DISGRACED CYCLIST FINALLY COMES CLEAN
Six months after his career was wiped out by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) – and four months after the Union Cycliste International (UCI) stripped him of his seven Tour de France victories – disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong finally admitted using performance enhancing drugs.
In a yet-to-be-televised interview the Oprah Winfrey, the 41-year-old Plano, Texas native reversed a decade of denials – acknowledging that he used doped blood and other illegal substances during the course of his cycling career.
“I would say that he met the moment,” Winfrey said of Armstrong’s confession. “I don’t think ’emotional’ begins to describe the intensity or the difficulty he experienced in talking about some of these things.”
Prior to his confession to Winfrey, Armstrong confessed the truth to the staff of his LiveStrong charity.
Last year the USADA accused Armstrong of masterminding the “most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”
As he has throughout his career, Armstrong vehemently denied these allegations. In fact he not only denied them, he and his network of supporters vigorously persecuted anyone who dared to accuse him of cheating.
Armstrong won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times – from 1999-2005 – becoming a national hero not only for his exploits in cycling, but for his comeback from a 1997 testicular cancer diagnosis.
Armstrong’s confession not only cements his reputation as one of the great cheaters in sports history (along with “home run king” Barry Bonds), it could also cost him millions of dollars and subject the sport of cycling to fresh scandals as his 14-year web of lies unravels.
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17 comments
Maybe this will inspire Clemens to come clean (so to speak), but I doubt it; he’s too “eat up” with hubris. Fact is, they still have to push the pedals, swing the bat, come with the heat and location, or whatever it is that they do. Hell, let ’em ingest whatever they want; judge them on performance. I think Vida Blue once tossed a no-hitter tripping on acid. Long before steroids or HGH or any of these PEDs, baseball players did amphetamines. If one player has a better diet than another, does that give him an unfair competitive advantage?
Blue was a cokehead. You are thinking of this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_Ellis
Read the part about where he thought Richard Nixon was his catcher. Funny as hell.
Nixon was the ump. My bad.
south mauldin, remember Steve Howe? He was absolutely un-hittable when he was doing blow. Seems like Dave Stewart was scary strong and very effective while under the influence of something I can’t remember. A lot of stuff from the 70s and 80s is a little fuzzy in my memory.
It’s a full-blown worldwide scandal that Armstrong cheated on a bicycle race.
He cheated on his wife? Meh. Who cares?
Perfect example of what’s wrong with this ass-backwards world today.
Right on.
The man rides a damn bicycle….I don’t care how he does it.
So he took them there PED’s. We at Clemson been doing more than that for a while now.
At least he has the ball to come clean, y’know.
Good one.
He would give his right nut to start all over again — err… that would be left nut?
bad people beat cancer all the time
Finally, we can get back to recognizing Greg LeMond (sp?) as the greatest American cyclist. And I think he won a Tour after being shot.
the most pathetic part is the way all lance’s braindead true believers had been defending him all this time. it doesnt take much critical thinking skills to understand that if he won 7 tours in a row and almost all of his top competitors have tested positive for doping that he must’ve been doping. now, the next question that needs to be answered is if the drugs caused his cancer in the first place. the most despicable part of lance armtrong’s career isnt the cheating, either. its the way he exploited people’s emotional connections to loved ones with cancer for his own personal promotion and profit.
Not that it excuses any of his actions, but he did raise a lot of money and awareness for cancer research. That’s at least a tiny spot of a silver lining.
Armstrong is an adult bully. Lying and then punishing others to lie for him. And then can’t even man up on the national networks. He goes to Oprah’s couch. He continues to control the message in his own narcissistic way. Should have said early on, “Yeah I doped, but so is everyone else. Doesn’t make it right, but at least I am the best of the dopers!”
Armstrong reminds me of Sanford. Cut from the same bolt of fabric.