Anyone see this?
Just watched the first part having recorded it on Monday night and it was a pretty interesting watch.
Just watched the first part having recorded it on Monday night and it was a pretty interesting watch.
Television Lance - ESPN 30 for 30 Documentary
- Thread starter Berbaclass
- Start date
Does it glorify him?
I have a sneaky suspicion that the world of cycling is adamant to validate his existence again. Mainly because he brings so much commercial revenue to the sport and secondly, literally every great rider thats ever existed (including Froome) are cheats and he was the space goat (caf folklore) for the whole sport. Wankers like Lemond and co were hypocrites trying to deflect any notion of cheating on to Lance. Meanwhile Eddy Merckx was incredibly quiet about the whole thing and only made marginal comments. Eddy is literally Lance's greatest competitor in the world of cycling and if anybody had the right to be upset, it was him.
It shouldn't excuse his narcissistic bullying tendencies (which go way beyond Michael Jordan) but it will because as Tiger once said, winning fixes everything.
I have a sneaky suspicion that the world of cycling is adamant to validate his existence again. Mainly because he brings so much commercial revenue to the sport and secondly, literally every great rider thats ever existed (including Froome) are cheats and he was the space goat (caf folklore) for the whole sport. Wankers like Lemond and co were hypocrites trying to deflect any notion of cheating on to Lance. Meanwhile Eddy Merckx was incredibly quiet about the whole thing and only made marginal comments. Eddy is literally Lance's greatest competitor in the world of cycling and if anybody had the right to be upset, it was him.
It shouldn't excuse his narcissistic bullying tendencies (which go way beyond Michael Jordan) but it will because as Tiger once said, winning fixes everything.
Throw the entire sport in the garbage.
I watched part 1 last night and it was ok, the story has been told loads now though and I'm not sure what else there is to say to be honest. I don't think it glorified him in episode 1 bit obviously told us everyone was at it which isn't a surprise really considering how hard the Tour De France is.
Why? It’s ace.
As a fan I thought it was brilliant. Nothing new obviously, but there were a few nuggets.
Only if somehow Bernard Hinault disappeared from history books.
Both him and Lance don't even have so much as a claim to Merckx's throne. He was (at least) their equal in the big 3 Tours and completely blows them out of the water in the classics department.
Yeah I have zero interest in this sport at all because it's been utterly corrupt for years and full of cheats. The fact Armstrong still gets a lot of exposure sums it up for me.
The French will claim Hinault and the Belgians will say Merckx - Let's not go off topic with this whole thing
No the french will say Merckx and won't make the ridiculous claim that Armstrong is literally Merckx only competitor.The French will claim Hinault and the Belgians will say Merckx - Let's not go off topic with this whole thing
@RobinLFC I fully agree with you.
The French will claim Hinault and the Belgians will say Merckx - Let's not go off topic with this whole thing
Ah you meant it like that, thought you meant Hinault instead of Merckx. D'accord
Any way to watch in the UK?
Brill, thank you.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...ocumentary-espn-doping-cycling-tour-de-france
This review suggests it's the same old. A sociopath trying to normalize his behavior. Might give it a watch but I guess there'll be something new in it. The biggest problem with journalism regarding Lance is that they ever only go at him from the "doping doping doping" angle. Never anything on Christophe Bassons. Almost never anything on Filippo Simeoni. He never gets nailed to reflect on Betsy Andreu.
Nothing on how he dropped 'friends' like Frankie Andreu or Kevin Livingston like nothing for his own personal gain or how paranoid and insecure he reacted to teammates success (check Hamilton's book). Instead he gets to paddle the narrative "Yeah we doped, but we were perfectionists and a young group of Americans and we killed it over there in Europe". Never any perspective on how this "killing it in Europe" only meant "Lance killing it at the TdF" because - as Landis said - in other races, when Lance wasn't riding, that professional perfectionist image of a team didn't hold up whatsoever, team management and Lance didn't give a damn about their members if they didn't work for Lance.
The worst are his rabbit fans who went from years of "no positive doping test ever" to "ah well, everyone did it, he's still a champ!" without reflecting at above points whatsoever.
Btw, did he ever admit that he doped in 2009/10 or is he still claiming he was clean (to save money)? Ah well, it doesn't matter given that his worst nightmare came true anyway, destroyed by a better ruthless Pistelero who had no support from the team whatsoever. Apt quite from another thread:
This review suggests it's the same old. A sociopath trying to normalize his behavior. Might give it a watch but I guess there'll be something new in it. The biggest problem with journalism regarding Lance is that they ever only go at him from the "doping doping doping" angle. Never anything on Christophe Bassons. Almost never anything on Filippo Simeoni. He never gets nailed to reflect on Betsy Andreu.
Nothing on how he dropped 'friends' like Frankie Andreu or Kevin Livingston like nothing for his own personal gain or how paranoid and insecure he reacted to teammates success (check Hamilton's book). Instead he gets to paddle the narrative "Yeah we doped, but we were perfectionists and a young group of Americans and we killed it over there in Europe". Never any perspective on how this "killing it in Europe" only meant "Lance killing it at the TdF" because - as Landis said - in other races, when Lance wasn't riding, that professional perfectionist image of a team didn't hold up whatsoever, team management and Lance didn't give a damn about their members if they didn't work for Lance.
The worst are his rabbit fans who went from years of "no positive doping test ever" to "ah well, everyone did it, he's still a champ!" without reflecting at above points whatsoever.
Btw, did he ever admit that he doped in 2009/10 or is he still claiming he was clean (to save money)? Ah well, it doesn't matter given that his worst nightmare came true anyway, destroyed by a better ruthless Pistelero who had no support from the team whatsoever. Apt quite from another thread:
Ah shit, here we go again.
Tbf he should really only get nailed for the way he ruined people's lives because lets be honest he won a race on drugs that is full of cyclists on drugs . To me it wasn't even a suprise cause we all knew he and everyone else was on drugs the whole time
I think The Armstrong Lie documentary by Alex Gibney is quite good also.
Yeah, that is also absolutely brilliant. The behind the scenes stuff is just riveting.
Seeing how he rationalised his doping just for maintained his pride was quite telling. He is surely a psychopath.
Wat. The doping is the least problematic part about the Armstrong story.
I'll give it a watch - but this has been told so much that, similar to Jordan(though that's more from reading) and The Last Dance... I don't expect to learn much from it.
He's certainly a GOAT contender regardless of his scummyness, he won, empathically too, when everyone was massively juiced, and when it was massive. Eddy came from a completely different era, and benefits massively from it, the specialization of the sport changed dramatically when science started filtering in, and not just the doping science, training science etc. Merckx lived in a ride loads, race in everything era. Wouldn't cope doing that from about 1980 onwards.
He's certainly a GOAT contender regardless of his scummyness, he won, empathically too, when everyone was massively juiced, and when it was massive. Eddy came from a completely different era, and benefits massively from it, the specialization of the sport changed dramatically when science started filtering in, and not just the doping science, training science etc. Merckx lived in a ride loads, race in everything era. Wouldn't cope doing that from about 1980 onwards.
Yep, he's admitted his faults. I mean obviously not all of them, he still lies about a great number of things, and insists he still won all the tours that were stripped from him as a consequence of his actions. But other than that, he's really very contrite. Not so contrite that he won't also use this documentary to promote himself, obviously, but contrite enough to say he is contrite when people ask him if he's contrite. Except for the times when he doesn't do that. So please give the guy who ruined people's lives a second chance. I mean obviously don't actually give him a second chance to ruin people's lives, because he absolutely would, but give him a second chance in that way where we act like he didn't do the bad things he did. Including any he still says he didn't do and/or will do.
For me, as someone who knows very little about the sport and only what I've seen in documentaries like this on. I don't really care that much about the doping. As far as I'm aware the majority of them were doping so to me he probably would have won anyway. As far as the lying goes, I think he pretty much had to to maintain status quo with nike and all the other big sponsors. What I don't like is the 'bullying' sort of stuff that has been levelled at him but I think if you go deep into a professional athlete at that level I think they all have that insane drive which at times makes them cross the line.
When you factor in the amount of good he did for cancer etc then I'm willing to accept the other stuff.
Some of the things he said really reminded me of Jordan, specifically when he mentioned making stuff up in his head about people to motivate him. That was almost word for word what Jordan said.
When you factor in the amount of good he did for cancer etc then I'm willing to accept the other stuff.
Some of the things he said really reminded me of Jordan, specifically when he mentioned making stuff up in his head about people to motivate him. That was almost word for word what Jordan said.
I totally agree.
The doping is a non issue, not even worth discussing. Everyone who knows more than the average Joe about pro cycling knows how endemic it was - people like Jan Ullrich and even Simeoni have claimed the Tours are his.
People being upset about the "lying" is also quite funny. What did they expect? For him to suddenly after 782 interviews go "Nah, you know what? I'm actually using EPO and blood transfusions. Sorry :/" Once you are in for an inch you are in for a mile.
The bullying wasn't pleasant and I don't really condone it but it seems like he did his Tour of Apology and most of those people sat down with him and accepted it (Even Emma O'Reilly! They're good friends again today). At the end of the day he did not kill anyone, he didn't assault anyone and it has been years and years now. To quote the man himself: Some people can't chill the feck out.
For some perspective I can actually warmly recommend his podcast The Forward.
What I find interesting is that he's been stripped of his wins but other winners have supposedly tested positive and not been stripped. Which obviously is massively hypocritical.
Don't even get me started on that man
The only periods in the history of the Tour de France where you can't officially find a winner is the following:
1915-1918 - WWI
1940-1946 - WWII
1999-2005 - Did I miss WWIII?