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Lance Armstrong Interview on Oprah Jan-17


truth on hold

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Cyclist Lance Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance-enhancing drugs to gain an edge in cycling in a lengthy interview Monday, a person familiar with the interview told USA TODAY Sports.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/cycling/2013/01/14/lance-armstrong-livestrong-apology-oprah-winfrey/1833641/

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Agreed, but his adamant refusal is what "we" all hung on to the core.

 

Right. Nobody really cares at this point about the PED use or the fact that everyone did it, it's about how aggressively and nastily he went after anyone who dared suggest he was using PEDs.

 

Here's an interesting summary of the nastiness.

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First, I will fess up. I am a cyclist and a cancer survivor. My wife is a cancer survivor as well. I looked at LA with very high regard as a human being and as an athlete. When he spoke at the opening ceremonies of the first Pelotonia (bike ride to raise funds for The James Cancer Center at Ohio State) you could have heard a pin drop on the grass ampitheater.

 

Now, I look at him in the same level (or worse) as Bernie Madoff. They would be head to head as the biggest con artist ever.

 

I will be interested as to what he says, or doesn't say, but my believing everything his says will not be there.

 

I said when this all came out that the only person that he needed to listen to in order to tell the truth to was himself, and his kids.

 

I am not sure I buy the Bernie Madoff analogy... He conned people by telling them they can make insanely huge amounts of returns. As much as people were party to the con... Their own greed got the best of them too. What I am saying, people should have asked themselves "what's the catch?" With LA, IMO, it was a bit harder... BUT then again... Those 7 Tours should have been red flags... Nobody wins 7 Tours... I guess you are a bit right...

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I am not sure I buy the Bernie Madoff analogy... He conned people by telling them they can make insanely huge amounts of returns. As much as people were party to the con... Their own greed got the best of them too. What I am saying, people should have asked themselves "what's the catch?" With LA, IMO, it was a bit harder... BUT then again... Those 7 Tours should have been red flags... Nobody wins 7 Tours... I guess you are a bit right...

 

They both conned us of our trust.

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JR and EiN...

 

The answer is BOTH. Most elite athletes start with testosterone pills. Then move on to HGH and then to Erythropoietin (EPO). And yes...they are all dangerous, especially EPO. What EPO essentially does is raise your red blood cell count. Some riders in the heyday of EPO use took so much of it, their red blood cell count went so high their blood became thick like mud and they dropped dead of cardiac arrest because their hearts couldnt handle the strain. You get around that by working with a doctor who closely monitors what youre doing and what your RBC counts are. Coincidently, this is how testing is beaten. The doctors "maintain" your RBC levels and other critical indicator levels juuuust below the threshold of what would trigger a positive test. Beloved Lance worked with a doctor named Michele Ferrari. An Italian doctor who is basically the "Dr. Feelgood" of pro cycling, banned from the sport years ago.

 

After all this, transfusions come in. Riders bag their blood and store it and on rest days during the Grand Tours or before a big one day race would get the transfusion. Here is an excerpt from Tyler Hamilton's book on the subject. Hamilton rode with Lance for years:

 

One damning passage among many is the book's reconstruction of a furtive trip Hamilton, Armstrong and another teammate made in May 2000, taking Armstrong's private jet from France to Spain and a remote hotel. There, while team director Johan Bruyneel makes small talk, the riders get their blood withdrawn and stashed away for reinfusion midway through that year's Tour.

"With the other stuff, you swallow a pill or put on a patch or get a tiny injection," Hamilton writes. "But here you're watching a big clear plastic bag slowly fill up with your warm dark red blood. You never forget it."

Thanks to hard work and banned drugs, Hamilton was exceptionally fit at the time, but he recalls how shocked and disturbed he was by the weakness he felt on his bike for the next week, while a pint of his blood sits hundreds of miles away in a dark refrigerator.

"It shook me deeply," Hamilton writes. "My strength wasn't really in my muscles; it was inside my blood, in those bags."

 

Read more: http://www.nydailyne...3#ixzz2I6TFsR2A

 

Feel free to ask more about this. As much abuse as Im taking in the other cycling thread, I know this stuff pretty well and happy to enlighten folks.

 

Interesting reading all that... Thanks!

 

Seriously... He is a cancer survivor (testicular)... Could all that have HELPED him beat it? Maybe his justification for it all... ??

Edited by ExiledInIllinois
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Could the PEDS have helped him beat cancer? Well...EPO is a drug designed for use in cancer treatment. I beleive its to help with chemotherapy which wipes out your red blood cells. So I suppose its possible.

 

But the cancer had nothing to do with why he doped. He doped to win. He ran the doping ring he did and destroyed anybody and anything that got in his way with his MASSIVE power becuase he was obsessed with winning, to the point of it consuming him. He is really a sad case. Any athlete plays to win. But he became so obessed with ensuring he was on top, he became a megalomaniac about it. Hes probably a sociopath as well.

You're right he could be a sociopath. I actually bought that POS's story until a few months back when the evidence became overwhelming. His interview and his offer to give the postal service 5 million back smacks of trying to buy some dignity back. I doubt he will ever change the public's perception on him now. he should have drifted into the abyss and disappeared. Nothing he does going forward will ever mean squat.
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Could the PEDS have helped him beat cancer? Well...EPO is a drug designed for use in cancer treatment. I beleive its to help with chemotherapy which wipes out your red blood cells. So I suppose its possible.

 

But the cancer had nothing to do with why he doped. He doped to win. He ran the doping ring he did and destroyed anybody and anything that got in his way with his MASSIVE power becuase he was obsessed with winning, to the point of it consuming him. He is really a sad case. Any athlete plays to win. But he became so obessed with ensuring he was on top, he became a megalomaniac about it. Hes probably a sociopath as well.

Question I have could the PEDs be the reason he got cancer ?

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