Saturday, November 10, 2012

Lance Armstrong: Apology That He Will Never Give

This was sent to me to post here.  I am not the author.


The apology Lance Armstrong will never give
Bruce Arthur
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012
Lance Armstrong has not made any public comments after his seven Tour de France titles were taken away on Monday. FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images
Hello, everybody, and thanks for coming today. I know a lot of you never thought I would do this. Well, I never thought I would do this, either.
My name is Lance Armstrong, and I love cycling. When I was young my anger and desire would overwhelm me when I competed, a blinding rage, and I could barely control it. I had a rough childhood, and cycling was my escape. I was a triathlon champion as a teenager, and I was the world road race champion at 21, and I came to Europe and watched Miguel Indurain pedal away from me like I was a kid. That was the 1994 Tour de France. He kicked my ass.
Then everybody started to kick my ass. EPO came in, and guys were so much stronger, so much faster. I could win one-day races, but I wasn’t the greatest climber, and I had to withdraw in three of my first four attempts at the Tour; the other time, I finished 36th. I wanted to be great, so I faced the same decision every other cyclist in the last 15 years faced: you dope, or you get dropped. That was the choice. It’s like my former friend Levi Leipheimer put it: this sport breaks your heart, bit by bit.
Well, I don’t regret my decision the way those other guys did. I needed to be the best, and you couldn’t be the best and be clean in this sport. So I doped. And after I beat cancer I needed cycling more than ever, so I kept going. I doped better than anybody — I got better information, I got the best doctors, I pushed the envelope even though EPO killed a bunch of pro cyclists in the 1980s and 1990s. There was no other way. I built a machine to take on pro cycling, and I destroyed fields full of guys who were as dirty as I was. I don’t apologize for that.
I’m sorry I had to dope to be great, but this problem didn’t start with me, and didn’t end with me. So while I accept my lifetime ban, I call on the UCI and WADA and the USADA to agree to a one-time truth and reconciliation commission, to allow other riders to tell the truth without fear of repercussions. The sport created us; the sport needs to let us talk about it.
That being said, there are some things I’m sorry for. I’m sorry I ran Christophe Bassons, one of the sport’s truly noble men, out of the Tour in 1999 for daring to say that you couldn’t reach a top 10 at the Tour without doping. I’m sorry for attacking Frankie and Betsy Andreu for being in the hospital room with me in 1996 when I admitted to the doctors that I had used EPO, testosterone, growth hormone, cortisone and steroids. I’m sorry I sued our former soigneur, Emma O’Reilly, who wouldn’t back down from the truth. I’m sorry I called her a prostitute, and a drunk.
I’m sorry for attacking journalists like David Walsh and Paul Kimmage, who is still being sued by the UCI in what is as unconscionable a lawsuit as even I’ve ever seen. I’m sorry I told Christian Vande Velde to dope or get dropped from the team, and I’m sorry I allowed David Zabriskie to dope, because he got into cycling to escape his drug-addict father, the way I used it to pedal away from my absent father and my abusive stepfather and the emptiness of Plano, Texas. I’m sorry David broke down and cried the night he agreed to go against everything he believed in.
Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles on Monday. Morne de Klerk/Getty Images
I’m sorry for sending a text message to Levi Leipheimer’s wife Odessa after I found out he was testifying that said, “Run, don’t walk.” I’m sorry I threatened to blackmail Greg LeMond. I’m sorry for painting Floyd Landis as an unbalanced lunatic, and for telling Tyler Hamilton in an Aspen restaurant that I would make his life a living hell. I’m sorry that the International Cycling Union is so warped that its president, Pat McQuaid, called Landis and Hamilton “scumbags” on Monday. I’m sorry he was following my lead.
I’m sorry I lied so many times, and that I used cancer as a shield, and to make money. I’m sorry I said stuff like, “The people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics, the skeptics, I feel sorry for you. I’m sorry you can’t dream big and I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles.” I’m sorry I hurt so many people through litigation, by bullying, by using my money and my prominence in cycling and my political connections to destroy their careers.
I’m sorry for painting Floyd Landis as an unbalanced lunatic, and for telling Tyler Hamilton in an Aspen restaurant that I would make his life a living hell
But all of this was the cover-up, not the crime, and I felt like I needed to do it to protect myself, and to protect what I was trying to do. The rage and desire consumed me again. I’m not sorry about Livestrong, because even if it doesn’t fund cancer research it provides hope, because I provide hope. Some people might say it diverts money away from the science of curing cancer, but I’m not sorry that those yellow bracelets became totems to a lot of people.
It’s like a guy named Michael Farber wrote in Sports Illustrated: he had been diagnosed with cancer, and while he was waiting in an oncologist’s office another guy took the bracelet off his wrist and handed it to him, and said, “Here.” And it gave that man hope, and hope matters. He’s in remission.
I’ll never apologize for giving people hope.
And this is going to cost me millions, personally, but the rest of my life is about one thing now; about continuing as a symbol of hope for people with cancer. That’s why I’m coming clean today, to protect that.
Because goddamnit, yeah, I doped. But I suffered on that bike, did anything I could on that bike, emptied myself on that bike. I pumped my veins full of whatever it took to win, no matter what it did to me, no matter what it cost. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound like anything else to you?
Cycling was a lot like cancer to me. I faced overwhelming odds, and I beat them the only way I could. So I hope there’s a way for people to still look at me and feel their hearts lift a little, feel lightened, feel like anything is possible. After everything, that’s still important. After everything, that’s what I have left.

13 comments:

Light the Way said...

"My father once told me, nothing a man says BEFORE the word 'BUT' truly counts."
--- George R.R. Martin

Armstrong is only "admitting" he lied because he can no longer "deny" it with a straight face. He seeks to spread the blame as much as possible, and paint a picture that suggests EVERY Tour competitor that qualified to compete got there by doping...suggesting by default that EVERY Tour De France finisher also doped.
(A feeble attempt to prevent anyone ELSE who had competed with him from being awarded the Tour titles he was stripped of, in his stead??)

Even while "apologizing" he seeks to minimize his guilt with excuses and to play on the public's sympathy.
I do not feel bad for him...
He's only sorry he was caught.

Tania Cadogan said...

off topic


EL CAJON, Calif. – Eight months after the beating death of an Iraqi-American woman that drew international attention because it appeared to be a hate crime, the woman's husband has been arrested on suspicion of her murder.

Police in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon announced the arrest Friday of Kassim Alhimidi, 48, and described the killing as an act of domestic violence.

The March killing of 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi made waves around the world after the couple's 17-year-old daughter told reporters that she found a note by her mother's bludgeoned body that read: "Go back to your country, you terrorist."

But the case took a wholly different direction on Thursday when Alhimidi was taken into custody after being called into the police station, said El Cajon Police Chief Jim Redman, who declined to comment on the evidence or elaborate on a possible motive but said there were no other suspects.

"Criminal investigations build, evidence builds, and you reach a point where you have enough evidence to move forward, and that's what happened in this case," he said.

Alhimidi went to Iraq for about two weeks to bury his wife and returned voluntarily, Redman said. Police did not try to prevent him from leaving the country because he was not a suspect at the time.

At the burial in Najaf, relatives wept uncontrollably. Alhimidi and the 17-year-old daughter, Fatima, fainted as the body was lowered into the grave.

Kassim Alhimidi was publicly silent for six days after the body was found, while his children spoke often with reporters. In his first public remarks — made at a news conference at the family's mosque in Lakeside — he demanded to know what motivated the killer.

"The main question we would like to ask is what are you getting out of this and why did you do it?" Alhimidi said in Arabic as his 15-year-old son translated.

Charges against Alhimidi were expected to be filed Tuesday, said Tanya Sierra, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County district attorney's office. She didn't know if Alhimidi had an attorney.

The killing shocked residents of El Cajon, an east San Diego suburb and home to one of the largest enclaves of Iraqi immigrants in the United States.

Police initially said the threatening note meant they had to consider the killing a possible hate crime but stressed that was only one theory. They said there was other evidence and that the slaying was an isolated case, easing concerns that other immigrants could be targets.

Tania Cadogan said...

Alawadi, a mother of five, left Iraq in the early 1990s after a failed Shiite uprising. She lived in Saudi Arabian refugee camps before coming to the U.S., according to Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, Mich. Saddam's troops hanged Alawadi's uncle.

The family arrived in the Detroit area in 1993 and later moved to San Diego. Shaima Alawadi was a religious Shiite Muslim who wore a hijab.

Alawadi's father, Sayed Nabeel Alawadi, is a cleric in Iraq, Al-Husainy, a close family friend, said shortly after the killing.

The investigation appeared to hit a snag when a court employee inadvertently gave a U-T San Diego reporter a search warrant affidavit that a judge had ordered sealed. The document said detectives found a text message sent from the 17-year-old daughter's cellphone that read, "The detective will find out tell them cnt talk."

The affidavit, which was released to the newspaper while the family was in Iraq for the burial, showed Fatima Alawadi was upset about a pending arranged marriage to a cousin. She told police that she was in her bedroom when she heard her mother squeal and glass break.

The affidavit also said Alawadi wanted to get a divorce and move to Texas.

Redman said detectives were in contact with Kassim Alhimidi during the investigation. The police chief declined to say what authorities told him when they asked him to come to the police station Thursday.

Redman said he never doubted that Alhimidi would return from Iraq after burying his wife.

"We believe he came back because he lives here," he said.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/10/husband-arrested-in-calif-killing-iraqi-woman-that-made-waves-as-possible-hate/#ixzz2BrvkYfzM

John Mc Gowan said...

OT..

Jimmy Savile Inquiry Police Arrest Man.

olice investigating sexual abuse claims surrounding Jimmy Savile have arrested a man in his 70s.

The suspect is being held as part of Operation Yewtree - an inquiry into alleged child sexual exploitation by Savile and others.

Police said the man was detained at 7.15am at an address in Cambridge on suspicion of sexual offences, and has been taken into custody locally.

Among those previously questioned by Operation Yewtree detectives have been comedian Freddie Starr and singer Gary Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd.

Scotland Yard is leading a national investigation into former TV and radio presenter Savile, who died last year at the age of 84.

He is now believed to have been one of the UK's most prolific abusers, with about 300 possible victims.

http://news.sky.com/story/1009911/jimmy-savile-inquiry-police-arrest-man

Anonymous said...

Light The Way, I do not understand your post, or the point.

The article was not taken from any statements made by Lance. It is a fake apology made by someone in Lance's "behalf" who was attempting to be sarcastic, cute, wordy, thinks they are a writer, has a lot of time to waste, whatever. Just a play on words.

IMO, there is nothing to analyize.

Tania Cadogan said...

I wonder, if pressed will we hear armstrong blame the cancer in his brain for causing his lapse of judgement? it wasn't me it was the tumor that made me dope blah blah blah

nymima said...

Still not accepting responsibility for his choice to dope. Trying to justify his bad choices and blaming all the others who doped before him, with him and after him. A true narcissist. Blame every one and every thing else - but don't put the blame on me......blah, blah, blah.

Anonymous said...

Lance's attempt at an apology is very child like. When a child gets caught doing something they shouldn't be doing or have done, they will accept SOME of the responsibility; but they aren't going down alone, others will be involved (real or not) & excuses to follow.
-
Example:
A child ask mom for a cookie & is told no. Mom turns her back, child helps self to cookies. Mom turns around, sees cookie crumbs all over childs face & asks, "Did you eat some cookies"?
Child responds, " John's mom lets him eat cookies whenever he wants to & its the cookies fault for tasting so darn good, besides it gives me energy.
-
Thats how Lance's so called "Apology" sounds to me, there isn't one. jmo

Anonymous said...

The comments reflect a lack of clear understanding. This is not written by Lance Armstrong--he has not admitted anything or said anything.

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 11:49 a.m.; Anon @ 12:59 p.m. yesterday is correct. Did you actually read the article? Reread the beginning of the article. It is clear that it was written by someone who was 'pretending' to make all these apologies FOR Lance as if he were making them.

His apologies were "child like"? He never made a single one of these comments. Not meaning to ridicule you, but I thought that was made clear in my post at 5:40 a.m. yesterday.

Anonymous said...

Having said that; I think Hobnob is probably correct in that Lance will likely attempt to blame his doping on his cancer if he ever gets around to admitting it at all. People like him always blame their actions on some 'thing' or someone else. Like saying 'the devil made me do it'. They never take the blame for themselves, no matter how many lives they destroy in the process.

He is very cold and calculating, ruthless, even sinister. I don't believe he will ever accept any responsibility for his actions, and if he does it will only be in such a manner as to further his own cause to benefit himself and no one else.

Anonymous said...

I think some of these readers here need to brush up on their basic reading comprehension.
John, Hobnob what is the deal with the "off topic" comments on this post? I fail to see how your posts are relevant comments to a fiction apology written from Lance Armstrong's perception. Maybe you both should start your own blog. You both realize you can create your very own blog page for free, right?

Tania Cadogan said...

Anon, My comment was not off topic, even though it is clear the 'apology' is not one we will ever see from armstrong hence the topic title, my post is still relevant to the topic of armstrong in general.

It may well be that at some point in the future, to bring the charade to a close so that he can move on and start over with trying to make some kind of living since by the times he has paid all his bills, his lawsuits and refunded monies earned fraudulently leaving him pretty much skint, he may have to admit he lied.
The longer he makes denials despite all the evidence to the contrary, the more ridiculous he will look, the more unemployable he will be. His wife may divorce him to get at least something out of the marriage before he has nothing left.
His only logical option left to explain his deception, his behavior is medical.
The drugs may have caused his cancers,they may also have excerbated any cancers he already had especially in the brain.
The tumor in my brain affected my behavior, my judgement.
He won't be the first criminal to blame a tumor or a medication for their behavior nor the last especially if serious jail time or heavy fines are in the air.
Any excuse will be seen as a liferaft in a stormy sea of criminal charges and lawsuits.

PS regarding off topics.
Since only Peter and Heather and family can start new topics on this blog, when new information on a case catches our eye or a new case breaks, we post as an off topic and it is then up to the admin of the blog if they want to start a new topic or not.
This is why we put off topic so they can see straight away whether it is worth a new topic or if it can stay where it is. If they start a new topic then we post our comments in the new post.

have a nice day