Tour de France 2005

Logos wrote: utah_man wrote: - NOW... at the risk of being shot at, here goes... (4) i am REALLY sick and tired of hearing all the media hype & fluff about lance armstrong in the american press. a) IMO... he's nothing more than a doper...perhaps he won the first few tours w/o "enhancements" - however, i agree with those in the pro cycling community there in europe that he is cheating... only he's very clever at it, and wealthy enough to hire someone to develope a "super drug" You're just jealous, I think. Lance Armstrong is the greatest athlete ever IMO, coming through cancer to win 7 (well, it's pretty sure already, isn't it?) Tours, and I'm certainly a big fan of his. As what comes to doping; well Lance has been in a doping test for like a million times already, yet he has never given a positive test result, so you can just forgive it. Guys like Rumsas and Millar are cheaters, and they deserve to be punished, yet no one is guilty until proven so. Super drug my ass.

I followed cycling religiously (as an atheist of course) until the Festina scandal in 98. There it got proven that this was organized by teams also (we had a good idea of it as the PDM team all abandonned - that was the only time sean Kelly got suspected of something).

The fact is that US Postal (and now Discovery Channel ) team is the best organized , the most powerful and the richest around , buys luxury teammates to avoid competition and have them serve as gregarios. They must be one step ahead chemically speaking also!

There was never any proof on Lance being doped , but there were many hints , stories and revelations (a bit like Michael Jackson), but never any solid proofs.

All I know is I will be happy to see him retire because the TDF is even more boring than when Indurrain won it . I would like to see Armstrong try out the classics full out though, something Indurrain never dared to do.

Sean Trane wrote: The fact is that US Postal (and now Discovery Channel ) team is the best organized , the most powerful and the richest around , buys luxury teammates to avoid competition and have them serve as gregarios. They must be one step ahead chemically speaking also! There was never any proof on Lance being doped , but there were many hints , stories and revelations (a bit like Michael Jackson), but never any solid proofs.

Yes it is the best organized team - and cycling is team sport, nobody can win the Tour de France without a solid team. (Maybe Armstrong could tho, I dunno  )

But these revelations etc. are also a way of making some serious money. Some guy who used to work with Armstrong gets sacked or something, he tells to the press that he witnessed Armstrong's doping and gets loads and loads of money. ( A bit like kiss&tell type of thing in the English press, if you know that)

Sean Trane wrote: Logos wrote: utah_man wrote: - NOW... at the risk of being shot at, here goes... (4) i am REALLY sick and tired of hearing all the media hype & fluff about lance armstrong in the american press. a) IMO... he's nothing more than a doper...perhaps he won the first few tours w/o "enhancements" - however, i agree with those in the pro cycling community there in europe that he is cheating... only he's very clever at it, and wealthy enough to hire someone to develope a "super drug" You're just jealous, I think. Lance Armstrong is the greatest athlete ever IMO, coming through cancer to win 7 (well, it's pretty sure already, isn't it?) Tours, and I'm certainly a big fan of his. As what comes to doping; well Lance has been in a doping test for like a million times already, yet he has never given a positive test result, so you can just forgive it. Guys like Rumsas and Millar are cheaters, and they deserve to be punished, yet no one is guilty until proven so. Super drug my ass. They must be one step ahead chemically speaking also! There was never any proof on Lance being doped , but there were many hints , stories and revelations (a bit like Michael Jackson), but never any solid proofs. All I know is I will be happy to see him retire because the TDF is even more boring than when Indurrain won it . I would like to see Armstrong try out the classics full out though, something Indurrain never dared to do.

yea...my point exactly

armstrong ignores the race calendar...something that, historically, cycling's greats never really did, not even lemond.

the greatest cyclist - and one of the greatest athletes of all time is "the cannibal" - eddy merckx from ... [drum roll] ...Belgium
even armstrong himself admits this

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Oops.. nothing here, really..

I had the opportunity to talk with Laurent Desbiens who was a "team-mate" of Armstrong when he was with the Cofidis team a couple of years ago.

He told me that Lance actually came to the training sessions during his cancer treatments... and cycled like all the others. Talk about courage and strength of will...

Can you imagine having cancer and doing the same ?