http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/19907683

Being citizen of a cycling-heavy country and following the Tour de France every year, I always thought of it as suspicious that he managed to dominate cyclists who later were proven cheaters.

Your thoughts / many tears?

So.. he beat a bunch of cheaters by cheating better than they could cheat? Whoopdy doo.

"Dont hate the player, hate the game"

That's pretty damn cynical, Snake.

Pragmatic. Not cynical, pragmatic.

I suppose it is; I personally never took sports too seriously anyway.

One still may wonder about how pervasive cheating must necessarily be if there are ways to avoid detection. How about that Usain Bolt guy, for example?

Eh... that sucks. I wonder if he would have ever actually been found out if he had stayed "retired"? Would interest in investigating him have waned as years went on, or would there still be enough interest for people to pursue it?

on a side track, "don't hate the player, hate the game" has always bothered me. There would not be a "game" if there were no players.

I still find this hard to accept. Mostly because it does look like a smear campaign. After reading this and similar articles I can't help but be reminded of an expression I first heard in 'Minority Report', The US Anti-Doping Agency has produced an "orgy of evidence". So much evidence that it nearly seems implausible it could have gone unnoticed or unchecked for this long.


Edit: Heh just realized that my responses on this topic have ranged from 'Not enough evidence' (initially) to 'Too much evidence' (now). Guess it's obvious what I want to believe.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only guy who doesn't give a **** if athletes 'dope'.

This made me smile.

It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't explained initially that they had no physical evidence at all to support their claims...

o no my favorite sportsman "sport sman" used performance-improving thingies now i've got to burn my sport-**** altar down nooo

Anyway, I've always thought all the fuss over doping is pretty dumb, seems to be an integral part of the thing

He's still the greatest athlete in the history of his sport. Would it have been a better story if he'd also been the only one not doping? Sure. But he won those six Tours on a level playing field.

I have no doubt that he's guilty, but yeah. The fact that they were willing to give up n>1 cheaters (i.e. liars) in exchange for affidavits that finger Armstrong tells me that maybe he slept with someone's wife.

I think a lot of people would consider Eddy Merckx the greatest of the sport, even if Armstrong hadn't cheated.

, even though Eddy Merckx also cheated.

Does anyone else feel extremely apathetic towards this whole situation?

Assuming this is true, this is a shame, even if I didn't follow cycling. Then again, I have the unrealistic expectation that sports and other games cease to have the game quality when winning results in rewards that primarily have value outside of the game (the major one being money). Regardless, cheating should be a "big deal" since, by its nature, is breaking the 'magic circle' that defines the game and makes the game meaningless.

I keep going back and forth. honestly, once cheating becomes the norm i kind of lose interest in individual athletes. with maybe the exception of basket ball, as far as i know there is not yet a magic serum that can make you hit free-throws or three pointers.

While in reality it's down to a difference of opinion considering that they both doped, I think those people would look pretty silly making that argument if Merckx had and Armstrong had not.