Redux

I feel it’s something simpler – I think he’s bored and needs another challenge. He’s done the marathons, he’s done the mt. biking, he’s done the rounds of celebrity dating (ok, that will probably never stop), so now he needs something else to focus on for the next 10 months or so. I don’t begrudge him that, I just wish it wouldn’t digress into pushing every other thing cycling related off the front page. But because the press loves a good story that’s exactly that’s going to happen.

As for him being a great cyclist, I’ve always considered him that, since I think he was on a ‘level’ playing field with all the other top riders he beat. Had the playing field for all of them been say……‘lower’ I think the results would have been the same. But the winning times would have been a bit slower shall we say.

My research hasn’t disclosed any definitive study of the game theory of dopage and sports. There are a couple of sophisticated modeling papers around that compare stars to gregarios, analyze different enforcement regimes, and look at effective and ineffective performance enhancement. What I recall from looking over the literature, however, is that the 90s framework of highly effective doping and lax enforcement pretty much guarantees that most participants will dope. It was coercive. And it remained that way until very recently.

That doesn’t mean that everyone doped in the 90s. You’ll always have irrational actors and the occasional star who doesn’t need to. But I can’t get past the coercion. A pro was riding in an environment where the traditional categories no longer applied and everything could be hoped for: limiting the examples to admissions of performance enhancement, the biggies are Moser’s hour record and Riis’s Tour. Guys with hope doped to get up on the podiums; guys without hope doped to hang on.

Could Lance’s comeback somehow be connected to Trek? If I’m not mistaken, he has some type of ownership position in the company, or at the very least, he is still on their payroll. Contador’s success aside, Trek’s sales have to be floundering.

Also worth considering is the pending lawsuit against Trek by Lemond. There is going to be some real ugly shit coming out of that mess, which is certain to hurt the legacy of Big Tex.

In the end, is this all nothing more than a PR move to protect both the Trek/Armstrong brand? After all, it would certainly help their case if they could demonstrate that Lance could win as a clean rider. Maybe his comeback would matter little in the courtroom, but the court of public opinion is a different matter…

VeloCityNYC sums things up succinctly

As the Toto turns

I tend to think Bonnie Ford’s last comment,

If you think about it, it’s not really that shocking. Absolutely nothing in this man’s life has convinced him he can’t win.

Is the most accurate statement of all. Nothing I know about the guy hints that he’s worried about what other folks think (unless they are going after him) because in his mind he’s the best ever. The idea that he wants to prove to the very small hardcore cycling fans in the USA that he can win clean is frankly amusing. He’s way bigger than the sport.

if he does want to prove he was clean, racing clean now doesn’t prove it.

If he really cared about that he would do what Ian Thorpe has done and make all of his old samples subject to todays and future advanced testing.

Even then, say if there was EPO in there – it would not be taken as proof would it?

Always find it interesting he states he never took PED’s but does that leave out blood doping? If he did anything, I would assume it was that. And Cortisone (TUE) and EPO (allegedly)…

The terrain of the EPO years was more complicated than varying degrees of acceptance, in my view. There were those who reluctantly, under pressure from team managment or leadership, turned to EPO. There were those who left the sport entirely. There were those who didn’t think much of it one way or another, and simply used because one did. And, last, there were those who understood the situation and not only accepted it, but embraced, perpetuated and manipulated it.

For me to view Armstrong as in any way a victim of the system, I would have to ignore far too much accumulated evidence that he participated willingly and even cynically in doping from the beginning of his career, a beginning that pre-dated the EPO years. Not only did he use, but he intimidated and derided those who didn’t. He was no victim.

That he would now feel he had to prove that he could race well clean to himself or anyone else is a bizarre argument, especially since he has always vehemently denied any doping use. According to his story, he raced clean all along. Since his early career pre-dated widespread EPO doping by several years, he has already seen what the sport looked like. It looked like a mixture of clean and ‘roided riders, with an occasion dash of speed thrown in for added fun and games. Since a good many mainstream observers still believe he rode clean anyway, I doubt he’ll change many minds, or believe it important to try.

If this story is more than PR hijinx of some kind from Stapleton and he intends to return, it has little to do with doping. Boredom, attention-seeking, competitive drive, vanity – one need not look too hard for an answer.

floated by Lance’s people to gauge reaction. The “why” part is some combo of the following

1) Lance is bored.
2) Lance likes to kick ass.
3) Lance is not rich enough.

And while some cyclists who doped were “victims” so to speak, Lance is not one of them. Doping was just one of the arrows in his quiver for achieving total domination. Like aero helmets and wind tunnel testing. Just another tool.

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If any american fan thinks those two are presented in the right order he/she needs a stern talking to.

WHY there are some longtime podiumcafe posters who are so vocally and vociferously AGAINST this entirely exciting, understandable, and above all, justified return of the ‘king of cycling’ to make sure that his crown shines just the hue that he would like?

while i am a vocal supporter of combining the TdG and tour of california into a two (maybe after a few years, THREE) week non-duPont sponsored tour of america, (a fourth or NEW third ‘tour,’ as it were) if there is any desire for mr armstrong to back the fading horse that the tour de georgia is, LET HIM! the other benefits would be manifold…

i could go on…and on….but back to the central question: ‘why all the haters?’

           i know, i know…he had his time, let the new kids shine…etc. BUT there are some of us that werent so hip as to love OUR beautiful sport pre-lance. i, for one, am a bit nostalgic and would like to see how this focus returned to performance, albeit a ‘transparent’ sort, informs the way the new post-puerto peleton really PERFORMS!

… I was totally on board and enjoyed the idea of him making a run at races in 2009, but having read that article, I am an absolute ardent supporter. Of course his Ego counts for a large quantity of the reason for doing this, how can you win a race like this that many times and not have a righteous ego… but if he really, authentically, uses this as a platform for cancer research, treatment and survivorship, well, he can go apeshit in any sport I’m a fan of for that and I hope he wins.

And, I’d like to have an opportunity to closely follow a tour where he wins GC and actually wins a stage too… I was far to casual an observer earlier this decade.

I’d like to have an opportunity to closely follow a tour where he wins GC and actually wins a stage too… I was far to casual an observer earlier this decade.

It would be nice to see him actually work for it as opposed to the Postal/Disco style all for one, grind em to dust, approach… Probably won’t happen, but we can always hope right?