

Lance Armstrong stripped of all 7 titles, banned for life.  - philco
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/lance-armstrong-stripped-tour-de-france-titles-lifetime-ban-olympic-sports-drops-doping-appeal-article-1.1143295

======
sown
It's an old cycling joke.

    
    
        How do you know if someone in Tour De France isn't doping?
        They come in last.
    

[http://www.theonion.com/articles/nondoping-cyclists-
finish-t...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/nondoping-cyclists-finish-tour-
de-france,2268/)

------
erickhill
Not sure why this is on hacker news, other than the fact that an epic athlete
will be stripped of his honor and have an asterisk next to his name. In the
footnotes it will say, "See Barry Bonds"

But his excellence and story is what we all pay to see. We don't really want
to know. And who's to say those that receive Armstrong's awards weren't
doping, too? Not trying to dismiss the situation, but PEDs are absolutely
saturating ALL of sports today, no exceptions.

EDIT: Armstrong's response [http://lancearmstrong.com/news-events/lance-
armstongs-statem...](http://lancearmstrong.com/news-events/lance-armstongs-
statement-of-august-23-2012)

~~~
ojiikun
We spend our lives devising novel, elegant optimizations to complex systems
and we call this hacking. Most people partake in novel, powerful biological
augmentation and we call this medicine. Interestingly, in the realm of
competitive, physical human achievement we call it cheating.

Consider that as computing becomes more ubiquitous and personal, as technology
merges with medicine, as we move past augmented reality and pacemakers into
the cybernetic age of the next 50 years, this is very much the future of
hacking.

From the opposite side, consider how storage could soon be DNA, computation
could soon be artificial neurons, and how computer vision could be lab-grown
retinas. Still not seeing the convergence?

By the end of our lifetimes, the business of bio-ethics and optimization will
become very, very relevant.

------
ojiikun
No matter what the truth, I can sure as hell imagine anyone would get sick of
literally being bled dry by bureaucrats and the media for well over a decade
(not to mention, after losing a ball).

At the end of it all, at least we got what was possibly the best sentiment
from a sports advert ever:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxnqHvEbGnc>

"What am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass 6 hours a day. What are _you_
on?"

His own thoughts on the matter:

[http://lancearmstrong.com/news-events/lance-armstongs-
statem...](http://lancearmstrong.com/news-events/lance-armstongs-statement-of-
august-23-2012)

"Today I turn the page. I will no longer address this issue, regardless of the
circumstances. I will commit myself to the work I began before ever winning a
single Tour de France title: serving people and families affected by cancer,
especially those in underserved communities. [...] We have a lot of work to do
and I'm looking forward to an end to this pointless distraction. I have a
responsibility to all those who have stepped forward to devote their time and
energy to the cancer cause. I will not stop fighting for that mission. Going
forward, I am going to devote myself to raising my five beautiful (and
energetic) kids, fighting cancer, and attempting to be the fittest 40-year old
on the planet."

Sounds like a damn better use of time than defending yourself against fiasco
to me.

