Armstrong, filthy hatefull scumbag of a man.

just watched the lie thing.

hatefull vile cheating scumbag bastard.
and he still cant see what he did was wrong…….sorry for the rant.

No, he knows what he did wrong.

The documentary is intended to make him look regretful and human. It fails…..

meh, they were all at it.

@ thegreatape…..the clue is in the title mate, did you think it was gonna be a love story.

I watched the BBC4 documentary and the one you mention Ton. It was eye opening how much power he had, esp managing to halt a federal investigation. Good friends with Big Bill Clinton? Yup. Do me a favour Bill….
😯

Spoiler?

🙂

I read somewhere today that if you took his victory away from one of the tdf years he won you would have to go back to 23rd to award the win to someone not linked to drugs.

Pretty ugly sport all round. But he was the worst.

I’ll try and find the article.

Tyler Hamilton said as much in his book.

What an amazingly skilled liar! I can’t even look folk in the eye when I’m telling the truth….

Just be thankful he decided to be a cyclist, and not a politician or military leader!

The Storyville film on IPlayer (Stop at Nothing) is a far better film, and the best of the genre imho. Similar talking head interviews with the main players but more depth, far more historic race footage, more Greg Lemond and much better direction and production. The “Lie” film started out as a hagiography and whilst it benefits from having LA playing an active part it feels like the director bottled it.

My problem with him has always been his sociopathic destruction of his opposition rather than his doping, I’ll never own a Trek product because of the way they dumped GL for daring to question the LA story.

meh, they were all at it.

This. He was a product of that era. He was just the best at it.

But possibly the only one who treated so many people so appallingly badly?

He raised awareness of male cancers, especially testicular cancer that killed many men each year through ignorance, he also helped raise millions of pounds for the fight back against cancer.

He was also a talking head for cyclists to follow , watch and for some try to follow in his path.

and for those who got treatment after reading about his cancer treatments, im sure they would have a different set of names for him.

*Yawn*

A very manipulative person to say the least. There’s a four letter word that begins with C and ends in unt that describes him better.

i never realised that this was the stuff they did…..blood transfusions, to win a bike race…wtf. sick.

Tired? You need EPO. 😉

I recorded it on Sky plus just so I could delete it without watching.

Vile human being.

More telling was Andreu refusing to answer the question on team involvement…….and LA and Hamilton having to arrange/pay for drugs out of their own salary.

Yet openly transfusing on team buses.

Something really doesnt add up there.

For me, Boardman won every tour he started. Including 95…

, he also helped raise millions of pounds for the fight back against cancer.

He raised millions for Lance Armstrong to pay the appearance fees.

Funny how the sponsors came away reasonably unscathed

i never realised that this was the stuff they did…..blood transfusions, to win a bike race…wtf. sick.

Then you are naive. People do all sorts of stuff to win, survive, overcome. Armstrong is no better or worse than any other sportsman. He just did it more methodically than anyone else who’s been caught.

And it was great entertainment.

The cheating is the side issue for me, they were all doing it, it was the vindictive pursuit of people to attempt to destroy them, for daring to question and accuse him when he knew they were right. Denial to keep his lie intact is one thing, to actively go after people in order to ruin their lives is something else.

Despicable human being.

Then you are naive

quite possibly. but come on….anyone who thinks this bloke is something to respect or even like…ffs.
the bloke should be jailed and made to empty every bank account to pay back what he stole.

Armstrong is no better or worse than any other sportsman.

He is considerable worse than most other cheats never mind the honest ones who never cheated.

Ahem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France

There’s a lot of big names listed as drugs cheats ^^^ here.

Lance may be a ####, a psychotic, a liar, whatever. But so are many in the upper levels of any professional sport. Drugs cheat – so, so many were. The Lance-obsessed haters really need to calm down and get over it.

A machine after the chemo – yup. There’s not many pro-cyclists with that t-shirt.

Still do not get why the Feds dropped their case. Good job Tygart got him some balls – is it me or is there more to come?

I recorded it on Sky plus just so I could delete it without watching.

Flippin fair play.

Lance may be a ####, a psychotic, a liar, whatever. But so are many in the upper levels of any professional sport. Drugs cheat – so, so many were. The Lance-obsessed haters really need to calm down and get over it.

The one doesn’t justify the other.

Ahem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France

There’s a lot of big names listed as drugs cheats ^^^ here.

Lance may be a ####, a psychotic, a liar, whatever. But so are many in the upper levels of any professional sport. Drugs cheat – so, so many were. The Lance-obsessed haters really need to calm down and get over it.

A machine after the chemo – yup. There’s not many pro-cyclists with that t-shirt.

^^This.

Not making excuses for LA but the fact is the authorities went for him above and beyond all others – they wanted a prize head on a plate. No doubt there are plenty more as well but they don’t provide the same “big game hunter” score as taking down LA.

He cheated, he leaned on some people to maintain his hold on things.

All he did in real terms was do some doping to cheat at riding bikes and make some cash. He DID do good work for awareness raising for cancer. People need to move on. Dirty athlete from a dirty period in a sport. It’s just bike riding.

Then you are naive. People do all sorts of stuff to win, survive, overcome. Armstrong is no better or worse than any other sportsman. He just did it more methodically than anyone else who’s been caught

Cobblers

LA did not simply cheat and win or survive, LA systematically set about destroying innocent peoples lives in a prolonged and calculated manner in order to sustain his personal gain.

Take away the context of sport and you will be left with a calculating criminal.

What got me was the way he set out to damage Greg, and the fact that he still can’t admit Betsy was telling the truth all along. The forceful vindictiveness of the man was quite breathtaking.

he authorities went for him above and beyond all others

They were more than likely in collusion with him IMHO than they went after him- Certainly rumours of failed tests that went away.

Obviously they tried to cut the head of the snake and to try to attempt to portray him as the victim of persecution is misguided

he was a cheat, the top cheat, the main cheat , the pinnacle of cheats and he EVENTUALLY got caught….his fans/apologists should get over that.

Not making excuses for LA but the fact is the authorities went for him above and beyond all others – they wanted a prize head on a plate.

The evidence suggests that the authorities did next to f***-all to expose their golden goose.

i never realised that this was the stuff they did…..blood transfusions, to win a bike race…wtf. sick.

I’ve not seen the BBC4 Documentary, so I don’t know what detail it goes into, but the blood transfusions are nuts. Tyler Hamilton got really sick shortly after a transfusion, pissing pure blood and all the rest of it. When he later got caught, he found that he’d been given somebody else’s blood! Which was the reason he was caught, and obviously the reason he was sick. It turned out that Dr Fuentes, who told Hamilton he was one of his only clients, was doping half the peloton and got the bags mixed up. When Fuentes’ place was raided they found over 200 blood bags… Not just belonging to cyclists either.

Armstrong is no better or worse than any other sportsman.

The cheating I can sympathise with to a degree. In a sport were participants may feel that doping is their only chance to win, or even hold on to, or develop their career, and where doping was actively encouraged, it’s easy to see how people succumb to pressure.

Armstrong’s story is pretty impressive too, regardless of doping. In my opinion anyway. I mean, if I got as sick as he did, I would take inspiration from his story. The guy had cancer which spread to his lungs and brain. Then went on to dominate professional cycling for 7 years. Quite incredible really.

But ton’s right. He’s a filthy, hateful, scumbag of a man.

The drugs bit I can understand, it was the lengths he went to, destroying other’s lives etc, and even his Oprah thing was all “oh poor me this is so tough” – no genuine contrition.

The Livestrong thing strikes me as a crock – just a way of getting more cash. But through his fame he probably did more than any other cyclist to promote cycling in the US and here.

Lemond is a legend IMO, huge contrast between the 2! (I hope he was clean!)

Tyler Hamilton said as much in his book.

Had he been good enough to be in the same position Hamilton would have been as bad as Armstrong. Most of them would, to vilify Armstrong is to misunderstand the culture at the time and the very basics of human nature.

Does anyone really think that some journalist was going to rock up and say Armstrong you’re a cheat and he would just come out and say, it’s a fair cop guv, you got me bang to rights. Here have all my money, my endorsements, my foundation, my stage managed reputation and while you’re at it you might as well have everything I’ve set out to achieve for all my adult life.

Back any one of us into a corner and we would either back down or we would do everything we could to get out. He was a competitor, he was conditioned to fight and that’s what he did. Tooth and nail, fair and dirty every trick and underhand tactic he had available to him. Once he’d used PED’s for the first time to increase his chances of winning the whole thing was bound to play out until there was no room left for any lies.

Although they both had lower stakes to play with Hamilton and Landis were no better. They both lied until that approach was utterly exhausted and the only option left to them was to tell the truth and try and profit from it. Had they had the clout and connections to discredit people in the same way that Armstrong did in order to save their own skins I don’t doubt for a moment that they would have taken that option.

All cheats, from hopefully the last generation that thought that cheating was part and parcel of the game.

Had he been good enough to be in the same position Hamilton would have been as bad as Armstrong. Most of them would, to vilify Armstrong is to misunderstand the culture at the time and the very basics of human nature.

Totally get that Armstrong was not unique in his cheating, but no-one went to such lengths to cheat (see his results, and the results of the blue train, and the whole “no-one got caught when Lance was around – as soon as he retired, they all did” thing), and absolutely no-one went to such vitriolic lengths to try and silence those who might otherwise tell the truth.