1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
This is a good article. One of the things public figures don't seem to have figured out yet about the 24-hour-a-day sound byte potential of the media is that anything you say will be catalogued. The author points to Armstrong's own statement in Men's Journal about welcoming a USADA investigation and says that he should stand by that now.
Whether anyone thinks he's innocent or not (or, as most of us probably feel by now, don't care either way), one curious element of his defense strategy has been the statement that he's singled out. As the author here points out, the only thing that singles him out really is that he hasn't been charged. Operation Puerto destroyed so many careers but not Armstrong's. He's never been formerly charged until now. So to say he's being singled out rings hollow.
Personally, I don't know if he doped and I don't care. The tours he won made for some incredible viewing at times and did a lot of the industry of cycling. (I still get a chill watching him get back up after his 2003 fall and ride away from the other favorites.) I suspect he did dope because common sense arguments seem to bare it out, but I wouldn't waste any time arguing that point with anyone. If USADA proves he did dope in an era when everyone was doing it, they should just throw an asterisk on his tour victories and be done with it (seriously - who would they give the tour wins to if they take them from him? Ullrich? Ullrich was implicated in Puerto. So was Beloki. So was Basso. Vino was caught doping. In fact, I think almost everyone who shared a podium with him during his 7 victories has been implicated in doping at some point. So who would get those tours?) Just let the governing bodies admit that this mess was not only created by the riders but themselves as well -- their gross incompetence and inability to keep pace with technologies allowed doping to run rampant. Just accept that, throw asterisks around like confetti, and move the hell on. Celebrate the encouraging fact that guys like Hesjedal are winning grand tours and clearly suffering while doing it in times that actually seem human.
Whether anyone thinks he's innocent or not (or, as most of us probably feel by now, don't care either way), one curious element of his defense strategy has been the statement that he's singled out. As the author here points out, the only thing that singles him out really is that he hasn't been charged. Operation Puerto destroyed so many careers but not Armstrong's. He's never been formerly charged until now. So to say he's being singled out rings hollow.
Personally, I don't know if he doped and I don't care. The tours he won made for some incredible viewing at times and did a lot of the industry of cycling. (I still get a chill watching him get back up after his 2003 fall and ride away from the other favorites.) I suspect he did dope because common sense arguments seem to bare it out, but I wouldn't waste any time arguing that point with anyone. If USADA proves he did dope in an era when everyone was doing it, they should just throw an asterisk on his tour victories and be done with it (seriously - who would they give the tour wins to if they take them from him? Ullrich? Ullrich was implicated in Puerto. So was Beloki. So was Basso. Vino was caught doping. In fact, I think almost everyone who shared a podium with him during his 7 victories has been implicated in doping at some point. So who would get those tours?) Just let the governing bodies admit that this mess was not only created by the riders but themselves as well -- their gross incompetence and inability to keep pace with technologies allowed doping to run rampant. Just accept that, throw asterisks around like confetti, and move the hell on. Celebrate the encouraging fact that guys like Hesjedal are winning grand tours and clearly suffering while doing it in times that actually seem human.