Absolutely... the kid is a close friend of my son and is an amazing athlete with a work ethic that is beyond compare. At our last meet, he swam an amazing 500 Free without drinking or eating anything and I grabbed the chance to remind him he didn't need any help because he was awesome. Huge smiles!
So in the end he doesn't have any titles to his name and was exposed. So in reality he never existed in the cycling world. To most world class athletes that is the worst thing that someone could do to them......he is done mentally.
Hope it wasnt me. I will admit that I drank the Kool-Aide for a long time. In fact, my wife and I went to France and watched him win his 7th Tour. Obviously, we were fans. I wanted to believe that since he was passing all the tests and was the most tested athlete in the world, that he was in fact clean. Later, during his comeback, when hearing how many guys were doping, I pretty well knew he was involved at some level. My wife and I even had some very heated debates about it. She was YELLING at the TV last night in anger that she had been one of his supporters. lol The fact that he doped during an era when nearly everyone that was competitive was doping would not make him scum in my opinion. The fact that he ruined many, many lives in the process does now make him scum in my opinion. I am trying to figure out if he actually feels badly for his actions now and will spend the rest of his life trying to make amends, or if he has a more selfish reason to finally come "clean". I guess only time will tell. My son was interviewed by phone for the evening news last night by a Des Moines station. He did a really nice job explaining that there are a lot of very dedicated, hard-working cyclists out there that race clean. He has raced at both the national and international level and has never been exposed to doping. I really think cycling is a much cleaner sport today than it was 10 years ago. Maybe that will be a postive to come from this mess. I can tell you that these cyclists are some of the fittest and most dedicated ahtletes in the world. That's why doping was so tempting, there is a very small margin separating the elite riders from the rest.
Yep... but worth about 100 million and not in danger of anything criminal. He doesn't care. He did his thing, made his money, came clean for whatever reason and will fade off into the sunset with a boat load of money.
He needs to pay back all the money he won in lawsuits....... But yep, he is rich and doesn't care. BUT, he actually did something criminal. He either filed a false police report or lied on stand/deposition which is criminal.
No it wasn't you. It was that fella from NC lol. And I don't believe you've sued me. However I have yet to recieve the adoption papers!
Pretty sure if you want to watch a sport with no dopeing you're pretty much limited to the special Olympics.
You should have told me it WAS me. I would have felt so guilty that I would have drawn those adoption papers up today!
I do not care about doping in cycling. Its a cheater sport. Ruining the lives of bunch of people that were telling the truth, I have a big problem with. This dude, imo, is a POS. Most of the time I don't care what happens to athletes or celebrities. You want to ruin your own life, fine. When you ruin the lives of others, I think thats going too far. That should be a bigger story than it is. He should be calling up Manti with a big, "thank you".
It WAS a cheater sport for many. It is no longer that way. There are a lot of extremely gifted amateur and pro cyclists that are fit beyond compare. Cycling has really been cleaned up. Even at collegiate nationals last week USADA was there testing top finishers and randomly testing all others. They even show up for large junior cycling races. Believe me, the sport is pretty darn clean now. I think it will continue to be that way with this mess going public. THAT is a good thing. One of my biggest fears was that my son would make it to a level that he would be pressured into doping. I no longer worry about that. A lifetime ban is a very high price to pay for these athletes. Most will not risk that penalty. Also, the testing has become very sophisticated. My son has a list of drugs, vitamins, supplements, cold rememdies, etc., several pages long that he is not allowed to take. Many are not considered performance enhancers, but they can mask the test results so they too are banned. USADA is not taking any of this lightly.
