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Summary: From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France
Comment: A fantastic read for any sports fan. The title however is rather misleading as the majority of the book focused on lance armstrong which was a little disapointing. I found the begining of the book much more interesting (dealing with the doping culture) than the secend half (armstrong). all in all an excellent read. worth a look.
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Summary: eye opener
Comment: great reading for those into bicycle racing. walsh delves into the secret world of doping and drugs used in competitive racing.
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Summary: ARMSTRONG CONVICTED!!
Comment: I strongly recommend this book to those fans who want to look underneath the jubilant stories of Lance Armstrong.
There are other books who celebrate him. If people do not like the opposition of Armstrong, they do not have to read this book. So there is no need to offend the author.
If you read this book open minded and without prejudgment of Mr. Walsh, it will be certain that you come up with a different view of Armstrong.
People may were reading on newspapers that Armstrong never was tested positive....
Rijs, Zuelle, Virenque and so on, were never tested positive. But on other circumstances than UCI-Doping-Tests, it came out that they actually did dope massively. So much about the efficiency of Drug-Tests....
On the very beginning of this book you go right into the action: Boom... Armstrong, despite everything, indeed tested positive in his very 1st Come-Back-Tour! Not as common belief is: He had no prescription for the corticoids which were found.
There is no hearsay in this book when it comes right down to the cold hard facts of evidence: For example; you will be informed that the chance is 0,2 (right, less than a half) percent that the Epo-Test of 2005 could have been manipulated.
In this book Armstrong not only gets exposed by the hard evidence described above, but also on so many other facts. A very good chapter for example comes about Dr. Ashenden. A must read for all those believing in the story of how Armstrong changed to super human after cancer. I can really say: Everything about Armstrong is uncovered.
After reading the book, it may be still up to ones belief in the evidence. But warning, those who think there is not enough evidence against Armstrong and Landis... I wonder what else is needed to convince people. To be honest, it would be only fair then to Vinokourov, Basso, Valverde, Virenque, Pantani and so on... to say there is also no 100% sure evidence against them. To make it clear: Nobody ever saw Basso or Ulrich cheating, they "only" found their blood at a Spain doctors office*. So if you're going to talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk...
(* = Using common sense, of course I am absolutely convinced they doped.)
The only negative about the book is: The sources were not given in the back of the book. It made it hard for me to cross-check the evidence. After long nights of researching I got everything together: The facts in this book are portrayed correctly.
So Mr. Walsh improve about the matter of sources the next time. Thanks for the investigative journalism. Otherwise we all would be cheated by yellow-press-journalists.
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Summary: A Great Read
Comment: Walsh does a brilliant job of laying out the landscape of professional cycling. The stack of evidence that suggests Armstrong doped at some point in his career, may be circumstantial, but it's piled a mile high. The text message conversation between Frankie Andreu and Jonathan Vaughters is jaw dropping. This book elicits so many negative opinions simply because nobody wants to hear that Santa Claus doesn't exist. We will probably never really know the full story of the Armstrong years, but Walsh certainly lays out a plausible scenario for much of what was happening in the pro peleton at the time.
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Summary: A lair exposing a liar?
Comment: Can you believe David Walsh? David certainly belives and promotes the thought that liars and cheats should be exposed and punished, after reading his interviews and learning that there is no proof, it was really a matter of whether i believed him or not - Wanting to find out more i came across this very interesting article in "Outdoors" magazine - http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200512/lance-armstrong-1.html it looks at both sides, in it i was surprised to read that David Walsh has lied to the public - from the article..."It's also a fact that Walsh has said in the past that he did not pay Emma O'Reilly, when he actually did. Walsh recently admitted in an interview with Outside that he had paid O'Reilly for her story, despite assuring VeloNews in June 2004 that he had not. His explanation for telling this falsehood is that "I felt at the time if I'd said yes, she would have been absolutely screwed." - end quote. If there is one thing worse than a lair its a hypocrite.
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