Oct 21, 2013 at 11:41 PM
Professional Dopers
Oct 22, 2013 at 03:32 PM
I was hunting around online for the full interview. Has anybody seen a link where it can be viewed, more than that 5 minute clip?
Oct 22, 2013 at 04:31 PM
If you can find some of his rants, he seems to be one of hte first canaries in the mines. He tagged many of the dopers, including the coach Rick Crawford.dstokes said:Retro 2006 article that I found after the name Matt DeCanio jumped out at me from an article in the NYTimes. Seems that I used to ride with him when I lived in Charlottesville and rode with the Monticello Velo team. He was a teenager at that time and I had no idea about what happened to him . . . Seems like he became an early anti-doper.
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2006-07-27/news/tour-de-dope/
Oct 22, 2013 at 05:56 PM
I remember him coming out...I believe he was on a team with Horner and mentioned he was a doper....Prime Alliance maybe? I feel bad for guys like Danny Pate who had the natural talent to compete on the highest level and the character to avoid to avoid the needle....Crawford, man I remember there was a female pro mtb racer who once remarked..."isn't it amazing, anybody that works with Crawford starts winning immediatley". It was meant as an accusation...not a compliment.
Oct 30, 2013 at 10:12 PM
Ryder H just admitted to doping
Oct 30, 2013 at 10:28 PM
Source?
Oct 30, 2013 at 10:35 PM
Oct 30, 2013 at 11:37 PM
wah wahhhhhh.
Oct 31, 2013 at 06:15 PM
I'm starting to think this T&R thing is a bigger hairball than we thought. They want to give amnesty for past offences in order to reveal how widespread it was, and "out" certain methods, but the authorities also don't want people (dopers) to know who told-all because that would alert the bad-actors to try different methods.
Oct 31, 2013 at 06:23 PM
It won't work for several reasons. First, people who haven't been caught have little reason to come forward. They got away with it already. There's little incentive to come forward as they can only lose standing in their communities. Few will want to expose "the dream" they lied/lived, and fewer will want to out comrades even if they weren't friends. And the idea that somehow USADA, WADA, the UCI can compel private companies and national governments to overlook their perogatives and laws is farfetched.Jules said:I'm starting to think this T&R thing is a bigger hairball than we thought.
I wrote about it here: http://jralong.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-softer-side-of-omerta.html
Oct 31, 2013 at 06:29 PM
BTW, I just finished Wheelmen. It is riddled with factual errors. Here are two easy ones. They refer to SRM being Danish and Moots bicycles being Austin, TX based. But they also seem to alternate from mocking some Lance claims to dutifully acting as stenographers for other parts of his myth. And for all the "follow the money" white collar crime reporting they seem to have done, they barely touch on Lance Armstrong Foundation/Livestrong.
Oct 31, 2013 at 09:35 PM
Guess who just got his first cortisone shot? That's right, I'm more pro than all of you.
Nov 06, 2013 at 07:13 PM
The DeCanio thing reminds me, if this hasn't already been asked - JP will hopefully know his name: there was a kid in the 90's a bit younger than LA who went to spain to ride for the Banesto espoir team. He was on the national team etc and also got testicular cancer right about the time LA did, and he blamed it on the drug use of the US junior nation program. He recovered but quit major racing and made a small splash in the late 90s predicting LA drug use and getting busted. I think I only read one or two articles about the guy - they shut him down pretty quickly and it was largely pre-internet so it never gained the attention these things got just a few years later... wanted to ask this one for a while.
Any old heads out there? JP Bertucco? Beuhler?
Nov 06, 2013 at 07:15 PM
good news for local dopers
Nov 06, 2013 at 07:29 PM
Greg Strock is the guy. He's a doctor now (and a pretty good masters racer). You can read about him on velonews.com and in the book Lance to Landis. He was joined in a suit against USAC, Chris Carmichael, and Rene Wenzel by Erich Kaiter, and a few others--all alleged being doped as juniors. Kaiter, like Strock, ended up getting sick and cutting short his racing career as a result of USAC's junior doping program. Interestingly, Kaiter was either a friend or prep school roommate of one Tyler Hamilton. It should also be noted that Strock was on a national team trip where he claimed he was doped with what he was told was "extract of cortisone." Everyone else on that squad, save George Hincapie, backs up his claim.jfogden said:The DeCanio thing reminds me, if this hasn't already been asked - JP will hopefully know his name: there was a kid in the 90's a bit younger than LA who went to spain to ride for the Banesto espoir team. He was on the national team etc and also got testicular cancer right about the time LA did, and he blamed it on the drug use of the US junior nation program. He recovered but quit major racing and made a small splash in the late 90s predicting LA drug use and getting busted. I think I only read one or two articles about the guy - they shut him down pretty quickly and it was largely pre-internet so it never gained the attention these things got just a few years later... wanted to ask this one for a while.Any old heads out there? JP Bertucco? Beuhler?
Nov 06, 2013 at 08:16 PM
Holy jeebus, that is some serious craziness. Junior doping program? Those three words should never be used together...
Nov 06, 2013 at 11:44 PM
JP, as usual you are a fountain of information.
Nov 07, 2013 at 11:13 AM
And you still see Chris Carmichael ads all over cycling "news" sites. Nice.
Nov 08, 2013 at 12:27 AM
As much as I hate him, this is very sad:
DB: What will you do if you don’t get the call?
LA: Keep working on my golf game.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/lance-armstrong-exclusive-interview-part-3
DB: What will you do if you don’t get the call?
LA: Keep working on my golf game.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/lance-armstrong-exclusive-interview-part-3
Nov 08, 2013 at 02:37 AM
Why? Because it shows how hollow his claims of commitment to cycling are?dstokes said:As much as I hate him, this is very sad:
DB: What will you do if you don’t get the call?
LA: Keep working on my golf game.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/lance-armstrong-exclusive-interview-part-3
Lame interviews. Almost no follow up questions at all. And the editor who did the interview helped him twist the facts to Armstrong's benefit. For example, it wasn't just the Andreu's who claim they heard Armstrong's hospital room admission. It was also Stephanie McIlvain, an Oakley rep, who admitted to hearing it in a phone call with LeMond, who taped the conversation. And she has also admitted to being pressured by her employer. All the bits about him racing clean in 2009 are equally ludicrious. He's not asked about the missed test. He claims there's a blip in his tests because it happened after the Ventoux stage--first, he claims Levi was with him, when Leipheimer had been out of the race for a week, and then he makes it seem as if he did it at the bottom of the mountain, and that he wasn't allowed to get water.
Nov 08, 2013 at 12:32 PM
@JP. My reaction was motivated by the facts of the matter. Just the idea that any cyclist would have to resort to playing golf, despite how they found themselves in that situation. It's the same sort of thing that allows Frodo to pity Gollum.
Nov 11, 2013 at 04:59 PM
more lance the merrier
Nov 11, 2013 at 06:20 PM
ooooh. Poor lance. It's not fair!
Not fair that he's living well while others are broke.
I love how he's trying to spin it as if he was just a cog in a fair machine. He was a mastermind of a bank robbery, while his teammates were petty criminals he hired. And he forgets how he, unlike most of them, tested positive and got away with it. And he was offered a chance for leniency but refused to take it.
He must be getting word out to blunt any negatives from the documentary.
Nov 12, 2013 at 02:08 PM
Well, it is true that hordes of people profited off of believing in and perpetuating the lie, and now they get to either wash their hands of it completely or profit even more. The lie created an industry that's now a behemoth. And that behemoth gets to spit him out and continue profiting. It's not that Lance hasn't brought it on himself, but it is true and it's also not right.
Nov 12, 2013 at 03:45 PM
Who are these hordes? You mean like Floyd and Tyler? You mean like Lance, who, despite all his complaining probably won't need to work again. You mean like pro bike racing, which is still reeling from the revelations. You mean like "his" foundation, which will probably shutter soon.
The foundation was largely about stroking his ego and popularity, and it certainly received low marks early on and had a sleazy relationship with Lance from the get go.
I don't see what's not right.
Nov 12, 2013 at 04:39 PM
There is so much "not right" about this (this being doping in pro sports and cycling in particular) that it seriously strains anybody's ability to find something that "is right"mugwump said:I don't see what's not right.
Penitent dopers don't confess, red-handed ones do and walk, other red-handers from Pre-Festina remain in the sport's Pantheon, clean riders who are finishing second tier careers look on from the sidelines at the likes of Vaughters, Hesjedal, Millar.... the corporations who enjoyed the booms, and likely abetted the doping and coverups (Trek, Oakley, Nike, etc) sit firmly on their embiggened marketshare and profits from the era, and are allowed to put on an obscene "shocked at such behavior" charade, while the most noble piece of the entire farce (Livestrong) teeters, and it's message of hope with it.
(I'm not suggesting that Livestrong wasn't a beard, or a personality vehicle, but it was also - I think undeniably - an incredible vehicle for hope, fundraising and practical help for millions)
So yeah, it's an obscene mess from start to finish, IMHO. Lance as exciting as he was to watch is fast becoming Pantani in his relevance to the sport, and he has some points, but really... who cares? He's well enough trained as a media-savvy expert to paint his accusers in an increasingly capricious and vengeful light - and no doubt he will, but so what? It's not like he's even asking to return to pro cycling - he want to do Tri's, and from what I can tell the USAT wants him, and his publicity.
Let them have him, good riddance.
Nov 12, 2013 at 05:56 PM
A bit of a tangent and not at all what Armstrong was going for. Yes, I'm guessing that Trek looked the other way, Nike probably helped pay for a cover-up, and Oakley definitely silenced Stephanie McIlvain. But they all paid him well, and haven't benefitted from his fall, so no, he shouldn't be complaining about them. We should be, as you are.
Livestrong, in my opinion, benefitted from misdirections from the get-go. They didn't do much research and then they dropped it in favor of "survivorship," which seems like it might have been helpful to some people, but hardly justifies its existence. The yellow wristbands just on their own did seem to have a mystical effect for many, and in that, I htink it safe to write that Armstrong's presence was more important than the foundation's work. I believe if he had been able to race clean as a mid-level protour racer, it would have been a more incredible story, and one a smart marketer could have sold well, but that would have been too slight for his lanceness, and would have taken too long to be something millions would get excited over.
The only way for Lance to do tri's is for USAT to pull out of the WADA accord. I don't see that happening. No Olympics, and my guess is many sponsors would pull out as well
Nov 12, 2013 at 06:31 PM
I don't blame a startup foundation for changing direction early on, and what exactly is the bar to "justify [the] existence" of a non-profit? By any measure I know of they did pretty good and he *did* hit up two presidents for a billion dollars each for cancer research (not that he got it, but that's more than many causes dream of).
I think this dichotomy is at the heart of the public (not cycling's) confusion - bad people can do good things and vice versa; they just don't fit well into any modern sound-byte narrative.
I agree there was plenty of room for a fantastic story sans dopage, and this in the end will be the biggest tragedy.
It will be hard to untangle the story of a lying cheating cheat-lier cyclist and the founder of a nonprofit that did some real good.
I think this dichotomy is at the heart of the public (not cycling's) confusion - bad people can do good things and vice versa; they just don't fit well into any modern sound-byte narrative.
Yes he used the cancer thing as a shield but it actually helped a lot of people so I don't personally find him any more or less odious than Boesky, Tiger Woods or Michael Vik.
He's kind of a classic fallen villain; he thought he had the world and his sponsors by the tail but in the end it turned out that he was the only one with the world to lose, and his hubris was at the heart of his own downfall.
Nov 12, 2013 at 09:18 PM
Jules,
Two years of reporting on Charity Navigator do not prove much, when the organization has been around for sixteen years.
from the AIP's Charitywatch: http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/cancer.html
The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF), founded
by the champion bicyclist and cancer survivor of the same name,
is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year. Wouldn't you think
a charity that receives massive publicity for having one of the
most popular causes and most admired celebrities as the face of
the organization would be able to easily raise lots of money? Unfortunately
this is not the case. LAF spent as much as $45 to raise each $100,
exceeding AIP's 35% recommended fundraising ceiling by a significant
margin. While LAF had difficulty raising contributions efficiently,
it did prove to be a savvy merchandise marketer. LAF sold over $24
million in merchandise, including the ubiquitous yellow "LIVESTRONG"
wristband, as well as clothing, sports gear and even dog leashes.
Yet after spending $10 million in solicitation costs, the group
brought in only $22 million in contributions, according to AIP's
analysis of LAF's 2005 financial statements.
of course, much could have changed since 2005. And it seems that much did. But there was still something off about it well past 2005.
I wouldn't be surprised if one of Lance's motivations in coming back was to keep the livestrong gravy train rolling.
Nov 12, 2013 at 10:34 PM
What you're not acknowledging JP, is the cognitive dissonance of the situation. Lance IS getting what he deserved. And Livestrong WAS bad in many ways.
But like it or not, it did tremendous good getting people health conscious and inspiring people with cancer.