Lance and 60 minutes
 

Now Lance has to claim that 4 different people are lying about him (under oath), including Frankie Andreu's wife. At least 4.

Now reports that Hincapie testified that Lance doped.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cyclin...ory?id=6571826

Is is true that Hincapie asserts this, then it is game, set, match.

Come clean, Lance.

I think we can now almost safely assert what I had before supposed:

Lance Armstrong is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in the history of sport.

I'm trying to imagine if there is any scenario where Lance finally confesses and says, "I'm sorry. I lied." He has so much built up around this fraud that it's hard to imagine him risking it (though by not confessing he incurs risk as well). The greatest cyclist outside of Eddie Mercx. His self-image as a leader in the fight against cancer. His political aspirations. He desire to be attractive to younger female celebrities and score tail.

Is this enough to justify continued perpetration of a lie?

Many of us were willing to overlook the fact that Lance is/was a prick of the highest order. He treated many around him like shit. Including the mother of his children, despite the fact he grew up without a father. He was petty, he held grudges. But we were willing to overlook all of that. We chalked it up to his competitiveness. The same drive that made him the best cyclist also made him an asshole. He would not be unique in that. Look at Michael Jordan.

Now I know that some of you Armstrong apologists are going to say that he was still the best cyclist, and because everyone was cheating, it was an even playing field.

Except that all of his contemporary adversaries have been busted for cheating and have been kicked out of the sport and shamed.

Shouldn't some shame fall on Armstrong as well? Should his contemporaries be derided as cheats, while Armstrong is not?

Maybe history will look back and give a blank check to all these cheaters and say "that was the era." That's fine. But that's for history to decide. Right now, some amount of consistency and fairness should be the order of the day. If Lance cheated, then he cheated. And it should be made crystal clear.

Imperfect people can still fight cancer. Imperfect people (duh) can run for political office. Imperfect people can still promote things that are important to them.

This fairy tale, sadly, appears to be exactly that--a fairy tale. Millions of dollars, drugs, sex--it's the same story we have heard many times. It's about time we stop putting assholes like Lance on the top pedestal and start looking to different kinds of heroes.

You seem all too pleased to dismantle anything and everything.

Assuming he cheated, he did so less enough to pass all testings and he appeared to do so during offseason workouts, not during competitions. But I see no reason for the glee you display. It is still a magnificent sport, and Lance was consistently good.

I see nothing gained by this witch hunt. No joy in your joy of being right in that we should doubt all and be cynical of every athlete.

I watched the 60 minutes report last night, and it was even more damning that I imagined. Not only does it appear that Lance will go down, but that the very highest officials in sport could be implicated as well.

Lance need not only worry about his reputation--he could be on his way to prison.

I've been trying to get an overall sense to what the sporting public's reaction to all of this is. I think that the reaction has been tepid. Maybe because of weariness. A retired athlete in a sport that no one cares about cheated his way to the top.

Lance will play this all the way to the end, hoping for a "not guilty" verdict, and then proclaiming that the entire thing was a witch hunt against an innocent man who wants to do nothing but fight cancer.

The only shocking thing that could happen at this point would be if Lance confessed and started cooperating with the authorities.

It is meaningless and worthless but what can you expect from Nowitzski. He's just a hack with government power.

Mitch Albom: Lance probably doped, but no one cares.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=657...goryid=2378529

He obviously played by rules sufficiently enough to test negative all those years. So it says something about how much he participated. He must have monitored his blood during training to drop it once competition started.

As did hundreds of others.

That Lance never got caught doesn't make him in anyway unusual or less guilty.

Marion Jones was also never caught and used the same explanation as Lance: never had a positive test.

She went to prison.

All the other cyclists who were busted--they competed and cheated many years without being caught.

And now in fact, there is strong evidence that Lance was in fact caught, but that the positive test was made to go away. Including evidence that Lance and Bruyneel met with the lab director (highly unusual). It might be this very situation that lands Lance Armstrong in prison.

In seeing a few cyclists busted here and there, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

I don't believe you can make a persuasive argument why this process is justified. As many already note, "meh" is all I can say.

I don't expect athletes at the top to avoid taking risks and pushing the limits of the rules. I really don't. These type of prosecutions are meaningless and harmful to society at large. I wish ill will upon the prosecutor. Apparently you disagree and prefer to see cycling destroyed.

I remain unimpressed Marion Jones went to jail. I don't believe she should have. These sorts of prosecutions do not improve the economy or cause people to be honest. It is a harmful pursuit but there is always a Nazi around willing to win meaningless cases.

Evidence of MULTIPLE failed tests by Armstrong.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...2_a3&eref=sihp

I include in that the multiple samples of physiologically unlikely/impossible testosterone levels, but before it was considered threshold for doping.

Are you impressed with this sort of journalism? I am not, and know there is so little that it may or may not be true. But because people will read the story, they're happy to chase phantoms even if untrue. You're willing to buy whatever they sell.

I remain unconcerned, and unimpressed. He passed the tests under the then existing standards, but because his competitors did not some are committed to bringing him down. Both have biases so all may be liars. That's most probable.

Are you impressed with Lance's character attacks?

One of the events that made a very distinct impression on me was during one of the Lance's TdF wins, there was a rider in the peleton that had cooperated with authorities in reporting doping that led to consequences for other riders (I don't remember the names). This guy was a nobody on the tour, no chance of winning. But everytime he would try to join a breakaway, Lance himself would charge forward to join the breakaway, dooming it. Finally the other breakaway riders were getting pissed at this guy, saying you are screwing things up.

The Versus commentators said Lance was showing who was boss.

Actually Lance was just enforcing his code: anyone that cooperates with authorities in implicating doping by other riders will be frozen out and dealt with harshly. Omerta.

To me, that was the most blatant proof (to that point) that Lance was involved in doping.

And now all reports point to Lance actually initiating, organizing and distributing doping products. Not just a drug user, but a drug peddler.

Lance is a man that has attempted to destroy people who tell the truth. He is scum.

Sure he still has defenders. But quickly their character is revealed as well.

I am unimpressed by the process altogether.

This is a sport, and it's supposed to be entertainment and to show spectators who is the best.

So in sport, where money's involved, competitors try to gain an advantage. Once one athlete tries to do something another wants to stay even.

I just want to see Americans win, or some athlete from somewhere else who captures my imagination. I don't believe an athlete "cheating" to gain an advantage in terms of athletic performance by enhancements is worthy of the scrutiny involved.

We have real crimes, such as murders, stolen money, stolen merchandise, insider trading, which go unnoticed and unprosecuted. To chase after athletes is a waste of taxpayer monies.

I just want to watch the athletes play or win. I don't care of Barry Bond juiced or what Alberto Contador did. I enjoy watching the chases. That is what I pay to see. I assume they are all cheating but still enjoy the performances. Some push the boundaries further than others.

In basketball, the players game the referees to get them not to call something or to cause the refs to call a charge even if it is not really a charge. I see these sorts of enhancements along the same lines.

another enthusiast wrote this.

I agree with many of his personal observations.

Yes, duh, most in the sport have never tested positive while doping.

I guess Lance will find out that while his lieutenants were loyal, they aren't willing to do time in the clinker for him.

Neither should there be for anybody. That is the travesty.

so there should be no laws regulating distribution of medications and drugs, and if there are laws, then they shouldn't be enforced?

Trolling doesn't work with me.

How pray tell do you deduce athletic performance enhancing drugs and their usage is the subject of this investigation? It certainly doesn't deal with physicians dispensing medications without a prescription.

Nowitzsky doesn't give a hoot about that, but in making or continuing his name. I really don't know what public policy this investigation advances.

Many of these people that have been busted, were prosecuted on drug distribution laws. Normally that doesn't affect the athlete, as he is usually the end-user. But in the case of Lance, it may be that he was both a dealer and an end-user. In which case he will be in for a world of hurt.

Or they are prosecuted for obstruction of justice. I don't care what the tool used by the prosecutor is, it's the public policy at issue and it certainly isn't medications and prescriptions that's got him riled up. If it were, he wouldn't be the prosecutor. You're not going to come up with any scenario where I believe in what the prosecutor is doing. Not any that have come to light so far.

I don't believe the accusations that he was a dealer and you're construing the allegations in a light which isn't deserved. This is sport, we expect the athletes to push the limits of what's allowed. I don't expect athlete to be moral ethicists. I expect them to go over the edge once in a while. They are risking their own bodies to produce performance. It's not something I recommend; it's not something I would do, but I'm not concerned that others don't share my beliefs and certainly don't believe they should be prosecuted for this penny ante stuff.

Do I believe physicians should dispense medications in accordance with the manufacturer's indications and in accordance with sound medical judgment? Of course. And if narcotics are involved, we should enforce the rules. As far as I know, except for the situations of sports or the little blue pill, most prosecutions involve the abuse of narcotics because of their potentially addictive traits.

So if you possess a Schadenfreude, then this sort of prosecution is right up your alley. But there is no harm to society at large, except for government's need and desire to exert influence over every sphere of society. This is a meaningless prosecution, unless Schadenfreude is your chief goal.

here's what Lance's PR machine is saying:

So there you go. Lance asks us to care tremendously about him when he is an athlete. He asks to lend our time and eyeballs to watch him ride a bike. He asks us to buy Treks and Subarus and Nike and his books. He DIDN'T ask us to do other things instead, because they were more worthy pursuits than just following a lousy sport. But suddenly, when his career is over and there is the possibility that he committed fraud, he says NO ONE should care. WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY! He says.

Sorry Lance, you can't have it both ways. You can't ask people to care about your cycling, and not care whether you cheated your way to the top.

You are probably right, Lance, that your entire career has been a waste of time and money of everyone that ever layed eyes on you. But the world is what it is. And it just so happened that a lot of people did care. And you have to deal with the fallout now.

It seems to me that if Lance is so concerned about taxpayers' dollars, he could confess to everything he knows. And he could TRULY work towards cleaning up this sorry sport of cycling. Instead of just pretending to clean it up.

I have my sports heroes. Lance is not numbered among them.

I imagine if you laid the scrutiny laid upon Lance, all of them would fail. There is nobody worth believing in the sports world in terms heroship. None.

I have people in athletics I admire for the craftsmanship or skill within that endeavor, but find them as heroes? Not really. I admire normal people who live normal lives more than any celebrity.

I admire what Lance did because he brought professionalism in terms of regimen and focus to cycling. He was a tremendous cycling talent. That's what I admire. I don't admire him for his life or how he treated people because any of that is made up for public consumption.