Armstrong's luck running out?

[Zoupa]

Hate is a pretty strong word dude. I wouldn't really care if he drove off a cliff tomorrow either.

I'm just gonna get a chuckle when they take his titles away. Because he was so dominant, because he's american? Not really, although he played that card alright. Mostly, folks will have a  moment because dude is an asshole.

[alfred russel]

Armstrong is going to find out what it feels like to be Burgundy in EU3 after losing their first big war.

He is going to be broke, powerless, and listening to the FALALALA song 1,000 times.

[katmai]

And how dare he be an asshole if he isn't French! Am I right zoupa?

[Eddie Teach]

There are worse songs to have on a loop.

[DGuller]

Still, even the biggest Armstrong haters have to admit:  if he weren't American, USADA wouldn't be going after him.

[katmai]

Uh......

[crazy canuck]

Fuck the health hazard, they are athletes, they chose this*. The onus hasn't been on training in decades. What's with all the specialists the athletes & teams hire.

Also, WTFAY?

*except the Chinese, of course.

They still train, its just that the drugs make it easier for the training to render exeptional results.  In a sport full of dopers he still won.  I find it a bit ironic that all this is coming out now that the sport has little use for him.

[Capetan Mihali]

Still, even the biggest Armstrong haters have to admit:  if he weren't American, USADA wouldn't be going after him.

[Zoupa]

And how dare he be an asshole if he isn't French! Am I right zoupa?

I know. That stuff is tm'ed

DG: 

[mongers]

So guys do you think I've now got a chance of a crack at the title ?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I never gave two shits about cycling, Tour de France, or Lance Armstrong. What I will say is this, cycling is like baseball was but maybe even worse. For a generation or more it has been dominated by basically every single important athlete using as many different chemicals or doping techniques as possible. Sure, in 1995 they probably hadn't got as good at various types of doping as they were even 10 years later, but the truth is cycling as a doping sport. Period. Go look at professional body building tournaments, that's basically what cycling was. Not as visibly obvious, but they were just as dirty and just as doped up--virtually all competitors.

Baseball was very much the same way. So what do you do? You villify the guys that doped, maybe keep some of them out of the Hall of Fame (speaking baseball now.) But what we didn't go do in baseball was say "this record was never set by this person" or "these games now have no official winner or this series has no champion." Obviously the comparison to baseball isn't as apt to a sport with individual championships like cycling (and I recognize that.) For a lot of reasons it's easier to say no one won the 1998 Tour de France than it is to say the Yankees didn't win the 1996 World Series because they had roided athletes on their roster.

But there is a good reason nonetheless, just as applicable to cycling, that baseball didn't go back and do that. Baseball recognized this: "we admit our sport was fucked up and put in a system designed to at least make it only as fucked up as the other sports, and possibly less so with serious testing--but if we start invalidating results we basically have to say our entire sport was invalid and basically didn't exist for a generation." That is what's happening now with these vacated Tour titles. Yes, Armstrong's fall from grace is might. But what I'm taking away from it is "cycling is such a doped up, invalid sport that the biggest event in cycling basically didn't happen for almost a generation, this sport is irrelevant and pointless."

I think baseball's approach is better, and to the long term interests of the sport. There is a great deal of societal punishment being heaped on the baseball players that doped--especially the ones who still won't admit it despite everyone knowing they did it. Many of them are Hall of Famer caliber players that will never make it into the Hall during their lifetimes. But I don't know why you'd go back and vacate game results when everyone or at least a huge portion of every team was doping. Same way I feel about the Tour, if your choice is "say this cycling event essentially didn't happen for most of the last generation, or just get serious about preventing this stuff" it would seem better to me to not invalidate the whole thing.

[alfred russel]

Otto, I don't think baseball was ever a doping sport--but it did have a lot of doping. Even so, lots of guys didn't dope. I think there is a much better case to be made that in the case of a more purely athletic sport like cycling, there isn't a way to successfully compete with the best riders on sophisticated doping programs without doping.

I find it somewhat odd that baseball has had a major drug scandal but not football, when football players would seem to get much more of a benefit. I know that football has been drug testing for a while, but my understanding is that they don't take blood samples.

[Neil]

Trying to rewrite history is a European obsession.

[Eddie Teach]

Seems Penn St. has a lot less "wins" than it used to.

[sbr]

Otto, I don't think baseball was ever a doping sport--but it did have a lot of doping. Even so, lots of guys didn't dope. I think there is a much better case to be made that in the case of a more purely athletic sport like cycling, there isn't a way to successfully compete with the best riders on sophisticated doping programs without doping.

I find it somewhat odd that baseball has had a major drug scandal but not football, when football players would seem to get much more of a benefit. I know that football has been drug testing for a while, but my understanding is that they don't take blood samples.

I would bet there are more (by percentage) "dopers" in the NFL than baseball, but the NFL always seems to get a pass on it.  I have a 2 pronged theory:  1)  They were the first pro league to institute a serious anti-PED policy, even though it may look a little weak now, and that gets them a lot of credit; 2)  We just don't care.  I want to watch NFL games to see freakish people do freakish things, steroids helps that.