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.
@DerHoggz what u are arguing is unprovable – but in saying that, yes, Wiggins is the next in that long line of pursuiters turned dominant GC rider. And Armstrong did win a Workd Championship at about 22 or 23 (albeit not on a GC riders parcours). So as stupid Phil would say, he wasn’t a donkey.
But it is all speculation so we are all better off enjoying the racing and hoping they are clean – but we can’t believe…
@Marcus
Sums up the whole thing for me. loved watching Lance race at the time some of his riding was amazing even if it was drug fueled but he has poisoned the sport to where I will find it very hard to ever believe again!
@Deakus
VSP Tour Down Under? Just kidding Keepers, I know VSPs are a crap ton of work.
@Marko
Yep, that’s the redeeming part of a crappy soft interview….at least his COTHO standing is accepted by all.
@Deakus
The Science in Sport blog addressed this a while back, and from memory concluded that the power to weight outputs were in the reasonable range, the speeds were lower and the course this year suited Wiggles better than anyone else – see the long ITTs and the first “hill”top stage. The blog also noted that while the power to weight numbers were believable it doesn’t indicate a lack of doping and that micro dosing that wouldn’t show up on the Biological passport was still possible. So if they were doping, at least it wasn’t the outrageous doping of the past (riders having to brake going uphill into hairpins on mountain stages, etc.) And for all the fuckers slagging it off as boring, it’s what the cleanest tour in years has looked like (I think Cuddles won clean but beat dopers to do it). Personally I think they should cap the stages at 200km, triple the number of rest days during the tour and force the riders to get their blood alcohol over what could reasonably be considered “hammered” at least once during the race.
@Adrian
This.
PS I avoided pro road racing completely while LA was racing. Boring, predictable and I didn’t believe in it one bit. Loved Ulrich, enjoyed Sastre’s win, but pretty much everything in the middle can get fucked. No way Contador was clean for his ins either.
@minion
You think? I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not a fan of his off the bike style, but I can’t help but admire his panache in the hills.
I was chatting up a buddy today that’s older and been following the sport longer than I’ve been alive, and neither of us is entirely convinced the evidence stands up. It was such a trace amount of something that has no huge benefit to that kind of performance.
But then, maybe he’s doing something they “don’t test for yet”. I don’t know, but trying to be a pro cycling fan boy is going to give me a ulcer.
@Buck Rogers
A-Fucking-Merckx!
@minion
They may not be far from the last one as it is now.
Today I read an interview from a few months ago with Taylor Phinney. Caffeine pills, strong painkillers and other legal drugs are widely used and may even be responsible for some of the weird crashes that occasionally happen at the end of races, right after riders have thrown down a final 5km cocktail of strong pills.
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/13076/Taylor-Phinney-Interview-Getting-the-pill-culture-out-of-the-sport.aspx
I’m just gonna throw this out there…any chance we can shut this convo down?
I’m so sick of talking about Armstrong to non cycling friends & having to explain it all…now while we’re on a much higher level of understanding, there’s so much more to enjoy than whether the pro’s are doping or not.
It has no bearing on how good it feels to be out there with good friends slogging up a climb or hearing a complete stranger pull you aside & say “That was Fucking Awesome” after the descent to finish a Cogal…that’s what we ride for & long may it continue.
@Mikael Liddy
Why… it’s off-season and we’ve got nothing else to talk about, and it is probably one of the biggest things that has happened in sport in the last 10 years, certainly in cycling. Every country has their legendary sporting cheats but the Hand of God probably means nothing to anyone outside England, and the Chicago Black Sox would hardly register with most of the world. Barry Bonds, who ? Maybe Marion Jones gets on the radar, but Armstrong takes his place in the pantheon alongside Ben Johnson as a truly global cheat on an epic scale.
To not talk about it would be slightly bizarre when many of us spend a lot of time watching, analysing and discussing pro-cycling. Do we stop talking about all elite cycling, or continue but just pretend Armstrong didn’t happen – take the McQuaid option ?
As for whether it has a bearing on other levels, you only have to look at the number of people who say they were inspired by Armstrong to cycle, do triathlon and so on to realise it does have a wider implication. There has certainly been a halo effect in the UK after Cavendish, Wiggins and the Olympic success. That sort of legacy is threatened if people don’t see the sport as having any credibility. Maybe it isn’t credible, but that’s a valid subject for discussion I think.
@G’rilla Thanks for that link. The kid just continues to impress.
Some light relief on the subject…..
http://www.satirewire.com/content1/?p=4596
@scaler911
Yeah, I’m healthily skeptical although Contador is much more vulnerable since he came back form his ban – but the red bells are the plasticisers in his blood, the teams he’s been through, none of which are squeaky clean, and that in my opinion if something is too good to be true (see THAT stage of the Vuelta) it usually is. Also he keeps spouting the Spanish version of Omerta speak, without directly addressing doping. Surely we all know enough about doping in cycling to see that if a rider rides away from the peloton weeks into a GT, then we should be skeptical.
Personally I think the doping convo is fascinating, and prompts a secondary layer of indignation and fascination that other sports don’t. It’s the reputed Chinese “curse”, ‘May you live in interesting times’ writ large.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jan/19/lance-armstrong-cycling
Kimmage must have been saving that last anecdote up for a while
@minion Gold!
@minion
Ahhhhhhhahahaha, I nearly peed my pants laughing.
@Calmante
Welcome back!
Now the librarians have work to do;
@minion
Wow. I wonder if that last line is true. Pretty amazing and telling if it is.
@Buck Rogers
Seems a pretty daft thing to make up if you ask me. Mind you, it won’t be the first thing Kimmage has reported that will be denied.
@wiscot
Yeah, I know but I am leary of things posted and credited to people. I have never LeMan refer to this incident. Seems odd that it is just coming out now with everything that as happened over the years, esp as te COTHO and his mum are supposedly very tight.
Hutch belted out a stormer in this weeks Cycling Weekly, so to lighten the tone, and forgive me if this one has been doing the rounds endlessly and has passed me by:
Q: What is are the similarities between Lance Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey?
A: Neither of them has won the Tour de France.
Q: What are the differences?
A: Oprah is still eligible……she may yet do it!
Armstrong Admits Drug Use, Plans Return To Cycling As Flamboyant, Fan-Hating Villain
This is brilliant
News just in – Frank Schleck found guilty of doping following positive test for diuretic drug during 2012 Tour de France and gets a 12 month ban
Ban is backdated to the day of the positive test in July 2012.
I know this thread was about dead, but after this breaking story today, can I just say that at least in cycling people were (are?) cheating in order to WIN…
On Aussie TV last night more about COTHO buying the triple crown. I’m afraid Aussie legend Phil Anderson looked like a deer in the headights when asked what he knew. Not good.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/02/04/3680186.htm
Wow, and fucking wow.
Something’s happening. In the last two days, I have read articles about 3 different football and baseball codes finding themselves under suscpicion/investigation with regard to doping.
This re American Football and Baseball
And this re the AFL (Aussie rules Football)
And of course all of the fallout from Puerto and the Fuentes (?) case currently being heard in Spain where both Football (soccer for the yanks) and Tennis have been implicated.
It’s kinda funny watching the AFL squirm. They look like rank amatuers caught with their hand in the cookie jar. It seems that the involvement of ASADA and the terms of strict liability have created a clusterfuck of circumstance that is really going to hurt them.
I’ll put this out there; Gunderson is a tool, but his stage managed contrition seems to have opened some sort of karmic floodgate that’s going to leave mouldy carpets in a lot of sporting administration offices the world over.
@Buck Rogers
! Awesomely hilarious!
@minion
Awesome. Even his own mother thinks he is the COTHO!
@mouse that Simmonds article is equal parts brilliant & scary…the AFL has been a joke for years when it comes to drugs (PEDs or recreational), remember it just kindly asking Brisbane to stop hooking their players up to drips during half time in the early 2000’s?
@mouse The Grantland article was very thorough. A good read.
@mouse Great articles. Imagine if they tested the winning team of the Stanley Cup right after the game. Pop goes the weasel! Like Parkin says in Dog in a Hat, some guys do drug for sports, some guys do sports for drugs! Paraphrasing of course…
@Mikael Liddy
How has the AFL been a joke?
The Brisbane episode you refer to (where players had shunts so IV fluids could be quickly administered in the heat) was not against the rules. They asked them to stop because they had no way to tell them. And then they changed the rules to prevent it.
Compare them to other team sports domestically across the globe? Are you aware of standards generally, especially when it comes to protocols around illicit drugs? Or are you just another consumer of the current newspaper hysteria?
@Marcus
The shorts, the singlets, the whole nature of the game, really…
@Marcus
@Marcus
How about an illicit drugs policy that allows a player that knows he’ll test positive, to admit to that fact & thus avoid a test or any sanction?
@Mikael Liddy so how does that compare to other sports buddy? Not convinced you arent just spouting newspaper guff.
@Dan_R
Well I can confidently state that The Leafs do not dope, given the record over the last decade. Maybe they should try it.
I don’t think you can really single out the AFL as a sports organisation which is better or worse than any other. The policy Mikael mentions is anachronistic and backwards but I reckon it might be more to do with doctor-patient confidentiality than protecting arses.
All that aside professional athletes should know whether (or not) the ‘supplements’ they’re being injected with are illegal or not regardless of what their doctor or sports scientist says. All the Essendon players seem to be crying ignorant at the moment but it would be terrible for the sport if an entire team was banned for something like this.
The difference between cycling and other sports is that no one else cares, or wants to know.
@Benj
Is it not about institutionalised cheating?
The issue is that it is sport. Sports are funded by governments as they see it as a good investment for the greater public good vis a vis, entertainment/escapism/aspiration, etc. The basic tenant of all sport is that it should be fair.
The reason that the AFL is in deep shit is that they take a huge subsidy from the Australian government to keep the sport developing. This money is used to fund stadium infrastucture as well as other good grass roots initiatives that keep the game developing. Be under no illusion that the AFL has a huge lobbying presence with government and sporting policy.
Suddenly, due to the USADA decision re Lance, ASADA has had the remit from the Federal Minister of Sport to fully investigate Cycling Australia and their links to a possible involvement in past doping practices, with the suggestion that ALL funding could be cut from cycling if it is found that they were complicit in cheating. Now that they have a head of steam, ASADA is finding skeletons in a whole bunch of closets, and if the government has suggested cutting funding from one sport, it follows that they would likely hold other sports accountable to the same degree.
So, yeah. It would be terrible for the sport. Who knows. Maybe it will make them more accountable and make for a better and more fair spectacle in the future. In the mean time, there’s a whole bunch of football royalty around that’s going to be pretty fucking uncomfortable to discover that their gravy train might just dry up.
@Marcus why does it have to be compared to the way other sports operate to opine that it’s a shit policy that appears designed purely to ensure the league isn’t tarnished by yet another illicit drug scandal?
Just because it might be industry standard doesn’t make it good policy.
@Mikael Liddy
Yup – we know Tom Boonen tested positive for cocaine. Am I mistaken in believing that that was the first positive test he had for cocaine? In the AFL he’d get two strikes before they told his team and three before it was made public. That’s a joke.
@Blah you are betraying your ignorance. Boonen did test positive to Charlie but didn’t cop a sanction from WADA or the UCI because it was not a banned PED. In fact his test should never have gone public as I recall. He only copped a team sanction of being suspended for a few races. So not that jokey
@Mikael Liddy As I say to many people who bag the AFL illicit drugs code, what’s a better alternative? Keep in mind a number of codes have a strike system. English rugby has 2 I believe. Keep in mind this is illicit drugs. Most sports dont even test for them…
Addition to the above -Charlie not a banned PED outside of competition…
Fuck I hope this turns out to be true!
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/report-armstrong-subject-of-criminal-investigation
@brett
This sums it up for me…thugs in bad kit…
@Marcus
You call it “Charlie?” I have lost all hope for your country.