In the biggest cycling news since somebody found out you could put baseball cards in the spokes to make it sound cool, 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is “subject to lifetime ban and fan fallout” for saying he was giving up his fight against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s doping charges.
“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, enough is enough,” Armstrong’s statement read. “For me, that time is now.”
Also on Thursday night, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said it will strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and Travis Tygart, USADA’s chief executive, said Armstrong would be subject to a lifetime ban from the sport.
Friday on “CBS This Morning,” CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian said the original charges brought against Armstrong in June were based on “non-analytical evidence” that he used performance enhancing drugs. This evidence reportedly included testimony from several former teammates, including Tyler Hamilton who told “60 Minutes” that he frequently saw Armstrong inject “EPO,” a banned naturally occurring hormone known as a blood booster. (via CBS News)
The statement brings up a lot of unanswered questions. Does Armstrong’s figurative tap-out mean he’s guilty and can’t deal with lying anymore? If a high-profile athlete like Armstrong is stripped of his titles for doping, does that set a precedent that leads to high-profile athletes in other sports losing their championships and accolades for failing drug tests? What if they’re just one person on a team? Will Armstrong be okay living the rest of his life with a Bad News Bears-esque “we know who REALLY won those races” talking point?
The most important question is this: Do you seriously care about Lance Armstrong?
It’s a big deal, don’t get me wrong, but an allegation like this and an admission of surrender like his brings out every person with a newspaper or a blog or the Internet to weigh in on it. Some people think he’s a victim of harassment. Others think he’s a terrible cheater. All I can think to write is, “nobody gave a shit about cycling or cyclists doping until Lance Armstrong showed up, and if your only interest in or knowledge of cycling is Lance Armstrong winning the Tour De France … which, face it, it totally is … why does this matter?” The WADA guy says Lance is guilty because he doesn’t want to argue anymore. Of COURSE he does. The guy accusing Lance of doping in the first place? Also a colossal cheater. Because if he couldn’t do it, how could Lance?
You do not care about cycling. If you do, you’re probably in Lance’s position already — you don’t want to hear any more about this, whether he doped or not. Enough is enough, right? So here’s an idea: let’s just not talk about cycling anymore. People who do it for a living can enjoy it, and we can all choose to be a little less self righteous about a thing we only kinda-sorta were forced into knowing about.
Or get CBS News to send a reporter to Sheryl Crow’s house to get her thoughts and desperately try to dry our eyes, whatever. If you want to read his entire statement, you can do that here.
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Let this be a(nother) lesson, children; don’t have heroes.
Wait, are you trying to tell me that bicycle is a sport?
I don’t care, but I think it’s funny that this went down in a way that allows everyone to use it to prove their own perspective (he’s quitting because the government is evil! or he’s quitting because he’s a dirty cheat! or whatever) so it makes the internet intolerable.
Thanks, Lance.
I like riding my bike. It is fun!
No one’s given more to THIS BUSINESS. No one’s loved THIS BUSINESS more than Lance Armstrong.
Wait… BY GOD!!! THAT’S TRAVIS TYGART’S MUSIC!!!
Inappropriate bicycle shorts theater
As someone who has cycled many thousands of miles and enjoys both mountain and road cycling let me just say this: I could not care less about professional cycling. It is about as dirty a sport as you can find.
/off to sharpen my softball spikes and looking for the illegal bat that “looks” legal.
Short answer to your question: NO. *Pops a wheelie*
The extent of my cycling knowledge is Excitebike. And that Excitebike was awesome.
Let me explain this to y’all in terms you’ll understand: cycling is like pro wrestling or Nascar. Those of us that care need black hats and white hats, good and evil, arguments about engine plates and spoilers, opinions on what the McMahons have really done for the “sport”. An ex-girlfried put it best. These things are just soap operas for men that we can admit to watching.
Terrible analogy. Complete nonsense.
Bicycling is essentially exercising really hard. I am slowly wearing down to the entire PED argument. If athletes want to take PEDs they’re going to take PEDs. If and when they are caught, the penalties should be incredibly sever or PEDs should be legalized in professional sport.
Honestly, I don’t care one way or the other. With that said, how can the USDA has jurisdiction in stripping Armstrong of his titles when they aren’t affiliated with the Tour or have any evidence that he did dope when Armstrong passed all those tests? He was tested more than anyone else for, Triple H’s sake.
Yeah, the USADA took the case, but the UCI wanted to take it, badly. Lance failed a lot of tests.
I don’t care about Lance Armstrong.
That being said, I did see an interview on ESPN with a reporter who had recently interviewed him. The reporter said that it became clear this thing was taking up all of Armstrong’s time and that Armstrong wasn’t going to have the energy to fight it forever. That combined with the lawyer bills that he was racking up was going to make this a finite battle. He said this was a couple months ago, so he’s not surprised Armstrong has given up fighting.
I’m not sure if that’s an admission of guilt, or maybe the guy doesn’t want to go broke fighting a battle that he doesn’t think he can win because the USADA has already made up its mind regarding his guilt.
He did profess his innocence in the statement he released explaining he was stopping the fight, so who knows.
The USADA knows, Lance knows (thats why he quit, it was his only move to sonewhat salvage his image) and his teammates know. Thats who know.
I did care for a long time. Now that every person who would “inherit” his wins are also shown to be cheaters, I don’t care so much. They should just allow PEDs and carry on.
Well, I’ll say this for Lance Armstrong: he’s got ball for fighting them as long as he did.
If one cent of my taxes are going to fund people trying to destroy our athletes than I’m pretty pissed off. It just seems stupid to me, it’s stupid that there’s a program for this, it’s stupid that it’s staffed with Lawyers that want their day in the sun. Fuck them, I support Lance Armstrong even if he’s guilty.
Lance shouldn’t have doped and then preached against it. Fuck cheaters.
I’m also ambivalent towards this whole story. Didn’t they already try to do this a few years ago?
That being said, Armstrong has raised millions with Livestrong to battle cancer, which is more than can be said for the flunkies with pitchforks and torches calling for his head. Chodes gonna be chodes…
Chodes also create Cancer awareness charities that take money that should go to research and instead direct it to marketing Lance Armstongs image,