Lance Armstrong has reacted to the recent ‘scandal’ that has involved the four-time Tour de France winner, Chris Froome saying that no matter the final result of this case, Chris Froome’s reputation is tarnished forever and cycling’s structure has become weaker than ever…
Armstrong went through a similar case in his long career ending up with all of his seven Tour de France titles being scratched from his palmares soon after he was found to had violated the anti-doping rules.
Currently speaking, Froome continues to be under investigation by the UCI after his tested urine sample indicated twice the allowed amount of the forbidden asthma drug called salbutamol while participating at Vuelta a Espana on September, earlier this year.
Even though Froome is trying to be as cooperative as he can with the UCI during the investigation process, he has admitted that he did not exceed the allowed dosage of his asthma medication which was recommended by his Team Sly’s doctor.
“He could be completely exonerated and he is tarnished forever. Damage is done,” Armstrong declared in his Stages podcast. “You might think I am talking about him caring about whether they write negative articles about him . He may or may not. I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter. But, come next July, when this all gets cleaned up, it is already unpleasant for him. This is going to be complete mayhem and I know exactly what that fucking feels like. And it ain’t any fun.”
Since the Chris Froome news broke, I have heard from numerous media outlets requesting a comment. @wedusport CEO @dylancasey and I sat down to give our thoughts on a special episode of #STAGES podcast. You can watch the full episode here: https://t.co/gxcIUBIxev
— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) December 20, 2017
‘Too harsh on our sport’s history’
Armstrong also focused on criticizing the response some media outlets have given to this case. He admitted that cycling was given a delicate, raw deal when it came to reporting these type of issues. However, he opened up and admitted that he has most of the responsibility for everything that happened to him.
“Cycling is the sporting world’s doormat. I have to say that I take a lot of blame for that,” Armstrong said. “The article the day after in the New York Times was the biggest bunch of bullshit that I have ever read. If you are a fan of Baseball who gets the New York Times every day and you read that story, and it is just so harsh on Chris Froome, and our sport, and our sport’s history.
“I am sure we deserve a lot of that and I am trying to accept some responsibility here because I have sort of you know tainted the entire equation obviously. But you don’t get an accurate depiction of this situation by reading that article. I read that and I was like, ‘you have got to be kidding’. You had read that article and thought Chris Froome had a gallon of EPO for breakfast. And that is not accurate and fair to him.”
“It just hangs over and the structure of the sport is so fundamentally weak because you have this structure which was built one hundred years ago. And really not much has changed since, if anything, you might even argue it has gotten worse. All the while you see the global impressions, you see the impact the sport has in the world psyche. And it doesn’t match up…,” he added.
