you people are heartless
after all heās been through
heād never lie about where his ball lie.
If youāre not cheating, youāre not trying hard enough to win.
Im not hearing Armstrongās sentiment in the same light you are. I hear a guy blaming a sport for his own actions, then makes a weird statement about being heart broken if he cheated againā¦ at golf?! Is your life story of crashing and rebuilding a lot like a golfer nudging a ball that is laying in deep rough?
I get that he is in a bad place and maybe he desrves the right to rebuild, Im not the judge of that. But what I do see is the power of human denial and a person without humility, two things which I dont detect in your story at all.
Traditionally, golfers keep track of their stokes. Apparently, itās easy to subtract a few putts here and there. Itās not gentlemanly to cheat, though.
IMO Armstrongās biggest failing was not cheating - something that was/is rife in cycling - it was doggedly lying about it while throwing other cyclists under the bus in the process.
There is massive pressure to take that shit in the competitive sports in which it is commonplace. Someone I know is a competitive MMA fighter. Despite their general anti-PE-drug views even they have considered it (but ultimately doesnt take it) because in MMA many or even most do it.
Iāve never entirely understood the urge to stick to the war-on-drugs-in-microcosm down to the bitter end, though I can only conclude that the motives are somewhat related to those of the war-on-drugs-in-macrocosm.
On the plus side, zealous enforcement eliminates our chance of obtaining valuable research data, and encourages athletes to aggressively move to new, untested, and deeply experimental substances to stay ahead of the anti-doping tests, so I guess thereās that. That and the warm glow of justice.
except that there were consequences to very real people who were thrown under the bus to keep maintain the lance armstrong mystique
Did you actually mean to say āfalsework?ā I like it. Not the falsework, but the word.
The man is admitting he has no conscience. āIf I got caught.ā People who behave this way deserve to be mocked until they go into hiding and we no longer need to hear of them. Lance should fade. His narcissism is likely too deeply entrenched for him to truly reform himself. Heās just going to change his game.
Honestly, I think we should set up āanything goesā leagues in the US alongside the NFL, the MLB, the MLS. If adult professionals want to wreck their bodies for the purposes of spectacular entertainment and impossible feats of strength, speed, and precision, why should we stop them. Let the soccer players shoot up crank. Let the football players juice up on steroids. Let the baseball playersā¦I guess take some kind of drug that reduces boredom? Seriously, if both teams were on LSD, base ball might even be interesting.
Anyway, as long as they leave it all on the field, and with the continuation of HDTV advances, people will be able to see the very real tradeoff between overall health for these massive specializations achievable with modern biochemistry. Itāll definitely be brutal and often fatal, but Iām sure the kids will see going all out on PEDs may essentially give you super powers, but the physical costs will be a lot worse than the jail time people currently earn for minor infractions. And if we develop safer versions of these drugs that donāt have such negative side-effects, then everyone wins.
The WWE springs to mind at this point. Thereās a huge number of untimely deaths in that industry. Unfortunately, sometimes they donāt go alone.
The post was mostly in jest. But there is a part of me thinking: theyāre going to do it anyway, it canāt be stopped, why not let them have at it honestly?
Iām kinda-sorta with you on that. Trouble is, the side-effects can be mental as well as physical and in some cases, this can be tragic.
What Iād rather see is a technological arms-race, rather than a pharmaceutical one. This could well include atheletes having limbs upgraded. 
You read me like a book, Martian.
I am all for it. With mandatory full disclosure of the enhancements used.
This is already happening.
The LASIK way of getting better-than-normal eyes (Tiger Woods, I am looking at YOU!) is something I am actually considering for myself.
I know thereās corneal implants that can let you see UV, which I will absolutely get if my eyes ever qualify for. Thatās one of the coolest things in prosthetics Iāve ever āseenā
Oh and I suppose pitch-o-mat 5000 was just a modified howitzer?
Golf?
Really, golf?
Was he going for satire, here?
I mean, come on, golf is next to fishing on the veracity scale of sports. It was always one of those sports where participants kept their own scores, played more for participation than in hopes of turning professional.
Strip his tittle? Come on now, the man has already lost a testicle!
