Mixed welcome as Lance Armstrong rides Tour de France route

Given the hounding of and vitriol toward Armstrong one could be forgiven for thinking that he was the last of the dopers. No chance. Pro cyclists are still at it today, the ones who think they can get away with it or who are just thick to think they won't get caught. Armstrong wasn't the first and most definitely isn't the last which has been proved.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Good if some money is raised for charity.
Just as a matter of interest, does anyone know how many winners of the Tour have been undoped?

SAD to see that Lance can only manage 2 etappes ?

Had Officialdom let well enough alone , then his passing through could have gone unnoticed !

Are they going to claim credit when Geoff reaches the 1 Million?

Publicity Stunt that WORKED !

Give over you sad dick.

What's the big deal with this guy - I've got just as many Tour de France wins as he has!

But the point he makes is valid. Armstrong has been singled out and vilified for his cheating yet it was the cheating of a whole generation of riders that damaged the sport. Armstrong's error was being the most successful rider in the most important event during that era. Unfortunately we will never know if Armstrong would have been as successful if there had been a level playing field.

The bottom line is he is a cheat that is vilified when many other cheats aren't. Why should that be so? The cheats all lied, they all cheated; most never apologised and many are making a healthy living out of cycling.

The continuing vilification of Armstrong is rank hypocrisy of the highest order; vilify them all or vilify none. There has to be a point where we all put this crap to bed; this won't happen until we accept the past and stop whinging on about it.

The only people who have a right to whinge are those riders who were cheated out of a career. The rest of us were either entertained, gained publicity from the successes or earned money from being employed in the sport. We all had our value and the benefit of it at the time; by definition subsequent revelations cannot diminish that.

Talking with one of the riders on the ride. There has been alot of positivity from the road side, both before and during Armstrong's participation.

I was initially one of the haters and couldn't see why Thomas would invite him at all, but you just have to look at the publicity it has gotten because of this, long may it continue and long may the pounds roll in for the charity.

Whatever you think of Armstrong, he is supporting a charity, as he has always done with anything involving cancer, so that can only be seen as good.

Armstrong certainly played a part in casting doubt on riders like Froome today, but so did WADA, the UCI and to some what, they teams themselves. If everything was see through and public, no-one would have a need to doubt things, everything is hidden away from scrutiny, which always gives rise to conspiracy's.

The BBC called him cycling's Voldermort, always lurking in the shadows. I like that analogy.

Never let it be said that he has no balls.

From what I've been reading he's been treated really well by the press & public (not so much from the officialdom). He's also getting a lot of new publicity for the charity - good stuff.

He's not competing so the bottom line is surely that he can do what he wants, and I guess it's up to other people if they want to get upset about it.

Otherwise it starts to look like rather absurd, arbitrary, and pointless hounding IMO.

I wish the attention seeking prick would just piss off...