More than half of the winners of the Tour de France who are still alive believe that Lance Armstrong should be reinstated as winner of the seven editions of the race between 1999 and 2005.
All but two of the surviving 25 champions responded to a poll by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, which asked them whether the American, banned for life in 2012 and stripped of his seven victories, should have them given back to him, reports Telegraph.co.uk.
Tour de France organisers ASO now show a blank space in the list of winners of the race for the seven editions where Armstrong stood on the top step of the podium in Paris, declining to award the victories to the runners-up, almost all of whom have been sanctioned for doping at some point.
Among those who said Armstrong should be reinstated was Ireland’s Stephen Roche, who won the yellow jersey in 1987, the same year he won the Giro d’Italia and world championship.
He said: “Armstrong should stay on that list [of winners]. In the 100-year history of the race you can't not have a winner for seven years. Doping has been part of sport, not only for cycling, for decades. Who tells me Jacques Anquetil won clean? Should we take his victories away? Or why does Richard Virenque get to keep his polka dot jerseys?"
Older riders tended to believe that Armstrong should be given the titles back, while those who won the race more recently said he should not, including the winners of the last three editions – Cadel Evans, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, who said: "Those seven empty places symbolise an era. We should leave it like it is."
There were exceptions though, with Oscar Pereiro, champion in 2006, and Andy Schleck, awarded the 2010 victory when Alberto Contador was stripped of it in 2012, the only two winners from recent years to say that Armstrong should be viewed as winner of those seven editions.
Schleck said: “Who remembers who was second place in those races? I wouldn't know myself. You can't have seven races without a winner, so just leave Armstrong on the list."
Other riders who backed the former US Postal rider’s reinstatement included Felice Gimondi, Jan Janssen and Joop Zoetemelk, who said: "They should never have erased Armstrong from the list. You can't change results 10 years later. Of course it's not good what he did but you can't rewrite history."
Race director Christian Prudhomme made it clear that ASO would not be reconsidering its position. "You ask the people along the route," he explained. "It's clear, his name will not be on the list again. Period."
When in October 2012 former UCI president Pat McQuaid ratified the sanctions imposed by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, he opened the press conference by saying, “Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling.”
He too seems to have changed his view, telling journalists at the Tour de France on Tuesday’s rest day, “I don't necessarily think the same now. Armstrong is the victim of a USADA witch hunt" – words used repeatedly by Armstrong’s own defence team until he finally confessed in January last year.
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' I don't mind LA as a person at all actually'
Seriously?
I don't mind him as a rider too much. The doping doesn't bother me particularly given the state of professional sport (and not just cycling).
The destruction of others' lives, reputations etc...that's the bad stuff. Or not, depending on whether you have morals or not, I guess.
Sorry, that's kind of what I meant. Next time I'll try typing without trying to watch the tour highlights at the same time!
The LA PR machine seems in over-drive. A lot of stuff coming out about him all over the shop. Seems very cynical.
you should piss off with idiotic posts like this.
You have used the whole sale slaughter of millions of people and put Hitler in the same post about a guy who took drugs to climb up mountains faster on a bike.. You sir are a monumental idiot who needs some context in his life. And opening your statement with 'Godwins law' doesn't excuse it.
Nice article. Now I know which of the current riders and teams to boycott because they STILL DON'T GET IT!
It'll only be a tiny bit of consumer power but bringing cash into it changes things. If cheating costs Armstrong enough of his previous earnings in the pending court cases you can bet that the pros will re-assess the value of cheating pretty damn quick.
As to the old guard attitudes, anyone with a skeleton in their closet will be feeling that their earnings and reputations are vulnerable so of course they'll want to make Armstrong's actions look more reasonable. Humans mostly do what's in their own interest after all.
Of course half of the TDF riders think he should be entitled to his medals. Half of the TDF riders *are doping* and won't be found out for several years. So of course they think that wins with cheats count. Otherwise, their wins would mean nothing too.
Eventually doping will become so prevalent that there will be zero credibility and the entire sport will become irrelevant.
Oh wait, hasn't that already happened?
This article doesn't say anything other than half of the surviving Tour de France winners are a bit thick. Just because they have won the Tour de France, doesn't mean that they are good judges of morality or sportsmanship. It means that they are strong climbers and time triallists, etc.
You obviously don't understand. He was only first over the line because he cheated (& in his case also because he doped so extensively and systematically in the sense of requiring his team to dope).
Winners' who are subsequently revealed as people who cheated to cross the line first (or in any other position for that matter) are stripped of their position.
There seems no reason why Armstrong should be exempted from that rule since it is one that applies to everyone else - not just in cycling but in other sports too - who has been found to have cheated.
Just to clarify - my reply was to the post by mattsccm.
He was a good time trialist, not amazing. But we have no concrete data as to when Armstrong first doped. From all things I've read and heard about I wouldn't be surprised if he was doing steroids back in high school - that's not an exaggeration either. What took Armstrong to the next level was Dr Michele Ferrari, a man who was at the forefront of doping. As I said Armstrong was doping before he got cancer. From what I've read he was pretty much the lead on that at Postal. So if he was getting results because of his doping he would look better than Frankie Andreu and others who didn't.
Pantani was a different kettle of fish. Evidence suggests that he was getting some assistance from Conconi I believe. The difference between the two riders was partly about advice and partly about application. Pantani's 'romantic' style meant that he did not have the aptitude for time trialling which is a more scientific approach to cycling that the 'gorilla' which is the mountains.
The problem is that doping has different effects on riders, so it could give you more of an advantage for less product than another rider. It's also the cocktail of drugs that makes a difference. A blend of steroids and EPO/blood bags is going to keep you fit, healthy and on the bike and make you strong as an ox. Things like HGH help with keeping your power up. As Tyler Hamilton says in his book, "it was about having the best chemist and we had the best around".
What I don't doubt is that Armstrong wanted it more than others. But that ruthlessness spilled over into everything. He was psychopathic. He was inhumane about it. The logical extension of where he was taking things was that riders needed to be doped to the eyeballs and take as many risks with their lives as was necessary to beat their opponents.
But even when that happened he seemed to do whatever to beat them. One of the layered messages in the Tyler Hamilton book is the suspicion that Armstrong was sabotaging Hamilton - the call from Verbruggen to discuss bloods, operation Puerto tip off. Obviously nothing is proven....but I think Hamilton looks back at these events differently because of subsequent events. He was spooked by the phone tapping and suspicion he was being followed in the run up to the USADA decision.
It's the combination of his lying and domination of a sport through that lie which is awful. If sport is a reflection of life what does this tell us? Take no prisoners, crush your enemies and do whatever it takes to win.
This is a weird reading on doping. Sure, if you EPO up a donkey then you'll just get a faster donkey. But we are talking a cocktail of steroids, HGH and EPO. The Postal teams budget was off the scale. You put all those things into your donkey and actually get a thoroughbred, and it won't look like a donkey so you'll never know what it would have been.
Yes, the drugs do have a different effect on different people, and yes, you do need to train, but that doesn't make Lance great, because the truth is we don't know what was his natural state, and if he wanted to train as much as he liked, he'd pop some steroids.
Chances are we will never know when he really started popping drugs. If I was a betting man I would say he was doing steroids back in high school because that's the sort of man he is. High steroid use, of course, being a cause for testicular cancer....
Doesn't matter if the record book shows he won or not,the fact is whatever your opinion,he did win 7 seven times,I was lucky to watch all 7 tours and got into cycling because of this fantastic era of cycling.yes he cheated just like the other 20 podium riders in thoses seven years.im not condoning drugs,but we all know it's part of out sport.but the fact that everyone is still talking about him,just confirms his status in the cycling world
He DID NOT win 7 times, at the time it seemed that way, and you might not like to think that all that inspiration you got was in actual fact a great big fraud but you need to get over it.
What he did was cheat, plain and simple, the same as if you take a short cut or cling on to a car all day, he broke the rules and cheated deliberately, consistently, and maliciously. In hindsight we can say that he did not win because he cheated.
If you choose to believe that EVERY SINGLE rider that was going for GC was cheating, and that they ALL had the EXACT same level and access to the same drugs and doping that he did, then you are truly deluded. Without the above being true you cannot even say he was best of the dopers, all you can actually give him him credit for, is having the best doping program.
And if you are the type of person that gives someone credit for that then well, I wont say anymore.
Just get over it, there's no point clinging on to this false idol.
A stroke of luck that you are a cycling fan and your surname's Peyresourde, Colin.
"This article doesn't say anything other than half of the surviving Tour de France winners are a bit thick. Just because they have won the Tour de France, doesn't mean that they are good judges of morality or sportsmanship. It means that they are strong climbers and time triallists, etc."
Ex winner are you? Doubt it so mind your own business. No right to comment about someone who was there. If your views are valid so are theirs. You can't have it your way only.
I have no liking for the bloke. I was one of his very few "haters" when he was winning so I was right then! (sticks tongue out)
Point is you cannot have a competition without a winner. Its politics. He was still irst over the line. Just disqualified afterwards.
the bullying issue is different. One mans bullying is another just getting his way.
Just like many of the posters here. If anyone disagrees they get shouted down. How about a collective noun to describe them? Armstrongs.
I'm pretty certain I saw him wearing a yellow jersey and drinking champagne in Paris. The fact is the blank space is there, we all know who fits into that blank space. Unless they reassign the tours he won't disappear, evidenced by the void where his name should be. You know why we can't reassign the titles so why complain. He is a CHEAT and a WINNER, just like Diego Maradona. The two cannot be separated.
The way I look at it now is a drama (or soap opera if you will) that is still exasperating, shocking and entertaining as it ever was, and it will continue for many years to come.
The British Empire / Gaius Julius Caesar / Genghis Khan / Alexander the Great / The Roman Empire / Sparta / Conan the Barbarian.
Mongol General: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
Sun Tzu: Art of War. Whose strategies are used by sports coaches.
"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting."
George Orwell.
This can go on and on and on, sport is just a microcosm of life and to the very best, in their world it is war.
And do be honest if you don't like it, take up knitting. Ask yourself if you are so pure that your shit smells of lavender, I doubt it.
People need to grow up and lose the romanticised version of sport/cycling, I can imagine all the people who are so personally injured by LAs action (never ever meeting him) wear Rapha and drool over the Rapha videos wearing rose tinted glasses and cooing quietly to themselves why drinking an Espresso and nibbling on a pain-au-chocolat.
Can't find a smiley for it. So )))))YAWN((((( going to watch the TdF recording, and watch elite sportsmen push themselves to their limits over a few big mountains, because I love the sport, the ups and downs, the good and bad characters, the good and the bad stuff, that's what makes it so great.
And if you were a fan during LAs time and you thought it was clean then you were/are a mug, maybe that's why you are so upset
Lance Armstrong 7 times TdF winner.
Are you a genius? It's a nom de plume.
Oh, so you think cheating is acceptable? Bringing justice to bear is hardly a bad thing. I think you need to grow up if you do not think justice has any place in life and is a joke in sport. This isn't a crime about cycling. This is a crime about the truth, about unlevel playing fields. We can all accept that life deals us a different stack of cards, but when we are cheated, treated like idiots, robbed of the truth or bullied no one likes it. I don't kid myself that the riders are clean. I just look for a day when sport can be.
Indurain
Indurain
Indurain
Indurain
Indurain
Riis
Ullrich
Pantani
no winner
no winner
no winner
no winner
no winner
no winner
no winner
Joke!!!
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