John the Monkey
Frivolous Cyclist
- Location
- Crewe
Back in December 2008, around the time of the Astana training camp, Pro-Cycling magazine, having asked its readers to suggest questions for Lance Armstrong - asked Mr Armstrong a selection of them, these were then published in the February 2009 issue.
Here's the one that's been niggling me;
Procycling: Why should I take the relationship with Don Catlin seriously, when at the time I'm writing this question you have no legal agreement in place with him?
Lance Armstrong: There's no point in me sitting down with Procycling if these are your readers, because they don't want to read about me, and I don't want to talk to them. ... This is what is always so interesting about the blacklist - you have a lot of demands on your time. Do you want to talk to this person, or that person? Is their magazine available in Europe? In the US? Do you want to sit down with them? You have all these demands, but you can't do all of them. Naturally you're going to put certain people at the top of the list and others at the bottom. ... That's normal and natural. But you see these - and no offence to the questions, they're great questions - but there's probably no need for me to be available.
(P50-51, Issue 121 Feb 2009)
Now read the NYT article about this - Catlin says[1] that they'd not analysed *any* of Armstrong's samples before ending the agreement with him. Catlin's group[2] says they only managed to take one sample in that time. And yet, here's Mr. Armstrong getting shirty with Pro-Cycling, presumably knowing the status of his anti-doping programme with Catlin.
Why? Why not say "We're finding it difficult to work things out" or "It's not been as easy as we'd figured at first"? Why the evasion? Why the injured pride and the seeming threat to blacklist the magazine?
[1]
Here's the one that's been niggling me;
Procycling: Why should I take the relationship with Don Catlin seriously, when at the time I'm writing this question you have no legal agreement in place with him?
Lance Armstrong: There's no point in me sitting down with Procycling if these are your readers, because they don't want to read about me, and I don't want to talk to them. ... This is what is always so interesting about the blacklist - you have a lot of demands on your time. Do you want to talk to this person, or that person? Is their magazine available in Europe? In the US? Do you want to sit down with them? You have all these demands, but you can't do all of them. Naturally you're going to put certain people at the top of the list and others at the bottom. ... That's normal and natural. But you see these - and no offence to the questions, they're great questions - but there's probably no need for me to be available.
(P50-51, Issue 121 Feb 2009)
Now read the NYT article about this - Catlin says[1] that they'd not analysed *any* of Armstrong's samples before ending the agreement with him. Catlin's group[2] says they only managed to take one sample in that time. And yet, here's Mr. Armstrong getting shirty with Pro-Cycling, presumably knowing the status of his anti-doping programme with Catlin.
Why? Why not say "We're finding it difficult to work things out" or "It's not been as easy as we'd figured at first"? Why the evasion? Why the injured pride and the seeming threat to blacklist the magazine?
[1]
[2]
