Bye Lance

[Jaded]

Amazingly the next biggest news story in the US is a college football player who lied about having a girlfriend.  Seriously.

To be fair the big boys did it and ran away.

[Bledlow]

Isn't that Lance's excuse?

[rogerzilla]

i think he exists in a Jobsian reality distortion field.

[David Martin]

As for Nicole Cooke, I think that she is intelligent, a winner and a great exponent of a clean game. She will be a great leader of UCI.

Maybe a look at her record of managing other people and of working in a team might be helpful prior to the appointment?

Seems ideal UCI material then

[Pedal Castro]

I also looked up the word "cheat" in the dictionary, this is what my illustrated edition said...

[her_welshness]

i think he exists in a Jobsian reality distortion field.

Funny you should say that. I noticed just how much his eye movements were similar to Tony Blair's when Blair was telling big'uns.

And also that nervous little smile after the big 'Yes I did dope' answers. Creeped the frack out of me.

[Nuncio]

After watching the second installment, am I now irritated by Lance's verbal trope of asking himself a long question so as to set himself up for an emphatic response?  Hell, yes!

[mzjo]

A little reaction from Jaja (who might not be as innocent as he would like to appear, considering his Once years et al)

http://sport.sfr.fr/autres-sports/news/jalabert-tout-est-tres-calcule-chez-armstrong,112706/

Short and a bit late; much like the whole french cycling establishment really, too much to gain from thinking we are the only clean ones when the reality is somewhere else!

[Manotea]

I think Nicole got it bang to rights; it's not "cheating", kids in playgrounds "cheat". It's theft, or in Lance's case, organised crime.

[Rhys W]

I'm getting a bit fed up with the whole charade now. It's just a reflection on modern society - win at all costs, self-delusion, crush anybody who stands in your way, fuck-you selfish capitalism in action. Just like the bankers and the politicians. Highly depressing.

[LEE]

I think we need to remember that most people wer calling for him to admit he doped.

He's done that.

He didn't need to do it that.

He's said that he wants to be part of future investigations and that this is just the first part of coming clean about doping. I guess we'll see about that.

He's obviously constrained by legal implications (such as the statute of limitations) of just blabbing about everything.

I think he's looking to cut a deal for blabbing about other people (that's understandable, everyone else cut a deal).

This is all very controlled and managed but what did we expect?  He admits to being a controlling person.

This will clearly run and run, and it will all be carefully managed because it isn't a Disney film, Lawyers are involved, and millions of dollars are at stake.

We wanted a confessions, he confessed.  There's more to come I'm sure.

Is he damned if he does and damned if he doesn't?  Do we now want a certain sort of confession?  Rolling on Oprah's carpet, crying and screaming "forgive me lord"?

He's a self-confessed controlling bully. with decades of lying and self-denial behind him.  This is how those sort of people confess I suppose.

Already he's said more than I ever expected him to.

Now I expect USADA/UCI to cut a deal, "Spill the beans, give us some names, and you'll get a 5 year ban"

[Andrew]

I don't really care about Armstrong now. I used to. Right up until USADA filed it's 'reasoned decision' and the striping of titles was ratified by UCI/ASO. That was my 'job done' point as far as he was concerned. So, for me, no confession was necessary. The story is larger than Armstrong - always was. What now happens to Armstrong is off lesser interest, I'll read about it certainly but as I would many another story.

What concerns me now is what happens within the UCI and cycling generally.

[Hot Flatus]

What concerns me now is what happens within the UCI

Unfortunately, Andrew, that will in part, be determined by Armstrong.

[ian_oli]

One moment during the second the interview which struck me was this
" Do you owe ]Sunday Times journalist] David Walsh an apology?

"That's a good question." (nervous titter )

Do you owe David Walsh an apology, who for 13 years has pursued this story, who wrote for the Times, who has now written books about your story and about this entire process?

"I'd apologise to David. I've had a couple of these conversations."

(The nervous titter bit is my addition to the BBC's transcript)

Oh yeah!!!

There's a radio interview with Walsh http://www.balls.ie/news/a-very-emotional-david-walsh-bbc-interview-further-exposes-the-utter-vileness-of-lance-armstrong/#sthash.HxXd46im.MF0ynw8u.dpbs where from around 6 min 20 Walsh discusses how Armstrong used the fact that Walsh's son had died in a bike accident to attack him - very unpleasant.

[Flynn]

Manly library have it right:

https://twitter.com/LadyWriterMelb/status/292869041826193408/photo/1

[Hot Flatus]

Manly library have it right:
https://twitter.com/LadyWriterMelb/status/292869041826193408/photo/1

Bit harsh perhaps, Andy. I think there was less fiction in there than Floyd Landis's book

[mzjo]

What concerns me now is what happens within the UCI

Unfortunately, Andrew, that will in part, be determined by Armstrong.

Unfortunately LA is trying to set things up so that he will play no part in the future of the UCI, internal or external. That fact alone for me is sufficient to maintain his lifetime ban (and at 41 he is plenty old enough to retire from pro sport. There is of course no mechanism to stop him riding in the next PBP, if he so wishes).
For the rest I hope he gets taken to the cleaners in the various law suits he is up against (although the chief beneficiaries will be the lawyers). There is no real way of compensating the individuals he harmed; there is no way of putting back the clock. Their best therapy might well be to see his life taken apart now and to know that he will suffer and keep on suffering. For that reason alone I would want to see the life ban stick.
I would suggest work for the benefit of the community for several years but he would probably turn that into a publicity coup - and I think any profits from any books, films etc. on him should be confiscated and put to good use (whatever that might be)

[rogerzilla]

The supreme irony is that, after the debacle of the 1998 TdF (aka "Tour de Dopage"), 1999 was supposed to be a fresh start.  It was - a single doper managed to steal almost a decade of cycling history.

[Wowbagger]

What concerns me now is what happens within the UCI

Unfortunately, Andrew, that will in part, be determined by Armstrong.

Unfortunately LA is trying to set things up so that he will play no part in the future of the UCI, internal or external. That fact alone for me is sufficient to maintain his lifetime ban (and at 41 he is plenty old enough to retire from pro sport. There is of course no mechanism to stop him riding in the next PBP, if he so wishes).
For the rest I hope he gets taken to the cleaners in the various law suits he is up against (although the chief beneficiaries will be the lawyers). There is no real way of compensating the individuals he harmed; there is no way of putting back the clock. Their best therapy might well be to see his life taken apart now and to know that he will suffer and keep on suffering. For that reason alone I would want to see the life ban stick.
I would suggest work for the benefit of the community for several years but he would probably turn that into a publicity coup - and I think any profits from any books, films etc. on him should be confiscated and put to good use (whatever that might be)

I'm not disagreeing, but those who have in the past wished suffering on Margaret Thatcher for the dreadful things she did (and they were far more wide-reaching than Lance Armstrong's crimes) have taken a lot of stick from her supporters trying to claim some kind of moral high ground from which they were conspicuously absent when she was at her rampaging worst.

[Hot Flatus]

Take it to P&BI Wowb. It's there precisely for petty point scoring

[cuddy duck]

No, that's a fair point, germane and well made, wow; let's have more.

[Hot Flatus]

He doesn't need any encouragement, Cuddy, and he won't care about the sentiment that lies behind it 

[mzjo]

What concerns me now is what happens within the UCI

Unfortunately, Andrew, that will in part, be determined by Armstrong.

Unfortunately LA is trying to set things up so that he will play no part in the future of the UCI, internal or external. That fact alone for me is sufficient to maintain his lifetime ban (and at 41 he is plenty old enough to retire from pro sport. There is of course no mechanism to stop him riding in the next PBP, if he so wishes).
For the rest I hope he gets taken to the cleaners in the various law suits he is up against (although the chief beneficiaries will be the lawyers). There is no real way of compensating the individuals he harmed; there is no way of putting back the clock. Their best therapy might well be to see his life taken apart now and to know that he will suffer and keep on suffering. For that reason alone I would want to see the life ban stick.
I would suggest work for the benefit of the community for several years but he would probably turn that into a publicity coup - and I think any profits from any books, films etc. on him should be confiscated and put to good use (whatever that might be)

I'm not disagreeing, but those who have in the past wished suffering on Margaret Thatcher for the dreadful things she did (and they were far more wide-reaching than Lance Armstrong's crimes) have taken a lot of stick from her supporters trying to claim some kind of moral high ground from which they were conspicuously absent when she was at her rampaging worst.

Yes, my mistake in letting a kneejerk reaction to one individual make me forget about all the others who have done as badly if not worse (and yes I was a first-time voter who was taken in by the Thatcher message and deeply regretted it afterwards). However the world (and especially France) is full of politicians causing all sorts of misery, justified by the "democratic process"; MT was not the first or the last(or even the worst).
Doesn't change what I feel about LA though.

[citoyen]

The supreme irony is that, after the debacle of the 1998 TdF (aka "Tour de Dopage"), 1999 was supposed to be a fresh start.  It was - a single doper managed to steal almost a decade of cycling history.

Actually, it was precisely those circumstances that enabled USPS to do what they did. Most teams were too scared to dope in 1999 (or at least toned it down a bit), but USPS twigged that despite all the talk of anti-doping treaties, nothing actually changed, so they were able to take their doping to the next level and give themselves a massive advantage over their rivals (so much for the level playing field). From 1999 onwards, all the other dopers were playing catch-up with USPS.

Once again, it's all there in Tyler's book.

d.

[Exit Stage Left]

USPS came in on a wild card in 1999. So they hadn't been as monitored. Armstrong was paid buttons, having been dropped by Cofidis on the cancer diagnosis. The Passage de Glois fiasco split the teams early on, and the bad weather played into Lance's hands. There were a lot of factors in 1999.