How did lance armstrong not get caught for doping for so many years? If its that hard to get caught then should we be worried about other althletes?
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I know people in his inner circle and spent time in his orbit and coached athletes that were on his teams.
He was DEFINITELY a Malignant Narcissist, to begin with, even before he went to Europe, but the REAL story in Europe was rife with drugs since the very beginning of cycling, so don’t get it twisted. *Cycling has ALWAYS been HEAVILY into drug use, for its entire history.* Our puritanical attitude about it is a new thing, and largely related to Lance’s outrageous behavior finally bringing attention to a sport most people didn’t care about until he was in it.
And he initially thought he could win in Europe without drugs- he thought he was THAT good. Europe proved him wrong and in many ways showed him the basic template of how to cheat and get away with it, as the underlying systems of cheating had existed for 100 years already.
But, there is a VERY simple answer to your question:
He operated like a Mob Boss. That’s how. He still does.
Mob Boss or Don is the best metaphor, and has all of the hallmarks of mob boss behavior:
* **Omerta** – The Mafia code of silence. This is perhaps the clearest and most well-known aspect of his behavior, which he did not invent but perfected.
* **I’m A Legitimate** **Businessman**- Cancer and his Cancer foundation was a cover to a degree that most people don’t fully grasp. It is The Perfect Narrative, and he took pains to ensure he did all of this stuff VERY visibly and was as thorough about this cover as he was with his ‘preparation’; creative, even. The *many* stories of “he didn’t stand to gain anything by helping me” disguised the fact that he DID stand to gain something by helping you, but one you could not imagine due to the Power Of The Perfect Narrative. Such narratives are often used by the Mafia also to ensure a ‘sheen’ of goodwill among those who might have doubts. Look at the Danbury Trashers for example. People TO THIS DAY are SERIOUSLY invested in that narrative.
* **Underboss**- Johan Bruyneel was his Underboss.
* **Capo** – The capo was originally the head of a family in Sicily. Now, the capo is more like a lieutenant who serves the family boss. This would be the other, secondary Director Sportiv’s involved in his teams. Sean Yates, for example, among others, including Michele Ferrari and the Trek technical staff, soigneurs, etc.
* **Family** – Each individual gang within the Mafia is known as a family. Not everyone within a family is actually related, although it is common for relatives of mobsters to be inducted into the same family as their brothers or fathers. Sean Yates graduated into Capo status after being ‘in the family’ and earning Lance’s respect and teaching him not a little about how to do a lot of skillful things on a bike that you can only learn when you’re Sean’s size- like descending.
* **Wiseguy** – Someone who is involved with the Mafia. This includes the rest of the team, the newbies, or people brought in for support that are not expected to directly impact his goals- i.e. the non-Tour team, etc.
Notice that the other ‘leaders’ who left the team you’ll notice would, suddenly, in the middle of the next season “get caught”, which was likely orchestrated by Lance or his ‘family’, if they were any danger to Lance. They would often try to reproduce the ‘formula’ Lance projected but lacked the willpower to pull it off. I’d say Alberto Contador did it best, but even he was not as naturally malignant a personality as Lance was, even before he was as famous as he became.
He corrupted, to some extent, all of cycling in the end, not only most of his lieutenants, staff, and team members, including the UCI itself by using his leverage and vast media impact to effectively control the entire narrative for the entire sport for most of his career, and frankly, he was SO FUCKING GOOD AT THIS that it was only hubris that brought him down- i.e. his comeback.
Once he left for his first retirement, cycling was cleaning itself up and had made improvements to the anti-doping in the short time that he was no longer actively working to counteract those things, so these changes were allowed to evolve and led to his being caught at the end, which he says himself.
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