Lance Armstrong - cheating bas$"ard or best of a bad bunch

[bigmig95]

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A bit of a long read but interesting:

http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/Drug-Test.html?page=all

The drive and pressure to win has caused some guys to pay the ultimate price.  I remember the spate of young riders dying in their sleep as mentioned in the link Robin put on from taking EPO.  The drug thickens the blood with the increased red blood cell count.  Once asleep the heart rate lowers and in some the heart cannot pump the thickened blood causing heart attacks during sleep.  Very sad.

[MC71]

Blokes a cheat and it mares all the competitions which he entered where others were not cheating (that's probably not very many from his days)

I (like many) followed and cheered Armstrong on when he was winning all those tours. I was amazed at his ability to overcome that hatful disease Cancer and rise to the very pinnacle of the hardest endurance event there is. To find out, he cheated and still denies it after his teammates and everyone has said that not only was he involved but the instigator has made this all a very sad affair.

If this had been anyone other than Armstrong, they would have been vilified in the press as a cheating w**ker. No one is above the sport that made them what they were/are IMO.

[Kregiel]

Guys,

I seriously doubt that in any professional sport there is sombeody not taking performance enhancing drugs - call it what you like. It's just a case of not being caught. That's why salaries are sky high to compensate at least a bit for the health loss or even death. I know it;s very sad...

Regarding Lance if he wasn't caught than it means his titles are genuine. No point in going back unless we screen all sports men out there which is impossible

Paul

[MC71]

^^^^ sadly, I'm sure your right regarding drug taking today. I'm sure there's a clever chap somewhere in a Lab' brewing up a potion that's undetectable to the testing peeps, it's a game of cat ad mouse unfortunately.

As they always say, "if its to good to be true, it usually is", look at Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, the allegations regarding Flo Jo who died aged 38 and who's 100 and 200 metre world records still stand 25 years later and let's not mention every Chinese swimmer that's ever put on a pair of speedo's.

As for cycling, to see Wiggo win this years tour and Cavendish and Froom do so well and then the rest of our peeps in the Olympics and Paralympics achieve so much gives hope that you can be the best without pumping your veins full of sh*te.

 

EDIT: oh and I hope Armstrong ends up in jail!

[keith]

I don't see any issue with what he has done true or not. all sports people take some form of food drink to enhance themselves, call them supplements if it aids you then it's  an enhancement. at the Olympics in  the archery the people competing have weights and balancing aids to help them is this cheating in my eyes yes. I think it's turning or has turned into a witch hunt for him. he beat the big c so he's still a winner.
That will probably rub you true sports people up but that's my op.

[Mark_eire]

Anybody else see Paddy Powers new advert!! 

[Thor]

The level of substance use and abuse across all sports will be far greater than anyone dare imagine.  The rewards are too great and tempation very difficult to resist.  Imagine if you can't shake a niggling injury never mind want to gain a tenth or two in time terms.  Not comdoning it just saying it must be difficult when it's you livelyhood.

Lets not forget that UCI seems far more prepared to do the blood letting in public where as the FA and premiership teams cover for players saying they have an injury when they've been done for recreational drugs.

Think there will be a big scandal  when they finally catch the Jamaican athletics team.  Only reason they caught Dawain Chambers was that the Doctor managing the administration and cycling of the performance enhancement substances, used the list of athletes he was working with as part of a plea bargain for tax evasion.

I also think the media and public at large have a deep misunderstanding of steriods, the family of steriods are used widely in medical science and vast portions of the public are in much better health and physical shape due to being perscribed steriods. cortisone is a classic example of this.

Good film to watch on this subject is called Bigger, Faster, Stronger http://www.biggerstrongerfastermovie.com/

[Edition30]

I'd rather see them doped up to the back knackers and see someone blitz a race, be more entertaining.


As Frankie Boyle said 'do you want to see someone run the 100m in 9.78 seconds or do you want to see someone run it in 3 seconds?'


On a more serious note I can see why they would do it...I completed the C2C challenge yesterday and it certainly is tough.