The Man Who Brought Down Lance Armstrong

Let&#x27;s not forget that Armstrong enbarked on a spirited campaign to <i>destroy</i> Greg LeMond (and his cycle business licensing his name to Trek), after LeMond brought up all of the issues that were later proven true by Tyler Hamilton.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Greg_LeMond_anti-doping_stance_and_controversies" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Greg_LeMond_anti-doping_stan...</a>

Everybody was doping. The speed of the tour climbed until 2005 [1] and the related scandals and then dropped and is now hovering around 40kph.<p>Talking to competitive cyclists in the US at the time, everybody knew everyone was doping because it had become physically impossible to do that speed without doping. The top 10 racers were within 0.3% of Armstrong’s time in the 2005 race. They were all doping and several have had their results stricken.<p>Armstrong was the fall guy and object lesson for a general cleanup of the sport because nobody liked him. The rest was hypocrisy.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tour_de_France_records_and_statistics" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tour_de_France_records_and_s...</a>

People say everyone was doping. Lance, Floyd, Tyler, Levi, Big George, etc. A crime without victim - everyone did it.<p>I never saw anyone claiming Chris Horner was doping. He was not competitive internationally until his last years on the circuit when doping use somewhat subsided.<p>Chris Horner is the victim. In a better world it&#x27;s Chris Horner who won Tour de France.

Over this side of the Atlantic (Europe) there was a book by David Walsh called &quot;Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong&quot; where he describes his 12 years pursuing Armstrong and being subject to his Type A bullying character some of it on video.

So Floyd also ended up being part of the opioid crisis and found salvation through cannabis. Quite a change in career and interesting how he has no interest in that first career.<p>It is a curious law that he used and fortunate that the sponsor happened to be the government, had they had another sponsor, e.g. AmGen, then they would not have had this legal route.

#ISavedYouAClick: Floyd Landis.

Everyone just acted like this was a huge scandal. One guy on roids beat all the other guys on roids. Plain and simple.<p>He just had to be made an example of, by people he had pissed off. And he was brought down by his own disgruntled teammates. Not by a + test.<p>It&#x27;s widely known that athletes at the highest level have encountered people who use roids. If you just don&#x27;t inject yourself to the gills with it and cycle out, you stand a good chance of passing the test.<p>You can use it and compete with the rest, or you can choose to not use it and watch the others run past you in a pace you thought was supernatural.<p>Bikers used to drink alcohol and climb the hills in the Tour all the time. Is alcohol not performance enhancing when it dulls the throbbing pain in your legs?<p>Bring those cyclists down too. Then you&#x27;ll have everyone&#x27;s support.<p>Make a league for people who want to use roids, and for the ones who don&#x27;t. It&#x27;ll multiply your revenue 2x, organisers.

I wonder how much of this is about money and how much is about prestige. When you look a the figures at WADA, men are caught doping more often than females and women earn much less in sports. In Sweden, the women&#x27;s national hockey team has to balance a day job with their sport.<p>Now, even the figures by WADA are not perfect (since women require lower levels of the agent to raise performance and might just not get caught) but I feel we should discuss the incentives for doping. I sure as hell don&#x27;t want teenagers making stupid decisions about their health for the prospect of becoming a millionaire celebrity before they&#x27;re 30.