I mean modern cyclists are on just as much shit as Lance Armstrong was, maybe even more with modern drugs. It was especially obvious just after COVID, when they started smashing a bunch of records.
This is just Lance Armstrong being a hyper competitive arsehole. There are many such cases of him saying and doing similar things
i looked up his age (52) because he looks rough in that photo. and his wikipedia photo popped up and is too funny to not share
even reading the full interview where he admits it's "cool" that competitors are friendlier, he comes across as emotionally dysregulated and unable to emotionally connect with guys who aren't fueled by toxic competition. which, i mean, steroids lmao. way to play to type, i guess.
it reminds me of how John McEnroe was controversial on the very polite tennis court for being verbally abusive and whatnot towards umpires and ultimately used that notoriety to become a sport commentator, write some books, and have many appearances in media poking fun at himself. but i think that's the difference between some guy who gets heated + talks shit during high pressure/elite play vs a guy who jacks himself up on roids.
Any time I think about Lance Armstrong, I think about all the fuckin articles written about him jerking him off for his GROUNDBREAKING training program and GENETIC FREAK SUPERLEGS, and him entertaining these journalists telling them about his amazing routine etc. Meanwhile he's just injecting steroids and pretending to be superman.
he definitely looks like a 52 year old that has health problems, like a lifetime of a poverty diet, smoking tobacco, and generally overworked without routine doctor visits. he doesn't look like a literal multimillionaire former elite endurance athlete, with a personal chef and lots of time for cardio and recovery... unless he had some cosmetic work done to his face that is giving me mickey rourke vibes. he looks 62 to me.
Lol, wild. I've been getting into pro strongman lately (the Arnold US and UK both happened in the last two weeks) where it's an often undiscussed thing that they all, men and women, take PEDs. Via their social media, there is nothing but support of the competitors from the competitors and audience. I've read that this is common in amateur strongman and strongwoman too.
So I don't think it's a roid thing. It just seems like a Lance Armstrong is a jerk thing.
Considering that the US made a big stink about steroids because the soviets figured out how to use them for their athletes I'm sure that they also pushed a 'If you take the commie drug you'll turn into a lowly aggressive beast' during the cold war.
TIL, I figured it was something of a legal gray area. Funnily enough, World's Strongest Man tests for party drugs but not PEDs, as can be seen when Mariusz Pudzianowski popped for something (either cocaine or cannabis) back in 2004. I think it'd be interesting to see how things would shake out if WSM or strongman in general did start testing for PEDs. It'd have to be a new class like how powerlifting does it though to keep the records straight.
Competitive environments can produce incredibly different behaviours in competitors. It's entirely social.
When it's accepted that asshole behaviour is the behaviour of the community then that becomes dominant. When it's not accepted and instead ostracised or affects their ability to compete then being nicey nicey becomes dominant.
I've seen complete and total assholes conform to becoming nicey nicey on account of a push by leadership (tournament operators mainly) to make environments nicer in order to drive up participation and increase attendee retention. Those very assholes complained about it in much the same way Armstrong is here before they ultimately conformed to it and now prefer it themselves.
I remember looking really hard for the clip but not being able to find it, but in Mr Olympia, Chris Bumstead, the classic men's physique division champion from 2019-2023, was decidedly not an asshole. He was all "people get mad at me because I do what I have to do and don't make it into a whole philosophy."
UFC's top athletes come in a rainbow of attitudes from successwinners to "look at me now" to "I'm a criminal" to "I did it for my country" to "I'm here to entertain."
I don't know if it counts, but speedrunners celebrate each other because it's a community effort to discover new glitches and push the game to its limits. It takes more than just the WR holder to get the time the WR achieves. It might be a lack of prestige because nobody outside the community will let you finish the sentence that you're the best Majora's Mask any% speedrunner before their eyes glaze over. You have to really like the game.
BJJ's Gordon Ryan, accomplished no gi grappler, is kind of an asshole and likes to shitpost and troll. I haven't seen much of him, but I don't see a lot of E.S Posthumus - Arise videos compiling him and his monologues.
Maybe it's when you command millions of dollars (NBA and NFL) or when you're part of the Olympics (cycling and boxing) that you start to sniff your own farts.
Michael Jordan, despite being possibly the greatest athlete of all time, is an absolutely miserable person. He spent his HOF trashing the people who thought he wouldn’t make it. He is competitive to the degree that it ruins his life. But also probably made him great.
In one of the Steve Prefontaine movies, they show a scene where a girl he likes brings a bunch of little kids to the track (I think she’s a teacher). He starts playfully running with them. As they get towards the finish line, one little kid darts ahead of him. He immediately starts sprinting to make sure he crosses the finish line first. Teacher asks him why he did that and he said he cannot let anyone - even a small child - cross the line before him.
Have to say they should've left the g at the end for the tweet because you can just insert another f word in there that fits but holds a very different implication.
I don't really care about steroid use in sports. It's just not fair that certain people get genetic advantages, so if you want to make up for not being tall or having a certain body build, go for it. We allow it in other areas of life, so why not in sports. The whole "it's unfair whaaaa" thing sounds like some moralistic capitalist bullshit anyways. They always use their advantages, but lecture the rest of us to "play fair"
I'm begging you to spend a single extra minute thinking about this.
It's just not fair that certain people get genetic advantages, so if you want to make up for not being tall or having a certain body build, go for it.
If doping is allowed, then it's not a plucky little guy compensating for genetic disadvantages against people with optimal builds who are clean, it's the little guy now needing to compete with guys who both have good builds and are also doping, because doping would effectively become mandatory to be competitive. The upstart doesn't get any leveling tool, just another thing he needs to do, this one at the expense of his long term health.
capitalist bullshit
If anything is capitalist bullshit, it would be needing to, on top of everything else, constantly dope to the limit of your health and have a fucking medical team monitor you to optimize your intake and counterbalance complications as they arise.
No investigation no right to speak you are just going off of vibes here.
If doping is allowed, then it's not a plucky little guy compensating for genetic disadvantages against people with optimal builds who are clean, it's the little guy now needing to compete with guys who both have good builds and are also doping, because doping would effectively become mandatory to be competitive. The upstart doesn't get any leveling tool, just another thing he needs to do, this one at the expense of his long term health.
Newsflash the plucky little guy cannot compete in most sports there's a reason why certain nations are able to dominate certain sports and that's because their countries are able to maintain coaches and training programs to be able to get the most out of a person or do you think that for example slavs are only able to produce for example weightlifters but no swimmers? No it's because during the cold war the soviet union and other countries in its sphere had the most sophisticated coaches and training programs. And here's another we can nowadays make a pretty well educated guess that PEDs make up for around 10% higher performance, again this is in strength sports so oly weightlifting, shot put etc., and when we have to hear some american weightlifter complain about doping when they could not even compare to the chinese or russian, iranian etc. weightlifters if we lower their numbers.
Which brings me to the history of doping because guess what during the cold war the USA and the USSR also had a little thing about competing in medals, both nations were doping but it only became a problem when the soviets just absolutely dumpstered the USA which then promptly went 'IOC waaah the soviets are very mean they are doing the unfair'. It's why there's even to this day a ton of just shitty information out there.
Steroids don't make up for anything, almost all pro athletes use performance enhancing drugs(PEDs) and evade current testing protocols. The testing just prevents athletes from going crazy and taking a ton of drugs. This is very important for the long term health of athletes, going completely open on a drug policy would be disastrous, right now it's basically an arms race between WADA and the athletes. The athletes that are the best currently, are the best because of genetic advantages+taking PEDS. PEDs do not equalise the field when almost all athletes are on them. It's not a moralistic argument, it's just how it is. Genetics will always play a massive role in top level sports. There is no way around that. If everyone is doping and evading drug tests, the genetic component becomes the main differential. For instance, all of Usain Bolt's competition has failed drug tests. Bolt still won most races, and I don't think he was completely clean either.
And that's not even getting into athletes genetic response to PEDs. Some people are hyper responders to certain drugs and steroids just because of their genetics, while others barely respond. Bodybuilding is a sport where you see this a ton. Some people just blow up after taking certain substances. Again, all because of genetics. Sports competivenes is always going to be highly dependent on genetics, even if we allow athletes to use whatever drugs they want. Then the genetic response to PEDs just becomes a bigger factor than it was before. Those that can genetically handle being juiced to the gills without dying will just win everything.
there's so much to unpack here. the whole "just allow everything" is, with respect, incredibly dangerous and unfair.
it's dangerous because of how fucking dangerous these drugs are. case after case of athletes dying in their sleep, cancer, overdosing, roid raging, tainted blood doping, etc.
it's unfair because drug use doesn't affect us all equally. for example, if my natural hematocrit is 35 and yours is 45, EPO or other blood doping will give me a HUGE advantage over you. there's no way you'll be able to compete with me. i've got tons of extra room to juice my veins with red blood that you don't. the same for insulin, cortico, HGH, etc.
The whole "it's unfair whaaaa" thing sounds like some moralistic capitalist bullshit anyways.
counterpoint: the "just allow it" sounds like rightwing libertarian nonsense. we have rules and regulations for very, very good reasons.
Which is it? Are you lonely, alienated, and hyper-competitive or are you glad that people bond over their common pursuit of athletics? It's cycling: you dress up in your colorful spandex and ride your little machines over beautiful landscapes. It's a silly little sport. We're all doing silly little sports. It's fun