Actor Ben Foster on playing Lance Armstrong: “those guys suffer”

2nd rate actor in 'uses press controversy to stir up some hype about film no one wants to see shocker'..

Lance who f-in cares, starve him all oxygen of publicity.

The problem with all the 'he was a phenomenal athlete, and everyone else was on drugs too' stuff is this: different people react to EPO differently, depending on their natural haematocrit levels. It can help some athletes much, much more than others. So there's no such thing as a level playing field if everyone is doping.

This point has been made a hundred times in the debates over Armstrong, but it remains true. Some people ignore it, but they are wrong to do so.

Yes he was a bully but the fact stands he was a phenomenal athlete , anyone on here who simply see his name and spouts off about the doping really need to look at themselves and think ..... "Do I still cheer on Contador,valverde, Rogers, Millar, schleck etc etc " if the answer is yes to any rider who has served a doping ban then you are highly hypocritical and in my eyes jumping on the let's hate LA bandwagon.

My opinion..... fantastic athlete at a time when the vast majority of top riders were doping but yes a control freak and bully

I wonder if the sponsors of the time which are on his kit and bike will object to this film as they now all want their money back or is it a case of some free advertising? There's not only the stench of doping but money, dirty money.

Doping was never really the issue. Look at Pantani, it's still possible, rightly or wrongly, to admire an athlete who doped.

Ben ignores the real issue with Lance: they bullying, intimidation and abuse of his power within the sport. The careers he destroyed simply because he disagreed with people (Le Mond, Andreu, Emma O'Reilly...). This is the real reason Lance should be vilified. The doping is a sideshow.

Clever move by Ben to promote the movie though, and I suspect the real motive for his comments - this remark just bought the film a ton of free advertising!

Perhaps Ben should actually read the book the film he's starring in is based on

I'm surprised that road.cc haven't done any reviews of the Pantani film, and the 'Lance Armstrong Lie'. I have seen both, and both give very sympathetic accounts of the respective riders.

I understand the culture of doping and difficulties of being a professional in this era. However, having watched 'The Armstrong Lie' Armstrong's chief talent is for crafting the narrative of his own story. He talks about doing 2009 clean, we he almost certainly wasn't. He also claims to have be dope free on the Hautacam, but conveniently cloaking the fact that he was likely to have doped in his run up to the Tour.

Ultimately his focus and drive took him to the top. But it is the ruthless and illegitimate manner in which he did that counts him down as an athlete and a human being.

I'm surprised that road.cc haven't done any reviews of the Pantani film, and the 'Lance Armstrong Lie'. I have seen both, and both give very sympathetic accounts of the respective riders.

I understand the culture of doping and difficulties of being a professional in this era. However, having watched 'The Armstrong Lie' Armstrong's chief talent is for crafting the narrative of his own story. He talks about doing 2009 clean, we he almost certainly wasn't. He also claims to have be dope free on the Hautacam, but conveniently cloaking the fact that he was likely to have doped in his run up to the Tour.

Ultimately his focus and drive took him to the top. But it is the ruthless and illegitimate manner in which he did that counts him down as an athlete and a human being.

"Fastest" - sure.
"Greatest" - not so much...

Looks like they've tried really hard with all the details, but thats a shoe #fail. Sidis in '99? I think not. Already with Nike, no?

There has to be a huge amount of natural ability to actually get to the stage of being a professional cyclist, just like all other sports and lance had probably more than his fair share but the EPO took him to another level.

I hope Foster protrays him well so that people can judge lance for themselves.

The Sun doesn't rise, it's just an illusion caused by the Earth spinning around.

The Sun doesn't rise, it's just an illusion caused by the Earth spinning around.

In other news, the sun will rise tomorrow morning.

He's got the most un-Lance legs ever, I thought actors beefed up for roles? If Jackman can turn himself into Wolverine, surely you could do a few squats for this, Foster.

When you look at the facts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19912623

And then add those who have been linked to Ferrari, Conconi et al i.e. Evans, Roche, Delgado, Indurain

And there aren't many left.

Yep, '99 was relatively clean thanks to Festina the year before. There wasn't a test for EPO at that time so riders didn't need to be micro dosing to evade detection, they just boshed back the EPO of an evening during the Tour. The samples were tested anonymously in 2005(?) but a journo from l'Equipe got hold of the bit of paper which matched sample numbers up to riders and published it, though thinking aobut that it must have been more than 8 years down the line since they couldn't charge anyone with doping.
Anyway, Postal coming in all doped up in 99 made the next 6 years ever dopier though, I guess.
That's an extremely simplistic way of looking at things, but I really ought to get back to work.

I swear I have read somewhere in the mountain of Lance stories that the first year he won the tour only 14% of riders' samples retroactively tested were positive for EPO? If that is true it's difficult to say he came up in an era of doping. You could argue that winning his first and subsequent tours on EPO with the peleton's full knowledge that he actually encouraged the whole situation

As always - no story is black and white - the drugs may have been part of it, but by no means the whole tale

I'm beginning to wonder if Armstrong stories should have the comments locked like in progress legal cases...

I think we all know Lance was a great athlete; he was the best of his 'era.' It is a good sign for the film that Foster is so absorbed in his character. Lets hope the Director is more objective though.

He certainly looks the part. I hope we don't need two more Lance movies after this one.

Quote:

“So it wasn't EPO [Erythropoietin] that made Lance the greatest cyclist. It was something far bigger."

And in Five, Four, Three, Two......