Thread by @stevemagness

So after the Lance Armstrong documentary, let's talk about why the "Well everyone was doing it" excuse to justify Lance's performance falls flat.

A brief thread.

Doping impacts everyone differently. Even something like EPO. You can be a very high responder and a low responder. So for example, if you were naturally blessed with lots of Red Blood Cells, you might not have as big of a response as someone who that is his 'weak point.'

So when you say "Lance would have won anyway" you're wrong. We don't know that. Lance appears to be a high responder to EPO and other drugs.

When you get in a war of doping, you get in a war of who has baseline talent AND responds really well to the drugs...

"But Lance trained so hard and so 'smart'!"

Doping makes training and coaching easier. Why? The bandwidth for mistakes increases. You don't have to worry about overtraining as much, or where the 'kink' in the pipe is to get you to the next level. You've bulldozed over it.

Doping hides faults.

Think of it this way. High school boys do all sorts of crazy insane training and still improve. No matter what. They can do repeat 400's 6 days a week and still somehow run really fast and improve in distance events.

Why? Puberty hides bad coaching.

So sure, can you train a little 'harder' and longer on drugs, yep. But you also have fewer worries over going into the well, you bounce back quicker, you can trash yourself one day and miraculously do it again the next day.

"But everyone doped in cycling!" Maybe. But not everyone tried to ruin lives like Lance did.

That's the bigger offense to me. He attacked those who blew the whistle. Tried to ruin their lives forever.

Everyone may have been doping, but not everyone acted that way...