Lance won't contest the charges

[bengatta]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-16/a ... cs/4466638

it's building the right momentum now....

next week will be interesting indeed....

[norbs]

How the fuck the IOC can complain about corruption? That makes my head spin.

Given they have already starting stripping the more popular events, it could well happen.

Ah well, the Olympics is only every 4 years, who the fuck cares.

[Pinger$]

Olympics has certainly lost a lot of its charm over the past decade. Maybe that's directly proportional to me becoming a grumpy "older" man :P

[J.D.]

The Olympics brings out the best and worst in a lot of people. I've met three IOC officials that I can remember. Two of them are some of the bset people I've ever met and the third one belongs in the bottom half...

I read "The Lords of the Rings" - the book which blew the lid on the Olympics party train - about 12 years ago. That cycling is similarly tainted doesn't surprise me any more than if we were talking about soccer. Sepp Blatter and Hein Verbruggen are cut from the same cloth.

[Duke]

You know what this sport needs, a Bernie (yes as in Ecclestone).
Just someone who is a savy businessman / company head to take over the marketing & promotion of the sport, leaving the governing body to regulate just like the F1 model. Same goes all the way down the cycling system right to the club level imho.
Any sporting body that is goverened & promoted by 1 entity will always be open to corruption due to the conflict of interest... just like has been said with the OIC, FIFA etc.

[pab]

You know what this sport needs, a Bernie (yes as in Ecclestone).
Just someone who is a savy businessman / company head to take over the marketing & promotion of the sport, leaving the governing body to regulate just like the F1 model. Same goes all the way down the cycling system right to the club level imho.
Any sporting body that is goverened & promoted by 1 entity will always be open to corruption due to the conflict of interest... just like has been said with the OIC, FIFA etc.

But then aren't you just moving the corruption out of the governing body and into the corporate one? Corruption is Bernie's middle name!

[nutty]

Great point flinty, I like how Bernie's corruption kinda ends at promotion, like he decides where they race, how the rights are sold, his mandate is to sell the sport.

Then the mandate of the FIA is to regulate, while yes Bernie does have a say the buck stops ultimately with the FIA and they are empowered to make a somewhat impartial decision around rules.

In the end all these other models are making decisions based on commercial arrangements, the last thing the UCI/IOC/FIFA/NBA/NFL blah blah want is a massive scandal around drugs that costs them sponsorship, while Bernie is the same in the F1 world he isn’t the guy deciding what is regulated and what isn’t.

Now all that is perfect world, we know Bernie has massive influence in the FIA, but I think the F1 model is far better

[J.D.]

...except that motorsport is not well regulated.

[nutty]

and the rest listed above are?

[Big Kev]

He's been stripped of his Olympic medal from 2000 now as well.

I think this interview is going to be fascinating viewing.

[Swain OHaw]

[w00dsy]

Given his reluctance to admit any wrong doing and his pics on twitter and his comments about himself on strava, I'd really love to know what it was that made him suddenly admit to it.

[Big Kev]

I think he's only doing it so he can compete in triathlons. Without admitting guilt he can't do a lot.

[Big Kev]

That was a bit of an anticlimax really.

Did you cheat?
Yes.

[durbster]

Given his reluctance to admit any wrong doing and his pics on twitter and his comments about himself on strava, I'd really love to know what it was that made him suddenly admit to it.

Perhaps


If your career and reputation is screwed, might as well top up the pension pot and I'd guess Oprah must be one of the biggest offers going.

[DarrenM]

Yep, I'm sure I'm not doing this out of repentance.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/lance-armstron ... 118%2Fp106" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Part 2 is about to start

[Gizmo]

Well the interview didn't answer to many questions for me. The only emotion he showed was when talking about his children and Livestrong. Oprah didn't have the knowledge of the sport and she didn't push him hard enough. I hope that Phil Liggit gets a chance to do an interview, that one will answer alot more questions. It seems to me the only reason he is doing this is so he can compete again.

[Duke]

Yep just proved he's a deluded sociopath who still doesn't get it.

Now he needs to be forgotten & put back under the godforsaken rock he came from.

[mrleisure]

An apology to all the people he intimidated would be nice But I don't expect that to happen either . He really is only concerned about himself .

[norbs]

Well the interview didn't answer to many questions for me. The only emotion he showed was when talking about his children and Livestrong. Oprah didn't have the knowledge of the sport and she didn't push him hard enough. I hope that Phil Liggit gets a chance to do an interview, that one will answer alot more questions. It seems to me the only reason he is doing this is so he can compete again.

Do you mean Liggett interview Armstrong?

[richo]

Before the witch hunt begins i know nothing about cycling , granted he is a drug cheat and for want of a better a word a total c**t did he not still ride a bike around France (an many other places) an awful lot?

I guess to put my question in a better light is how much would all the shit he was doing add to his performance ? Forgetting about the millions of people he inspired (dubious word) including me and building a temple to himself how much of his total performance was Lance Armstrong and how much was modern science?

Watching Oprah he seemed to me to be apologizing enough to avoid litigation or jail time and do hope he gets a bit of each.

[Duke]

Well in lamens terms EPO is said to provide about a 20% increase in performance so if taking that & translating it to time in a TDF then 20% equates to about 100th place overall or mid-pack fodder.

OK so he still had to be good enough to be a pro & still do all the hard training to complete those TDF's, no mean feat in itself but the concoction he used, which wasn't just EPO & Blood Doping (same improvement results) also allowed for much quicker recovery for the next day.

Yep ppl can argue other riders were also doing it but what about the blokes that weren't & didn't even get a look in to compete in a TDF or even have a career in cycling cause they were respectable human beings who never crossed that moral boundary.

About the only thing he can attest to is his remarkable comeback from cancer but he's not alone there in beating the dreadful disease. Tosser!!!

[Big Kev]

Well in lamens terms EPO is said to provide about a 20% increase in performance so if taking that & translating it to time in a TDF then 20% equates to about 100th place overall or mid-pack fodder.

His argument seemed to be that everyone was doing it so it was back to being a level playing field. Very little remorse shown on his part. The worst bit though was to sit and testify that he was clean and to sue perfectly innocent people to 'prove' that even though he knew he was lying.

[J.D.]

Seems to me like he justified it by saying to himself, "Well you're all doing it so if I go down I'm gunna take the rest of you fuckers with me".

That would also have been his protection.

[norbs]

Seems to me like he justified it by saying to himself, "Well you're all doing it so if I go down I'm gunna take the rest of you fuckers with me".

That would also have been his protection.

That is the thing that shits me most "they were all doing it!" Fucking bull shit! There may have only been a few NOT on the juice, but they are the real heros, not those cheating fucks that did use PEDs. Sadly, some of the cyclists I really like, and who are yet to come out and say they used, did, and that pisses me off even more.

Breakfast with Mike Tomalaris was interesting this morning. I have to do a Bengatta and say no more, but it was an eye opener.