Tetedelacourse said:
Do you have any sporting heroes Chuffy? Does that mean you're a fan of winning or a fan of the sport? Can you only be a fan of a sport if you don't support the most successful in that sport? I'm surprised at a comment like that from you.
Heroes? No, because hero worship will always blind you to someone's faults and anyway, heroes have a way of letting you down, one way or another. There are people I admire, but heroes? No.
Maybe I was a bit harsh, or generalising too much, but as someone else said on this thread, it's as if some of Lance's fans stopped bothering with the Tour since their man quit. When Liverpool were winning everything (late 70s iirc) oddly enough loads of kids my age made the decision to support...Liverpool. Turn to the 90s and the same happened with Man Utd. Early 00s and Chelski reaped the benefit. Glory hunters and those who only bother with a sport if they can latch onto the alpha-dog (or team) aren't fans of the sport, they just want to boost their self-esteem by hooting 'all u haterz r jus jealous' at anyone who dares challenge the heroic status of their man/team. Happened in F1 with that
cheating kraut bastard morally challenged gentleman Michael Schumacher. I don't dispute that there are many who are genuine fans, of Lance, of Schumacher, of Man Utd etc, and who don't have my jaundiced views on heroes, but there are also a great many more who just want the glory.
You've done the homework Tetters, you
know how thin the ice is when cycling tries to clean itself up (post Simpson, post Festina, post Landis etc etc). The likes of Armstrong coming back can only make that transformation more difficult.
He got away with it. Do any of you think he'd get away with it in 2009?
Again, you know the history. Ricco said that he should have been caught many times before he finally was. The dopers will always find ways. Surely you don't believe that the war is won and that no-one can get way with doping? That would be naive, to say the least.