On 24/08/2012 11:50 PM, Revtom wrote:
Step down off your high horses for a minute.

Here's my Facebook piece: Lance Armstrong. A name from a long-lost comic about a tough hero type.

All American. Sounds better than Ed Gunderson, though. This was a kid
who scared pro triathletes in the late 80s;

they had never seen a junior competitor with the kind of staying power
Lance had. Later, as he moved into pro cycling,

and underwent the various tests pros get, it was discovered Lance had
more capacity to run oxygen though his system than most,

and the muscles to use that capacity. At first, he was a beefy
sprinter/one day racer type, winning the World Championship in 1993.

Everybody knows the cancer story, and the memes and tropes attached
thereto. I must admit, I never really liked Lance; but I did respect
him, and I still do.

In an early Tour, he was interviewed, and when asked about winning, he
replied, along the lines of, this is a man's game. He was, maybe, 22 or 23.

This was pre-cancer. This is a man's game, he said. He was right. Reborn
and re-purposed, less muscular but still possessing the same engine,

Lance knocked off 7. Seven. Siete. Tours de France. The ghosts of doping
and journalism followed him, but to this day, there is not one

test result publicly acknowledging he doped. Lance was hounded out of
cycling, and will be stripped of his seven Tour titles.

Unfortunately, since Jan Ulrich has 'fessed up, and Marco Pantani is
dead, the titles won't be easily passed.

To have done so much damage, so long after the alleged infractions, with
extrajudicial procedures, the IOC, UCI, USADA, and WADA have uniquely,

unfairly, and in a chilling manner, robbed Lance Armstrong. And they
robbed cycling.

Later, it was determined the USADA can't strip his titles; only the UCI can do that.

Also, there have been several attempts to use decades-old tests to
"prove" LA doped.

Whoopee. If a governing body can't make a solid case in thirty days,
they can't make their case. Let the dumb ass chorus begin.


Totally agreed.

--
Chris

'Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it
every six months.'

(Oscar Wilde.)