What to do with a Lance Armstrong photo?
My moral dilemma of the afternoon is a prized photo that has followed me around for a number of years, shot by my AJC colleague Brant Sanderlin.
In the picture, a desperate 11-year-old boy named Samuel Douglas, wrapped in an American flag, urges on his hero Lance Armstrong during an uphill pull during a Rome time trial, part of the 2004 Tour de Georgia.
The photo sits in the office, next to a Sarah Palin movie bill. The question is, what to do with it? The young man and his passion were real. It is the cyclist who turned out to be fake.
On an opposite wall hangs an autographed photo of Levi Leipheimer, another cyclist, who has also confessed to engaging in doping as one of Armstrong’s wheelmen. The Los Angeles Times says Leipheimer, 38, has been suspended by his current team.
A bad day for people with heroes.
- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
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124 comments Add your comment
NullOp
October 11th, 2012
6:00 pm
Oh, just so you’ll know. Pro cycling is not full of saints that just happen to ride bikes. More often than not cycling is the only things these guys have and in the world of competitive sports, sports entertainment, no publicity is bad publicity. Also, it would be a good way to “pay back” some perceived wrong doing in the peloton.
David
October 11th, 2012
6:05 pm
Lance Armstrong is still a great biker. I don’t believe him to be guilt, just tired of fighting the lynch mob that was after him from the beginning of the investigation. Don’t forget he passed every drug test, yet the lynchmen still went after him.
26 people testified...
October 11th, 2012
6:27 pm
and many of them were among his best and closest friends on the planet. i read some of the the report, and it’s over 200 pages of circumstantial evidence and first hand testimony. I now think he’s guilty. put the photo in a box and remind yourself to be true to the fight
Richard
October 11th, 2012
6:28 pm
Even without performance enhancing drugs he could still kick most people’s ass on a bicycle.
Lance: My Hero
October 11th, 2012
6:28 pm
All these naysayers could be juiced with all the EPO in China and they still couldn’t beat the slowest rider on the TdF. Shut up and ride.
David Ingram
October 11th, 2012
7:00 pm
There are some crazy political and religious comments in these responses! This is Greek tragedy stuff. Remember King David and Bathsheba, President Kennedy, President Nixon, President Clinton and others who achieved greatness and fell from grace. Other sports figures (Barry Bonds and others) have followed suit. Lance has done much good in supporting cancer research, but all the evidence points to him being a fraud and cheat when it comes to pro cycling. He did in fact test positive once, something everyone has ignored, in the 90s, so with all the testimony and evidence I am convinced he doped and is a human with faults. He’ll face the consequences. Get over it! And save the photo, Jim.
Lynne
October 11th, 2012
7:16 pm
Samuel Douglas…..Please keep on going with the same passion you expressed in the picture….with your own goals! The young Mr. Samuel Douglas will do us proud!
Mr Bill
October 11th, 2012
7:21 pm
Mail it to Wacko Palin.
Skeezix
October 11th, 2012
7:27 pm
I’m with Lance. This has been a witch hunt. Lynch mob mentality at work here. The USADA “evidence” would not pass muster in a court of law. It is mostly hearsay and some it of is from already discredited liars. Lance, despite being tested hundreds of times, never had a positive result. That is the hard evidence USADA chooses to ignore. The Federal investigation was dropped because they couldn’t find any hard evidence. Why does USADA think they have jurisdiction over a sporting event in Europe? The Euros haven’t revoked his 7 tour wins.
Dawgaholic
October 11th, 2012
8:33 pm
Jim Galloway, mail it to me, I would love to hangit on my wall, Lance was the best and so is the flag, I will send you my mailing address and even pay the shipping,u
GG
October 11th, 2012
8:37 pm
I love the witch hunt comments. Who cares how long it took. How long did he take to incriminate Sandusky? He must be innocent too. Personally i don’t have a problem with drugs in sport. I played competitive sports all my life and I know drugs are always going to be in it. Every time you decide to dope though there is always a chance you will get caught. It might not happen right away but eventually it might. If it happens take it like a man and move on. Like I said….Armstrong should have never turned his shoulder on the disgraced that helped him. Cardinal rule number one. Always take care of your minions and they will take care of you.
Dawgaholic
October 11th, 2012
8:43 pm
Billy Bobjacket is a jackass or either a donkey , how do I know? You don’t swap kicks with either
Vashek
October 11th, 2012
8:55 pm
That boy runs after towards/after Armstrong, not the other way around. The question is what happened that at one time you considered Armstrong “a hero” and now “the cyclist who turned out to be fake”. What changed is your thinking. But there’s nothing fake about Armstrong, because he is still the same person, you changed. Bigger question is, can you accept that even heroes fall? Or, who will be your next fallen hero? We all are imperfect, aren’t we? Either doping or not Lance Armstrong still won TdF seven times, no matter if USADA takes those titles or not.
DawgNole
October 11th, 2012
9:17 pm
bubs
October 11th, 2012
4:34 pm
Lance is a disgrace to America….the epitome of a cheating loser.
___________________
Actually, he’s the epitome of a cheating winner.
Observer
October 11th, 2012
9:20 pm
Jim, keep the photo. The innocence of the young man cheering on Armstrong speaks volumes.
DawgNole
October 11th, 2012
9:27 pm
Fred
October 11th, 2012
5:12 pm
@billyBobjacket – Your arguments might have more credence if you had bothered to do any research on the first one. As it is, your lack of easily verified theories don’t hold much water.
___________________
His handle has “billybob” in it. And you expect him to conduct research?
My life is party
October 11th, 2012
9:40 pm
It is obvious that the Armstrong apologists don’t have much of a clue about drug testing. So let’s give a little insight. When you are tested for anabolic steroids, for example, they measure your ratio of free testosterone to epitestosterone. In normal human being that ratio is 1:1 or close to it. UCI regulations will allow you to pass the test as long as you test with a ratio of 4:1 or below. In other words the message is: We know you are going to take something, but as long as you don’t make it painfully obvious, we are going to shut an eye.
Armstrong’s tests were never clean. As a matter of fact they were always on the edge of failing. To the point that the UCI got so pi$$ed off that they couldn’t figure out how a guy could be so consistently on the edge of failing, without actually failing a test; that 2001, after the usual tests came back on the cusp, they forced him to retire, striking a deal with him not to pursue further analysis (that is something that the USADA did actually now and they have proof that he doped).
Now we know what everybody (UCI and USADA) always suspected. Armstrong was the best. At doping that is. If you read the entire PDF released by the USADA, you will realize that his doping program was so elaborate and so cutting edge that it allowed Armstrong to dope far longer than any of his competitor ever could (sometime even during a race) Armstrong was practicing blood doping techniques that no one else even knew how to use at the time. Landis tried to use the same drug protocols when he tried his impossible come back in the 2002 tour, but unfortunately he didn’t have the doctors at his disposal he had while he worked with Armstrong to help him mask the samples before they were tested and he got caught. As a matter of fact his samples were so faulty that it was almost laughable that he even tried to deny he doped.
Keeping it real
October 11th, 2012
9:41 pm
THE TESTS MEAN NOTHING. MARION JONES never tested positive and then in 2007 admitted you took enhancing drugs. I need no more truth. 11 teammates and Marion never testing positive. Lance is guilty as hell and that is why he gave up.
Yeah, right, I believe your reason for giving up. You never gave before.
Wiki Marion Jones.
Keeping it real
October 11th, 2012
9:50 pm
Vashek, no he didn’t win. When you sign the prerace papers, I just bet there is a little caveat somewhere that says that the organization has a right to strip you of the race results if you found to be chearting or blah, blah.
Paterno, same thing. He does not have 409 victories. He has 298. He too knew the rules going in and that his wins could be vacated. Ha. I said at the time that the NCAA would vacate at least 2 victories to give Eddie the record. Wow 111. from 1 to number 12. I just love it.
Captain Obvious
October 11th, 2012
10:05 pm
Of course Mormons don’t cheat! anyone with 5 wives doesn’t have time to cheat.
Samuel Douglas
October 11th, 2012
10:38 pm
Hey that is me on the left! Keep the picture. It can symbolize the next generation of cycling that it held to a higher ethics and does not dope. Email me and next time I am in Atlanta I will be glad to sign it for you.
Vashek
October 11th, 2012
11:49 pm
@Keeping it real; what is real is that those titles only matter for some history keepers, books; for Armstrong those things don’t matter, it matters to you ’cause you want to see him humiliated, beaten, debased; he’ll never be that; he won on the road, day after day, all those cyclists that testified against him know that. That’s all it is to it. That will not change.
Aunt Debra
October 12th, 2012
7:17 am
If you’re not going to keep it, send it to me! I’m Samuel’s aunt and I’d love to have it!
Lula lee
October 12th, 2012
10:52 am
Didn’t photo win a 2nd place award for your photographer? Keep it….that kid has already done a huge amount to introduce kids to cycling: he has had an article published in a middle school reader on cycling that is targeted for reluctant readers, he has made sure that a community of foster kids have bikes so they can participate in the sport, he is currently cycling on a college club team, and he has made friends all over Georgia through the community of cyclists…..he is passionate about the sport. I think you have a new hero in the photo!