Floyd Landis is a CHEATER
Myths report that the gods gave Greek hero extraordinaire Achilles a choice between two appealing options: 1) live a long, happy life and die anonymously or 2) live a short, glorious life and gain immortality through legend. He chose the latter, and 3,400 years later the gods have remained true to their word.
Today's heros are given a similar choice. The gods of the 20th century are scientists, and the pathways to immortality are performance enhancing drugs.
The main misconception about performance enhancing drugs is that they are mainly designed to produce gigantic, body-builderish muscles. False. PEDs speed the process of recovery, thus making them more useful for athletes that push their bodies beyond the reasonable limits of human activity and then require quick recovery so that they can go out and do it again (such as pitchers - whose success hinges largly on how quickly their muscles can recover from the jarring experience of throwing 100 or more pitches - or cyclists).
Another misconception, perhaps fueled by the furious wave of media attention surrounding Barry Bonds and the Senate hearings of two years ago, is that PEDs are primarily limited to baseball. Absurd.
Cycling is one of those sports that demands a lot from its athletes and requires a quick recovery time - an ideal sport for use of PEDs.
I, personally, am of the school that Lance Armstrong was a fucking cheater. It makes too much sense. A high profile testicular cancer survivor would have access to the absolute best in new, effective, likely undetectable, testosterone boosting suppliments. How else could he maintain the focus and form necessary to win 7 tours in a row? The conspiricy theorist in me says the US government is behind this, wanting to produce a cancer survivor American hero to give our cancer sufferers hope. Granted, the Livestrong thing has raised money and awareness to fight cancer, so the ends clearly justify the means. But still. Cheater.
There are a couple ways to look at the Floyd Landis situation.
1) Cheater
Floyd cheated. The test results show atificial testosterone in the bloodstream. They coincide with perhaps the greatest one-day comeback in the history of the race. Coincidence? I think not.
2) Victim
a) The Frogs are pissed that they could never catch Lance. Lance was untouchable. Public opinion was so firmly behind him that even the most convincing evidence would fall short. So, in an act of insideous revenge, the Frogs take out their indignation on Floyd Landis, the next American foolish enough to stick his head out. Someone tampers with the samples, causing the testosterone boost to coincide with Landis's miraculous comeback. Landis, framed, takes the fall.
OR
b) Everyone dopes. The French single out Landis because he won and he's an American. Fuckers.
Did Landis cheat? Probably. Do I care? Not really. Personally, I think they should just make steroids legal. If you want to sacrifice a long, active life for a brief flash and a shot at immortality, that's YOUR CHOICE. Right Achilles?
(I'm ignoring the fact that Achilles ends up regretting his decision)
posted by Dreadnought at 7:01 AM
8 Comments:
how dare you say lance armstrong cheated he is a good man and he survived cancer which means hes better than you.
11:18 AM
you're logic is impeccable.
3:08 PM
Yes, Lance Armstrong is a national hero and looked up to by millions.
But some science:
Schafer et al, 1987, looking at personality rates and cancer found that:
Statistically significant group differences in survival rate were found, with the group characterized by acting out and emotional expression having the most favorable curve (less than 1% developing cancer). The group...who may well have suppressed their emotions, had the most unfavorable survival curve and was 16 times more likely to develop cancer than was the group characterized by acting out and emotional expression.
In other words, the assholes, not the stoic, tend to survive.
Not to say Lance cheated. But not to say he didn't.
3:10 PM
wait. lance developed cancer. doesn't that mean he's stoic?
4:10 PM
yo to everyone in the cardiac lab...
adeel the miyagi cohort study showed no relationship bet. personality and cancer survival. being optimistic helps prob. b/c of differences in cortisol level but that's all. read your abstracts.
patty you spelled your wrong.
4:22 PM
"If you want to sacrifice a long, active life for a brief flash and a shot at immortality, that's YOUR CHOICE."
except all sports have rules. you can't use a foot-wide bat in baseball, you can't use a motor in cycling. and you can't use steriods. all the more arbitrary because some suppliments are allowed in baseball that aren't allowed in football, ie. but their different games, and the whole point of these games is that people have to play within the rules to win.
go cardiac lab.
5:00 PM
Granted, sports have arbitrary rules. But except in boxing and wresting, the rules don't extend to limiting how big a competitor can be, and there is no sport that puts limits on how fast a competitor is able to move. Professional athletes are allowed genetic advantages, or advantages associated with working out excessively, both of which can be associated with decreases in reproductive fitness or longevity. Why can't they also have the best advantages medical science can give them?
8:03 PM
yet they wouldn't allow a bionic arm. the line between natural advantages and artificial ones is pretty blurry, so why can't a sport decide that line for itself, as it makes up the rest of its rules?
7:44 AM
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