What about, just for starters, the people who may well have beaten him if hadn’t been doping?

They were also doping.  Go ahead and check.

I’m not kidding.  Find me a single Tour de France winner who hasn’t doped.

I wound up in the cycling business, working all kinds of facets from shop to distribution, and half of the business for me is getting people on saddles. Most people who ride get that; The euphoria of moving quickly and silently, kind of a grounded version of flying. It nullifies this clumsy ‘fall/catch yourself, fall/catch yourself’ that seems to be our lot as legged beasts.

I ride mostly for transport, but I recognize the sport of racing is a heavy draw on our industry. It inspires a lot of people to ride. This scandal is one that I and some here posting will be all too familiar with up til this peaking point. As more and more cyclists were found to be guilty of cheating in this fashion, Lance’s victories teetered between belief he was super-human to just another cheater. I didn’t dwell on it for several reasons, mostly because I was too aware of the history of the Tours, the proliferation of ‘doping’ through every competitive sport, the high-horse the UCI sits on, etc. I mean, they couldn’t even hand down the victory to the next rider down 20 times over. They’d ALL been doping. Thus I hadn’t given any more criticism to Armstrong as any of the others.

But there are a couple of differences with Armstrong that we should take in. Armstrong fought vehemently about his innocence, up to and including suing parties for telling the truth. Lance represented the US’s return to the Tour De France. We saw a huge surge in the industry because of Armstrong. And some people until last week (and probably right now) insist he is innocent. For some it’s the death of a hero. For some it is vindication after being sued (successfully) for defamation of character.

Armstrong’s guilt meant little to me personally as his ‘victories’ meant little to me either. The whole race was kind of rigged to me. The UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) was a political organization, hell-bent on control of every facet of cycling, something that’s never sat well with my ideals of cycling. There has always been a big push to make the sport televisable, a ‘close’ event(The first Tour for example had a second place finish 3 hours behind the winner). And cyclists were glad to go along with doping. The UCI and USADA I felt turned a blind-eye to a lot simply for the sake of business. Most don’t know that their own statute of limitations were broken by the organizations to bring Lance’s guilt out, kind of suggesting to me they were under some kind of pressure. The whole thing is poisoned for me, from Armstrong, the other riders and the organizers themselves.

In the end Armstrong’s narcissism has caught up to him via an organization that’s trying to regain their composure and, more justly, a lot of people who have been trampled under the ego a lot of people built up for Armstrong. His legacy is in tatters and financially he may very well be destroyed too. For me, he my have contributed to the wane of road-cycling in the US but more importantly he hurt the legacy Dodgeball…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb72h8M5L8U

Edited as I made some repetitive statements…

So I rely on her opinion in this matter, because she read Armstrong’s book and reported, simply: “This guy’s an asshole.”

Maybe they just need to change the rules of cycling to take all of those extra achievements in to consideration? Maybe the Tour de France could have a “Bully of the Mountains” Shirt; white with blood spatters, or a “King of the Hypocrites” Shirt splashed with the best sponsorship deals? All the flaws you have pointed out would have been positive attributes if he had put his energy into politics or business management.

How many people got cancer because of Armstrong?

Advantage Armstrong.

Of course it’s all a performance for an audience–that’s what professional sports is all about. 

But that doesn’t mean that everyone involved is lying and cheating to the monstrous degree that Armstrong was. It also doesn’t mean that whenever two teams get together to play, the outcome has already been decided–it’s not THAT kind of performance. That difference from something like professional wrestling is obvious. The players still have to sincerely strive and compete if they want the adulation and money that comes with winning.  

And so, if someone does cheat to the degree Armstrong did (especially someone of his stature), and wins, and we find out about it later, feeling scandalized and disappointed is justified. Feeling that way doesn’t mean we’re hapless saps who can’t see that everyone involved REALLY just wants to sell us beer and shoes.

Professional sports exist to sell beer and shoes. No other reason.

For the record, there is doping in science. Performance enhancing drugs are pretty common in some circles. The most obvious examples are drugs that enhance wakefulness and concentration. One of the booming performance enhancing drugs right now is Provigal (Modafinil) is pretty commonly used stuff and, when it comes to performance enhancement, freaking amazing. You dump the need to sleep (in the short term) with almost no consequences, and as a bonus, your concentration goes way up. It gives an entirely new meaning to an all nighter.

The real concern in science with performance enhancement is safety. A little Provigal here and there isn’t going to kill you and won’t raise any eyebrows, but try and skip the need to sleep all together and you are running some serious health risks. If people intervene or setup policies to try and stop doping in science, it is to keep scientist from frying their brains, not because it is unfair. In sports, safety isn’t the issue. We make the pretense that it is, but the Lance thing proves pretty clearly that we don’t give a shit. No one is pissed off because Lance might have been harming his health. Everyone is pissed because he cheated.

Corporate sports isn’t “real”? You’re saying pro football or baseball games are rigged? If so, there sure are a LOT of people able to keep a huge secret.

What about the thousands of people, all sorts of people, inspired by a belief….

There’s a sucker born every minute. Apparently even more frequently these days. Sports is a giant corporate marketing clusterfuck. It’s about as real as Gilligan’s Island.

He was the best at riding, the best at doping, the best at lying, the best at being a hypocrite, and the best at demoralizing and bankrupting those why tried to call him on his misdeeds.  

Now is when he gets to reap the rewards for his non cycling achievements.

Some of the “harmed” include: Sports reporters who truly believed Lance are now nursing injuries to their self-worth and reputations. SCA Promotions (prize underwriters) are hurtin’ to the tune of at least $12M. U.S. Postal Service is on the hook for around $30M in sponsorship and bonuses. And then there’s the people and orgs Armstrong has sued…I think The Sunday Times leads the pack with a $1.5M libel settlement. And there’s a few careers ruined by Lance’s court-based bullying. And the endorsement deals Armstrong secured…and the endorsement deals denied to others that he might have had a hand in blocking. More than enough hurt to go around.

Dare I ask why the legality factors in to whether something is ‘brain doping’ or not?

People with an ADD/ADHD diagnosis can use performance enhancing psychostimulants legally, people without a diagnosis in that area can’t. Are people in the first category not just as much ‘brain doping’ as those in the second, even if they started out subnormal in certain useful areas, which is why performance enhancement for them is considered licit?

Seriously, I hope he gets his a$$ sued off by all the people he attacked and destroyed over the years. Every single Tour he won, he was doping, think of the opportunities lost by the people who should have won instead.

I’m pretty sure that his spectacular feats were the result of hard work and intelligent tweaking of every minute element of his performance. Just a few more minute elements than previously advertised…