2012 Anti-V Moment of the Year: Bullies are really just pussies
As referenced in the 2012 V-Moment of the year article and ensuing discussion, it was a most Vawesome year for cycling. It’s been hypothesized here and on cycling sites with more integrity that the fantastic racing of 2012 may be, at least in part, attributed to a cleaner peloton. Unless you watched the Tour de France you’d think the days of foregone conclusions and three week coronations are quickly becoming a thing of the past. It is in this vein we bring to you the Anti-V Moment of 2012: Lance Armstrong’s ceasing to fight the charges against him.
Now usually, we try our best not to delve into the seedy side of cycling. There is just way too much cool about our sport to focus our collective energy and attention on asshats. Besides, we’ve got bikes to ride. But the COTHO’s public announcement that he would no longer fight, er, defend himself against allegations of systematic doping, money laundering, blackmail, intimidation, and international douchebaggery has to be the biggest Anti-V moment of the year, if not in the history of pro cycling.
The COTHO could have feasibly taken one of three tacks as the winds of pressure, evidence, and public opinion continued to blow against his house of cards. Tack one would have been to continue lying, bribing, and digging an ever deepening hole as he steadfastly proclaimed his innocence. This obviously hadn’t been working for the past 10-odd years but at least it allowed him to maintain his base of supporters. Even as it became more difficult for him to maintain the façade he still had a sizable group of survivors, apologists, journalists, and mis-guided cycling fans who believed.
Tack two would have been to come clean (pardon the pun) and admit to the whole sordid mess he created but he didn’t have the ball to do this either. Who knows what his reasons are for not being honest? Best guesses are he’s rationalizing a set of excuses ranging from mitigating his financial liability, evading criminal implications, and blaming the corruptness of the sport. Maybe he’s trying to save face in some twisted way. But for as cliché as Tyler Hamilton even admitted in his tell-all; the truth will set you free. The COTHO could have stood in front of those microphones and cameras and said “Hey, you know what, I doped. I made some poor choices and lied to everybody and for that I’m deeply sorry.” Had he done so his detractors would probably still be his detractors and he would have given his supporters a legitimate reason to continue supporting him but at least everybody could say he fessed up and there is some integrity in doing that.
Alas, he took the Anti-V tack. He stopped defending himself, er, lying without admitting to anything and seems to be hoping to just fade into the background. In essence, he’s taking his toys and going home. What’s striking about this is that it is contrary to what we’ve come to understand about the guy. If anything, we’ve come to know him as a fighter, both in life and on the road. But this latest, and hopefully last maneuver was just plain weak. (Notice I’ve added the categories of “Evanescent Riders” and “In Memoriam” to this article in addition to “Awards”. The first two are much more fitting.)
Perhaps it belies the true nature of the man. A nature that involves intimidation, serial emotional and physical aggression and even violence. A nature that includes socially isolating his victims, arguing them into submission, and propagating rumors, gossip, and lies about them to sway public opinion in his favor. A nature that involves amplifying the mistakes of others in order to strengthen his own self-image. A nature whereby there are many innocent bystanders who are too fearful of repercussions to come forward themselves. The nature of a man who may be trying to compensate for his own insecurities and feed his own narcissism and megalomania. The nature of a simple bully who ultimately shows himself to be a big pussy.
@brett
What about Doprah? That’s who’s really important here.
@Deakus
“Wait, it’s called EPO? Damn, no wonder I am so slow, I’ve been taking IPA all these years.” @halfbarrelbrew
@CanuckChuck
That’s worth and emoticon right there fella! ;)
Hey Pat, So it’s all about saving your fat arse?
@Marko
Cav’s reaction just says “we’re not moving on, we’ve still got shit to hide, so don’t ask about it…” Jens, well that big goofball just keeps making himself and the sport look stupid; “Lance has been punished enough”? WTF? Stuey, “I didn’t see nuffin”, yeah right. Wiggins, well he’s the new Gunderson, same line of ‘answers’, same method of attacking anyone who asks a legitimate question. I say we shut down the VSP, give these assholes none of the attention they crave but don’t deserve. Fuck them all.
@Marko
You skipped Decembeaver: http://decembeaver.com/
@brett
Double fuck Eki. He got Tyler’s gold. Had a gold from Sydney in the same event as COTHO. He was clean? Double fuck Ekimov.
Nicole Cooke (former professional cyclist)
@brett
Fuck Yeah..but don’t close it down…@Frank.. quick post another volcano climb FFS…Pele….Vesuvius….even the big one Krakatoa East of Java (even though it is west) just get us away from the Lancemobile!
@eightzero
Yeah, and didn’t Eki come from one of those shady Eastern European countries, the kind that had state-implemented doping programs? Just askin’ . . .
@G’rilla
HA! Bwahahahahhahah!!!! Jesus Merckx dude! Is nipple lube the proper response to that video? HAHAHAHA!
@G’rilla
“Bob Ross”…LMAO!! That was hilarious!
@CanuckChuck
@brett
They’re all still racing. Livelihood and all. Until the UCI changes their stance, they have no choice but to keep toeing the line. I can’t hold it against them – I hold the UCI responsible for giving them no other choice.
Fuck the UCI. Once McQuaid is in a dark hole and the system is changed, THEN I’ll be pissed off at the Omerta twats.
@Marko
That is the case in point; I’ve never felt bad about the dopers doping against eachother – I feel bad for the clean guy trying to make it and getting fucked.
@brett
Wiggins and Sky look especially bad circumstantially at this point, I’d say.
I think we’ve learned to recognize the smell of fish at this point.
@snoov
But dont you think fanny would be the better word, being Scottish and all. Then you could call him a complete fanny or a total fanny or a big effin fanny. Sounds so much better in a Scottish accent
@frank Absofuckinglutely!
@eightzero
Well said, friend. I too am finished with holding a license, promoting and supporting anything sanctioned… I’ll still be ready to fucking throw-down on any given day, but I’ll never sellout to a national sanctioning body again. Next time some douche asks me what CAT I am, I’ll likely tell him to wait until the next hill and he’ll have his answer. Fuck ’em!
@JFT
See, that’s the problem. I race with OBRA. We’re an OUT-FUCKING-STANDING organization. All about the ‘grassroots’. We’ve added Pros to the domestic and Euro ranks too. Currently our race organization is the only one in the US to stand up to USAC. And they’re leaning on Oregon really hard. The USAC announced (mostly out of the blue) that we could no longer have dual sanctioned events starting in 2013, which affects Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, Cascade Cycling Classic (the oldest, longest running (and incidentally the last race COTHO can claim as a win) stage race in the US, and the USGP of cyclocross among others.
Our licenses are $20/ year, no added charge for MTB/ track etc (instead of $60 +added $$ for other specialties). We also have the fastest growing and highest per capita racer days in the US. Instead of embracing what we are doing right, USAC is trying to shut us down. They don’t accept our Cat’s but we accept theirs.It won’t work.
So, to add emphasis: Fuck the UCI and double fuck the USAC.
@scaler911
Scaler911, I feel your frustration… I’m in Washington, used to live in Beverton back in the early 90’s, and a fan of the OBRA system. I do support their model though it doesn’t do me much good living in Eastern Washington. I failed to make a clear distinction in my post, but meant national sanctioning body. I heard about USAC’s back door attack on dual-sanctioning and honestly hope the Pro’s rally their sponsors as lobbyists and ultimately call USAC’s bluff (e.g. tell ’em to fuck off). I see OBRA having the upper hand in this… for now anyway.
errr… Beaverton ;o)
@JFT
Did you race back then? If so, for who? That’s when I started: I rode for Chev/LA Sheriff Development, Team Oregon, then Fat Tire Farm.
http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/01/news/andreu-qa-armstrong-took-a-big-step-after-spiraling-out-of-control_271850
Great interview with Frankie Andreu. He has consistently shown a level of class and integrity during the LA saga that few others have come close to. He easily has been one of the most affected by Lance’s war of retribution against those that testified/spoke up against him and could claim righteous indignation to go on endless rants about how Lance deserves to suffer, yet he chooses to show restraint, and even empathy. Honesty, I don’t know how he does it, I can’t imagine keeping it together like that all these years without exploding publicly at least once… he’s a saint!
Now I’m not saying the way he is dealing with it is better than anybody else. I’m in no position to judge anybody who has had to deal with the wrath of the Lance war machine and if they want to go postal (pun intended) then good on them, but I have always felt that Andreu’s approach lifted him above the fray and eliminated any opportunity for the Lance loving public to simply dismiss him as a “hater” or someone with an agenda of their own.
My level of respect for Saint Frankie continues to rise and I hope he and Betsey get the vindication they deserve about what happend in that hospital room in 1996.
@LA DaveAndreu a saint? He was a doper – maybe a more principled doper in the aftermath, but a doper nonetheless.
@Marcus
Fair point Marcus. I have been very vocal about how i have no sympathy for those that have cheated and then claim that they were forced or coerced by Lance…something he didn’t do. I don’t mean to absolve him of the fact that he cheated but he came clean of his own volition (in an interview with the times in 2006… not a federal deposition where he was sworn to tell the truth or face jail time), and I believe he did it to try to clean up the sport he loves. He did not try to write a book, or go on a tour and take peoples money, etc., etc..
Saint may be too strong a word, but I was referring to his actions and statements since coming clean and having his (and Betsey’s) lives turned upside down. I feel if there is anybody in this whole mess deserving of my respect, It’s him.
@Marcus
Instead of “Saint Frankie” now I’ll just call him “Nice Guy Frankie”.
@scaler911
Fuck em. Double fuck anyone that isn’t a Cat V.
Double fuck UCI and USAC.
And for the record, I’d SO fuck Nikki Cooke. I’d pay money to lay face down in Marianne Vos’ dirty bathwater.
After all the shit I just saw, no wonder I’m drunking fuck. Merckx dammit!
@eightzero What a coincidence! I have some of the aforementioned bathwater in my yard right now and would be glad to accept $100 for it. Or even $20. As low as $5, even.
This morning I got up pre-dawn and rode my non-PED addled carcass 120k into a headwind from Port Melbourne to Torquay to do a swim race. Frankly, I ate shit all the way then swam like an anchor…PED free though. Made me feel good. COTHO has left me feeling empty but I’m still loving the bike. I don’t blame Stuey, Cav, Jens etc for their words, the sport is their actual life, not something others like us view from outside and pontificate about. Of course they’re going to try to see something other than what we observers are seeing.
@HeinrichHauslersHairstyle
You are lucky….just at the point when all this shit blows up again on COTHO the Southern UK turns from perfectly respectable Rule #9 weather to out and out blizzard. Unlike places with more consistent weather we don’t have the infrastructure to deal with even a smattering of snow, so the roads remain uncleared and cycling is out of the question on a road bike until the temperature tips up and it melts!
He’s such a sick fuckin’ bastard. Not only was he playing the cancer card left and right (people were having a drinking game linked to him mentioning his cancer) but then he played the “My life is so awful and sad that I had to break my kids heart”. What a fuckin piece of toilet fungus. Maybe if you had not been a fuckin piece of shit from day one then you would not have to break it to your kid that you are a douchebag. Prostituting your kids for sympathy is about as low as you can go.
As CannuckChuck so elegantly put it, fuckityfuck him, his fucking posse and the fuckin horses they rode in on.
@Sauterelle
Yeah, I had to back off. We were heading all karylinka or however the hell she spelled her name. Scary stuff.
Next up: Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky. What’s the over/under on how long it takes to nab them?
So none can see the future and certainly LA has been a megalomaniac of the highest order ( and that is being kind). All of which makes it hard to separate the man from the monster. The Japanese have the tradition of the nobility of failure – when you fall so low and fail so miserably you then gain cred from the trying, this is only in relation to good deeds. What I am wondering is in this culture will LA falling on his sword and getting punished (the shit storm he is going to face, court, fines, etc.) mean that some day he will be redeemed?
Stranger things have happened and it would mean him becoming a saint from now on… his ex wife and children may help to keep him on track but certainly he carries much baggage pre doping and now has the weight of a Bernie Madoff scam on his shoulders.
For bike racing this is either going to clean the stables or make the whole thing sink from being so full of shit.
@Calmante
I don’t think I can take any more Anti-V at the moment.
@Sauterelle
+1
@Buck Rogers
+2!…someone put a VSP up or something to distract us….
@Rob
It seems to me that what is starting to emerge is complete and utter agreement. For 14 years now there’s been disagreement about LA. He doped, he didn’t dope, it didn’t matter everyone did it anyway, Liestrong makes it okay, Liestrong is a scam, people are out to get him, he’s an asshole. Pick your camp and pitch your tent has been the paradigm.
Now though, what seems to be happening is consensus. From the cycling community to the mainstream, cycling wonks to cancer fighters, Drunkcyclist to ESPN, even reading into what #Doprah has said, the consensus seems to be the LA is and always has been a COTHO. There’s no better way to put it. He’s a COTHO. The sham of the last couple nights has proven that to the entire world once and for all it seems.
I’ve never been into hero worship, thinking that any athelete personafied my own beliefs and morals. I watched the races to be entertained and to be awed by the spectacle. Now that LA is finished racing, he is irrelevant to me. He should just go away. George Carlin had it right. http://youtu.be/tlTr2GSVUGg
No-one should ever hero worship anyone. By all means be inspired by someones actions in life but ultimately, as they say,
Everyones Shit Stinks
I can’t belive there are people swallowing his bullshit that he rode clean for retirement shack. I guy who doped his whole life comes back to the sport after years off,much older, and then still manages to go toe to toe with contador for the bulk of three weeks? My ass. Such obvious pandering to WADA and UCI – trying to make good with them by talking up the biological passport as though it does anything. What a puke.
What even Tomekes? Say it aint so!
@frank
There are differences though. Wiggins has always been a world-class class cyclist, he has a fairly natural progression IMO, compared to some tri-tard from Texas who comes back from a debilitating disease to make a processional of the biggest sporting event for seven consecutive years. Wiggins has also given some good interviews and written articles about his anti-doping stance, instead of ruining anyone who steps against the doping culture. He isn’t reveling in the fame like COTHO, he just won a bike race. Froome’s rise is probably more suspicious IMO, but he is young and maybe it can be put down to finding a good team to support him. I still like Sky, but who knows.
Of course, the year I’m looking to get into racing, and all this shit happens.
@Deakus
+1
@DerHoggz
I would be very surprised if Wiggins was doping. I know there are similarities in the team that you can draw conclusions from but bearing in mind all the Sky stuff, their stance Brailsford et al…..really? I think those who are suspicious are possibly looking for skeletons….if you look hard enough you may well find them.
Having said all that there are some writers who have a very good track record….Walsh etc…who are drawing links here…possible they are riding off their new found status having been proved right once they will get a lot more air time but all in all I just cannot believe a single sponsor team of this budget would even entertain the reputational risk….after all they were given 3 years to win the tour, they did not need to do it this year.
I also think Wiggins actually had a pretty straightforward run at it. He had a strong team, several significant challengers were not present (Schlecks and Bertie) and others crashed out early Ryder….really the key challenger was Cadelephant and his team really did not perform for him in the Tour this year, he was pretty much having to do it on his own. I think that explains a lot of the dominance…..
@Calmante
FFS! Is there nothing or no-one that can convince the pathologically cynical that the sport does, can and will clean itself up? Just get out and ride and stop thinking about all this doping bullshit.
@JohnB
A-Merck to that!
Did the second part of the interview happen/air yet? I’m confused with all this equivocation on everything.
Yup, the only good thing is that everyone seems to finally agree he’s the COTHO. My brother, who only rides a bike to get his surfboard to the ocean, said to me this week, before the interview, “What a fucking asshole that guy is. He’s been lying to everyone for years!”