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Mark

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Hidden Gem: A Guide to Surgical Tourism in Cartagena, Colombia

by K. Eckland (Goodreads Author)

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Aug 20, 2014 03:21AM

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Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo (Leven Thumps, #1)

by Obert Skye

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Aug 20, 2014 03:19AM

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Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever

by Reed Albergotti

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2014

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Mark said: " I want to give this book 2 ratings. It gets a 5 star rating for chapter 8 on and the opening. It needs a 1 star rating for chapters 1 to 5. In fact the opening chapters got me so mad I stopped reading it on 3 or 4 occasions before I broke through to I want to give this book 2 ratings. It gets a 5 star rating for chapter 8 on and the opening. It needs a 1 star rating for chapters 1 to 5. In fact the opening chapters got me so mad I stopped reading it on 3 or 4 occasions before I broke through to the good, well written, well researched sections of the 2 half of the book.

I think they tried to make the book do two things that then left it lacking homogeneity. They tried to write about tactics and cycle races as if they were explaining them to readers who had not watched the race and they tried to make it a history of Lance from childhood to present. I can see that that meant it was inclusive in respect of the widest possible readership grouping. I came at this with my eyes open, I have been following the Tour since the late 60's, so I expected a significant amount of material that would be of zero value to myself.

However, what was frustrating was a lot of the material describing races and race tactics was put together in a very poor manner, that would not have particularly helped the uninformed reader. Certainly it came over as "weird" - why have a sport like this, why not make it a daily set of time trials, none of the nuances of the sport of road racing come through which make it so fascinating and multi-levelled. Similarly Lance gets a free pass for his early years and this goes with the Lance 2.0 story, I was clean until 1995. Given the history of the sport and characterisation the authors so carefully and skillfully construct later, we know that the chances of a clean Lance beating a peloton consuming EPO when there was no test for it, to win the World Road title are zero. The writing of this section, not even paying lip service to the counter theory, that Lance had used PEDs since early tri-athlon days, insults the readership and caused me to be quite dismissive of the pair of authors, at this stage.

This is to not correct. Albergotti and O'Connell really go to town in the second part of the book.
They are in their element. Brick by brick they construct the building that enabled the biggest fraud in the history of sport to be constructed, including the fault that would eventually cause it to collapse. They order the known material, rationailising and placing it in context as well as introducing new material. I loved that Sheryl Crow is nailed, watching him transfuse and yet keeping entirely quiet about it when the accusations from Floyd were being rubbished in the press, even though she was long finished with Lance at this stage. She, like so many others, just couldn't go to the authorities, this group and type of people just preferred the complete con of the population. It puts her recent showbiz interviews where she denied that she had ever seen Lance dope, neatly into context.

The most impressive part is that the business relationships that stretch out to President of the UCI, Hein Verbruggen from Tom Weisel and so clearly and factually exposed. The other aspect that is particularly well done and I have not seen even a half attempt elsewhere, is the psychology of the group. Why did so many support and reinforce this myth they knew to be false ? I think they did a good job here, but there is still enough material left not covered for somebody else to write a second book studying this in more detail.

Now, I was familiar with an awful lot of the material relating to the case, so I read it with that in mind. I loved the construct and it helped me order my won thoughts in a very constructive manner. Irritating was that some of the bit-part players, who have dirty hands, are given a free pass by the authors.

I liked it and will keep my copy for reading again in a couple of years time. But I think at the current time, we are still awaiting Lance 3.0 and when that happens, there will be some new books which probably will not have the detail of the financial and construct of the scam this has, but will extend into those areas ignored or only brushed on by the authors.

Everybody who bought a yellow wrist band should read this. ...more "

Aug 20, 2014 01:55AM · see review