
Because for someone who supposedly cares so much about the sport of cycling, she is simply feeding the media hype about doping
I've changed my mind on this. Keep feeding it. Find out exactly how dirty it really is; much dirtier than you think.
If she had a shred of commercial nous, she would be writing all this in a book
As she points out, people seem more interested in bad-boy/girl books. And if she were after money she wouldn't have been a female pro cyclist!
But is whistleblowing to the media, and in turn damaging the sport's reputation further
Crazy talk. Lance's career was a total sham that duped the entire sport, while Nicole's was a paragon of virtue. Lance goes on a chat-show to express crocodile-tears of remorse, and Nicole simply points-up what shits, he and others like him, are...
And you don't like Nicole's behaviour.
Funny thing is I liked him right up until the moment about 11 years ago when I read his book - 'Its not about the bike' (its about ME!). To write an autobiography that makes you look bad (his horrid egotism was v evident in his book) is pretty damning I think.
I rather assumed he was either clean or his drugs were masked by cancer drugs because it would be impossible to evade the testers for so long and others were being caught every year. So really it comes down to UCI being very ineffective. And LA having an ego the size of a house.
I hope he is bankrupted and goes to prison. As Nicole C said, he stole so much from so many.
He won in a culture of epidemic drug within the peleton so i guess he's as guilty as the rest of his team mates and fellow competitors. If we need to prosecute LA then we need to do the same for everyone else including TH etc. I'm going to stick my neck out and say LA is as bent as Pat McQuaid. We need to call for his (PMcQ) prosecution as well.
I guess the problem is finding where the buck stops.....as usual the most difficult path is the right one, and that would be reconcilliation.
I cant get my head around all this,Armstrong was a cheat in HIS era, what about all the other cheats,who won the tour 5 times,do they get stripped of there tour so called victories,or is about the fact that what happens in the peloton, stays in the peloton.Cycling has been a dirty sport since the tour began, the only thing that changes, is the sophistication of the type of cheating, and if other sport thinks its not happening in there backyard they better get take a good hard look at themselves,wonder how many 2012 Olympic champions are hoping the freezer breaks down, thus destroying the evidence 😯
He won in a culture of epidemic drug within the peleton
Ashendon's tests of the 99 samples actually showed a pretty low % of drug taking. It's amazing that Lance's lies are still being believed by some.
That year could have been a breakthrough year in the fight against drugs in cycling, but the US postal team smashed that possibility out of the park.
who won the tour 5 times
Big Mig probably was using drugs, but he didn't make many if any enemies, he is well liked by pretty much everyone. Finding the evidence against him will be much much more difficult, if not impossible.
Decky +1
I dont think anyone beleives LA at the moment. His actual success is kinda immaterial. Whether he won or lost or came second he still cheated like so many others. Great riders like Mig or my hero Sean Kelly all doped or cheated. Still awesome riders and as hard as nails.
Whatever the argument about morality and code of sporting conduct, I can't get behind the case that he defrauded his sponsors.
While the myth rolled on, and while he did everything he could to make sure it continued to roll, his sponsors made money from his [ill-gotten] success. He cashed in, they cashed in. Everyone cashed in.
Except for the people who entered into professional cycling at that stage who weren't prepared to sacrifice their bodies and their morals to dope.
I would really like to know who they were. Because if they knew what they were getting into, and they got into it all the same, they are heros.
+1 to that.I would really like to know who they were. Because if they knew what they were getting into, and they got into it all the same, they are heros.
Ned/Lazybike. Read Rough Ride, it's a good start. It would appear Chris Boardman was generally regarded as a clean athlete of the time, just imagine what he could have done at the Tour had the dopers not been rampant around him.
Ashendon's tests of the 99 samples actually showed a pretty low % of drug taking. It's amazing that Lance's lies are still being believed by some.
Where's that infographic of the top ten finishers in the "Lance Years" where pretty much everyone has been done for takings preformance enhancing drugs?
before the lance years,what were they on Indurain etc Lemond?
He won in a culture of epidemic drug within the peleton so i guess he's as guilty as the rest of his team mates and fellow competitors
What about all those who refused to dope and where fired straight back out of the sport for doing so?
Whatever the argument about morality and code of sporting conduct, I can't get behind the case that he defrauded his sponsors.While the myth rolled on, and while he did everything he could to make sure it continued to roll, his sponsors made money from his [ill-gotten] success. He cashed in, they cashed in. Everyone cashed in.
+1
The other people to cash in were the UCI - European road cycling reached parts it had never previously managed to break into, namely America. Everyone won because Lance was bigger than the sport. He was initially hailed (by most) as the saviour of the Tour after the debacle of the Festina affair (when most of the peloton were certainly doped up in well-organised team-managed doping rings). It's why the UCI are just as culpable in this as the riders, the doctors and the managers but unfortunately, LA has handed them a get-out-of-jail-free card wiht that "confession".
All that happened was that dopoing went underground. Before Festina, no-one asked becasue no-one wanted to know - even though it was generally accepted. After Festina, everyone was under pressure to at least look squeaky clean, the charade slightly hindered by the fact that EPO has just come onto the scene and is undetectable. So the UCI put in place an arbitrary 50% haemoglobin limit which the teams treat as effectively a licence to dope up to 50%. LA and Postal (as he correctly says) weren't doing anything that wasn't available to other teams (although LA seems to have managed to pay Ferrari enough money to ensure he's only treating Postal riders).
It's the way that the whole sorry tale has grown from several regularly repeated lies right through to this staged confession that has really hurt the sport and I think that LA is being held up as the king of doping while all those around him were poor unfortunate victims which certainly isn't the case. I'd like to see a degree of consistency - lets strip Virenque of his numerous polka-dot jerseys, strip Ullrich, Riis, Pantani and Contador of their wins...
I agree in principal....but where do you stop?lets strip Virenque of his numerous polka-dot jerseys, strip Ullrich, Riis, Pantani and Contador of their wins...
before the lance years,what were they on Indurain etc Lemond?
No real rumours but he failed an asthma inhaler once but was cleared-forget the exact details. I thing most accept he was a physiological freak tbh.
as for asking about whether le Mond did drugs 😯
no one thinks he cheated
LeMond is a longtime anti-doping advocate and a vocal opponent of performance-enhancing drug use. He first spoke on-record against doping in cycling after winning the 1989 Tour de France,[128] but LeMond attracted more substantial attention in 2001 when he publicly expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Lance Armstrong's success after learning of his relationship with Dr. Michele Ferrari.[129][130][131] The intense criticism LeMond was subjected to for his comments placed him at the center of an anti-doping controversy.LeMond has consistently questioned the relationship between riders and unethical sports doctors like Ferrari,[132] and has pointed out that the professional cyclists who make use of doping products are ultimately victimized by the process, likening their treatment to that of "lab rats."[133] Said LeMond: "The doctors, the management, the officials, they're the ones that have corrupted riders. The riders are the only ones that pay the price."[133] LeMond's most contentious or notable conflicts have been with fellow Tour de France riders Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis and Alberto Contador.
LeMond has also been directly critical of the UCI and its president, Pat McQuaid. In December 2012, LeMond claimed that a change needed to be made at the head of leadership for the UCI, and stated if called upon he would be willing to take the position himself if necessary to lead cycling out of the mire of doping. Said LeMond:
"It is now or never to act. After the earthquake caused by the Armstrong case, another chance will not arise. I am willing to invest to make this institution more democratic, transparent and look for the best candidate in the longer term."[134]
LeMond was one of the first prominent professional cyclists to openly decry the sport's descent into the corruption of doping.[citation needed] In response to LeMond's call for new leadership, McQuaid rebuffed LeMond, preferring to focus on LeMond's lack of administrative background, rather than defend his own record at the UCI. Said McQuaid: "The last 25 years, where has he been? Nowhere. Not involved in cycling. He is outside cycling, shouting at it looking in."
I think Lemond "injected" himself with a bullet once...was Andy Hampsten clean? I liked him.
Where's that infographic of the top ten finishers in the "Lance Years" where pretty much everyone has been done for takings preformance enhancing drugs?
Well like I said, 99 appeared to be quite a clean year, then Lance's methods seem to have dragged it down into the pit. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but the financial allure and marketing of the cancer beating hero seemed to galvanise the UCI's compliance.
How about a real hero who was robbed of his potential, Grahem Obree
I think it was Hamilton that said the tour was mostly clean in 99 as all the European teams were worried about the gendarme after Festina in 98, and that Postal came in fully prepared and blitzed them.
Well said MSP, Graeme Obree is the genuine article when it comes to cycling, he walked away from earning hundreds of thousands per year in when the team he signed for expected him to dope for the tour de france...
"I still feel I was robbed of part of my career. I was signed up to ride in the prologue of the Tour back in 1995, but it was made very obvious to me I would have to take drugs. I said no, no way, and I was sacked by my team. So there I was, 11 years later, sitting there waiting for the Tour cyclists to come by, and something welled up in me. I feel I was robbed by a lot of these bastards taking drugs. I also hate the way that people think anyone who has ever achieved anything on a bike must have been taking drugs.
I say hang lance out for the crows to pick his bones- then rip through every other suspected doper who still denies, strip them of all their wins, strip them of all the money they have made from cycling, strip them of whatever dignity they attempt to carry around.
Has anybody got a link to the first part of the interview that hasn't been closed yet?
You know for me the worst thing about Lance Armstrong is the myth that you have to be a **** to win, he perpetuated that myth, and fathers have been teaching their sons and daughter that myth.
He won in a culture of epidemic drug within the peleton so i guess he's as guilty as the rest of his team mates and [b]fellow competitors[/b]
Like Simeoni and Bassons? I think you need to educate yourself a bit more on road cycling history before you come out with misinformed glib statements like that.
Actually it's the Internet so carry on.
Can't say I've really followed the armstrong case other than being disappointed he cheated someone out of that moment of glory which is very sad, like that shot puter who lost out on her moment at the olympics.
Surely anyone who completed the tour 7+ would have had a good chance of winning without drugs???
If Nike etc sue him for the money he earned, surly this should go back to the customers who bought their products as they liked lance.
Watching this on the Discovery Channel at the mo. He seems somewhat deluded by his own tapestry of lies and intimidation.
MrSmith
WTF? Well considering you sound so well read we might as well all give up now. I shudder....
Sorry Daisy, he is actually right. There is a huge amount of history to all this, Some of us are actually anal enough to read through the finer details, it's quite important to us.