{"id":42920,"date":"2021-03-09T22:04:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T23:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=42920"},"modified":"2021-03-09T23:56:40","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T23:56:40","slug":"cyclings-shame-after-lances-tour-confession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=42920","title":{"rendered":"Cycling's shame after Lance's Tour confession"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tour de France organisers made a mistake in not declaring a winner of the event for the seven years where Lance Armstrong<\/a> was stripped of his title, according to legendary commentator Phil Liggett.<\/a><\/p>\n

Armstrong came back from cancer to take the Tour de France on a record seven consecutive occasions from 1999-2005. In 2013, after years of public denials, Armstrong confessed to doping<\/a>, and his name was wiped from the record books.<\/p>\n

However, instead of promoting the second placed finisher, as would happen at the Olympics, no winner was ever declared for the years when Armstrong was disqualified.<\/p>\n

"I don't believe they should have just put an 'X' in the record books for the seven years of Lance Armstrong," Liggett told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

\"Lance<\/p>\n

"At the end of the day, they should have promoted the second-placed rider into the top spot.<\/p>\n

"The fact they didn't was a clear indication to me that the organisers suspected the riders in second spot were probably taking drugs as well, although they weren't caught.<\/p>\n

"There's a long list of 'X' in the winner's list, and I don't think that's the way to go."<\/p>\n

Liggett, who spoke to Wide World of Sports to promote the recently released film Phil Liggett: The Voice of Cycling<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> acknowledged the years of suspicion that surrounded Armstrong, despite the fact he never tested positive.<\/p>\n

But the iconic commentator continually came to Armstrong's defence during his career, something Liggett doesn't shy away from.<\/p>\n

\"Phil<\/p>\n

"I wasn't necessarily defending him, but I'm a Brit and we're still innocent until proved guilty," he explained.<\/p>\n

"There was a lot of people out to nail Lance, because he'd nailed them, he'd sued them.<\/p>\n

"They were out to get him, and I can't fault them for that.<\/p>\n

Phil Liggett: The Voice of Cycling<\/strong><\/em> is in 50 cinemas across Australia from March 8, as well as via<\/strong> Demand.film<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

"One or two individuals stuck to their guns, at great personal expense, but they finally got him in a corner where they wanted him, and he confessed on the Oprah show.<\/p>\n

"Thank goodness he did, because the sport is all the better for it."<\/p>\n

\"Legendary<\/p>\n

Liggett, who once hosted cancer fundraisers with Armstrong, says the pair haven't spoken socially in a decade.<\/p>\n

"Lance put cycling on the map, although I can't say I'm a fan of his anymore. It was both a high spot in my career, and a horrible low spot as well," he said.<\/p>\n

"People ask if I hate him, and the answer is no. I've seen him on the other side of the fence, helping cancer sufferers. I don't hate him. We never talked as friends when I was working with him, and we haven't spoken since 2011.<\/p>\n

"I've got no reason to speak to him. Life goes on."<\/p>\n

\"Lance<\/p>\n

It wasn't necessarily drugs that propelled Armstrong to those seven titles, according to Liggett.<\/p>\n

The American's ability to overcome adversity can never be underestimated.<\/p>\n

"Drugs or not, at the end of the day the big difference is the mental attitude to what you want to achieve," he explained.<\/p>\n

"Lance beat cancer purely on his mental attitude. I spoke to his surgeons, they told me they gave him zero per cent chance. And yet he comes back and wins seven Tours. Amazing."<\/p>\n

While the stain of drug-taking can never be totally eliminated, Liggett believes the sport is now in a much better state than it was two decades ago.<\/p>\n

\"Phil<\/p>\n

"It's a lot cleaner than many other sports, I'm pretty sure of that," he said.<\/p>\n

"We're outside the top-10 in terms of positive tests, despite being one of the most tested sports in the world.<\/p>\n

"You can tell by the way they're riding now. Our three Grand Tours, France, Italy and Spain, were all won by margins inside one minute last year, which is a good sign there's a levelling of the field. There's no outstanding guy winning by five minutes who might be supercharged.<\/p>\n

"But I don't believe any sport at the professional level is totally clean.<\/p>\n

"Like you, when you go to work, you take an aspirin for your headache, if they feel rough they'll take something and hope they get away with it.<\/p>\n

"Of that, I am convinced."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tour de France organisers made a mistake in not declaring a winner of the event for the seven years where Lance Armstrong was stripped of […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42922,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42920\/revisions\/42922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}