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Comment by codeulike | Hacker News Reader

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As Lance Armstrong heads for a record seventh win in the Tour de France, Denis Campbell analyses the physical and emotional strengths that make him great

hmmmm

'Genetically Lance is a freak,' says his friend Tony Doyle, the British former pursuit cycling world champion. 'His heart and lungs are bigger than most people's, and most other elite cyclists', so they make him more efficient as an athlete. He also generates far less lactic acid than the others, and he recovers quicker - vital in a race where you push yourself to the limit day after day after day.'

hmmmm

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Pretty sure that's 100% accurate, what's with 'hmmm'? Or perhaps you think he used more drugs than others?

He always claimed - always - that he never used performance enhancing drugs or blood processes (doping). Which of course he did.

Do you think the other cyclists are not?

If you have a sport where the honest cannot compete it's no surprise to discover it's full of cheaters.

Exactly - you’re compelled to cheat and have to find out how to get away with it since you _know_ others are doing it.

It’s a huge issue. Very interesting psychology. Joe Rogan has a few episodes on it but I can’t remember who he interviewed. I think there’s a documentary related to this, perhaps Icarus if I recall correctly.

If everyone is cheating and everyone knows it and no-one says anything then the whole thing stinks, and I don't want to read fawning articles telling me what amazing physical and emotional strengths all the competitors have. Conspiratorial cheating is not an emotional strength.

Lance Armstrong was a great athlete, period. It's unfortunate he had to use drugs but he had no choice. It was a price to pay to compete at the highest level.

he had no choice. It was a price to pay to compete at the highest level.

He would have been a much much better athlete if he took no drugs and finished 20th

When you work as hard as he did you don’t want to finish 20th.

Well thats not a very sporting attitude

“Winning isn’t everything it’s the only thing, whoever said winning isn’t everything never won anything.” etc

It might be cultural, but that attitude strikes me as the very heart of sport in all honesty.

You need to define 'Sport' and also 'cheating'. You have a definition for the former but apparently not for the latter.

e.g. if one of Lance's competitors on the Tour had (lets imagine) added some magically small but powerful electric motor to his bike and used that to win, would that be fair game?

I’m poking at the idea of sportsmanship being as relevant as you’re making it seem to sport—especially at the top—not the concept of cheating or fair play.

But to answer your question, if the sport has a profusely well documented history of electric motor usage that’s over a century long [0], with a huge proportion of its winners using them, then arguably “yes”. For all intents and purposes it’s now part of it! Assuming you’re trying to win, at least.

And in the same way, getting caught is totally fair too. It’s just losing by another name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France

Hmm, ok. So maybe we should rename the sport from

Cycling

Cycling While Pretending Not To Be On Drugs

Everyone would know where they stood then.

It’s a bit on the nose, wordy, and already implied but I’m not totally against it ;)

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