Ferrari even wrote publicly he was help Armstrong with his training plans.
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I remember seeing a race at Wildflower head to head between Reid & Deboom in their prime (coined Mano a Mano). They set off before everyone else. It was boring iirc, as it wasn’t exactly Iron War.
And Peter Reid dropped out on the bike because he had a staph infection, if I recall correctly from watching the film “What It Takes”. It looked a dull concept for a race.
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Love or loathe him, Lance was Box Office to watch. 
But Pantani even more so 97-98 ish?, he would at some point engage the EPO turbo boosters and attack on some hill, and took off like on Nitro. I and everyone else was of course gobsmacked in awe. Of course we know why now, but even with EPO it was pretty impressive.
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2nd part on from 9:30 - 11:30 tonight. I’ll probably end up watching it on catch-up again as i turn into a pumpkin after 10pm (well a vegetable anyway 
)
I’m starting to wonder if I have some kind of psychic abilities as I’m definitely picking up vibes that he’s still not fond of Floyd Landis 
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I was surprised to see Floyd being quite nice about Lance at the end. But then if he did get a payoff from the federal lawsuit, I guess he got what he was after (albeit, not a share of $100m!).
I thought Lance was quite honest. He certainly didnt seem to try and sugar coat much. He’s a bit bitter, obviously, but I don’t think he’s disillusioned. I think his little tirade on the unfairness of the likes of Basso being lauded whilst Pantani gets castigated, is kinda fair enough. And that’s largely what I talked about before … he logically called out the same unfairness with himself and Hincapie, and they’re still friends.
I was also quite surprised by the EO’R statements about how Walsh initially made it seem like he was doing a whole sport piece, which was what she wanted to expose, but it then just turned into a LA specific piece, and that effectively threw her under the Lance Inc bus. That made me think less favourably of Walsh, if he’d “use” and deceive a source like that who’s quite obviously putting her neck on the line.
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I broadly agree with most of that although I still think he feels hard done by and doesn’t really accept responsibility for his own actions and the fact that his position is as much (if not more) to do with his behaviour as it is the doping. I’m still of the view that his words and body language/expressions don’t match, he’s saying some of the right things but I’m not sure he means it.
The Walsh thing I interpreted a bit differently. EO’R wanted to go after the UCI but I don’t think he could use any of that as it would be most supposition whereas her specific evidence re Lance/Team would be much more solid. I don’t know either way but lawyers would have been involved at the Newspaper and anything too risky would have been taken out. I didn’t think she came a cross as bitter towards Walsh using her, more that the story took that turn.
I felt he did cover that somewhat. He said he was wrong to conflate the cancer part of his story as rebuttals for the doping. But equally said his initial responses were no different to anyone else. It was just his relative success and profile that meant he had to answer those questions more than anyone else, and deal with more scrutiny than anyone else, and so his denials had to snowball.
Yes, he was a bully, and that was wrong, but if he’d come second in all those Tours, would he have faced quite the same level of scrutiny as he did, and therefore not needed to go on the full defensive as much. Ultimately, my view is that he was still only doing what everyone else was doing, and he only had to defend more vigorously because he was being probed more than a random domestique on a mid-tier team who was also doing all the crap he was doing. That’s not excusing him, but it is an explanation
I think the type of personality he is will mean his body language doesnt marry up to words, simply because he isn’t comfortable being that way. As Landis(?) said, LA was more comfortable lying than he was being himself, even in private. I thought his contrition to the guy he humiliated by pulling him back out of a breakaway was genuine. Probably not the Betsy phonecall pre-Oprah, that was too contrived timing wise, but that was 7 years ago. Even the ESPN reporter who was generally quite critical of him said she couldn’t view his cancer work as anything other than genuine. And whilst there was bitterness at being kicked out from the LAF, I felt that was founded in a genuine sadness of not being able to continue contributing to making positive change.
Power certainly corrupted him. But that happens in all walks of life. And certain characters are more exposed to being corrupted than others. Again, not an excuse, but he’s certainly no different to a number of politicians, etc.
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There’s no doubt that Walsh still has a grudge. Like Kimmage, he was made to look a fool. And neither liked that. But there were other journalists (Pelkey from Velonews being 1) who also doubted him but he didn’t let that define his journalism career.
I’ve not watched the doc yet so I’ll be interested to see the lance/emma/Walsh angle. The peripheries have always been more intriguing in this.
Is this the documentary that’s on iPlayer now?
Watched first half last night…
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Yup.
Been looking forward to this, thanks for the heads up!
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Good docu, this.
As for the ending with the Jan Ullrich twist - wow.
Lance is a complicated character.
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Have you guys listened to his podcast over the Tour?
Slick production, littered with ads.
In my opinion, he tries to come across as reformed. However, every so often he slips back into classic Lance, still fighting against his old teammates, the UCI and anyone else he holds a grudge against.
Reformed? Absolutely not.
A lot smarter than the character he portrays? 100%.
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I see that Jan Ullrich has not had an easy post cycling career either. He’s been in trouble a few times for his drinking, and went into a psychiatric hospital to get help 3 years ago.
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To be fair though that was cos he kept saying his legs were talking to him…
Doh, wrong one!!
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I have never been able to condemn him for what transpired, he simply did everything possible to dominate, I cant say hand on heart I would have done otherwise in his situation.
Had cycling been clean at the time I might feel differently, but everyone was doing it, he was just doing it better.
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Isn’t the real issue that he was an utter douchebag to people, that’s why his fall from grace was so big?
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