<story><title>Why winners become cheaters</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/08/why-winners-become-cheaters/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>unabst</author><text>Armstrong was a true champion. It&amp;#x27;s the public that wasn&amp;#x27;t made aware of what the real game was. All the cyclists knew it as did the organization and everyone professionally close to pro cycling. It was a doping game. And out of all that doped, Armstrong won 7 years in a row. He was a true champion.&lt;p&gt;The more accurate statement here is &amp;quot;cheaters become winners&amp;quot; and not the other way around. Cheating implies rules, and most rules are stupid, especially in sports. Doping of course changes the &amp;quot;sport&amp;quot; in many ways, and is illegal for good reason, but in a true competition of life and death, of success and failure, of rags to riches, of maintaining a family legacy, or of simply &amp;quot;winning&amp;quot; in today&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;winner&amp;#x27;s society&amp;quot;, the upside of cheating easily surpasses the downside. And for those who figure out how to cheat, it becomes easy, and part of the game. Then as they see everyone else cheat, the moral and ethical burden is easily nullified.&lt;p&gt;Rules in society are also pretty stupid. Drug dealers know this. Wall Street for sure knows this. And the smartest people who win, most often than not, do so by cheating, because it&amp;#x27;s all just a game. And it&amp;#x27;s okay to cheat in a game as long as you don&amp;#x27;t get caught. &amp;quot;Play dirty&amp;quot; is the western mantra that embodies this sentiment nicely, and it&amp;#x27;s a positive sentiment. It&amp;#x27;s antiestablishmentarianism, it&amp;#x27;s rock n&amp;#x27; roll, it&amp;#x27;s Bruce Willis in Die Hard.&lt;p&gt;Regardless of what anyone thinks of Lance Armstrong, you have to hand it to the guy. He certainly made the most out of his cheating win streak through one of the greatest charities of all time. Cheating in sports is one thing. His true legacy was doing whatever he could to help others cheat death as he did.&lt;p&gt;Devils don&amp;#x27;t save lives (people do).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>the-dude</author><text>Spot on. I have heard it explained like this ( by Smeets, a Dutch reporter, whom I dislike ) :&lt;p&gt;My recollection:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The riders define &amp;#x27;doping&amp;#x27; as going over the limit of detection. They all use &amp;#x27;forbidden&amp;#x27; substances but below the limits. That is why they can say with a straight face on TV they are &amp;#x27;absolutely clean&amp;#x27;. And two weeks later be caught because of a dosing mistake.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Why winners become cheaters</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/08/why-winners-become-cheaters/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>unabst</author><text>Armstrong was a true champion. It&amp;#x27;s the public that wasn&amp;#x27;t made aware of what the real game was. All the cyclists knew it as did the organization and everyone professionally close to pro cycling. It was a doping game. And out of all that doped, Armstrong won 7 years in a row. He was a true champion.&lt;p&gt;The more accurate statement here is &amp;quot;cheaters become winners&amp;quot; and not the other way around. Cheating implies rules, and most rules are stupid, especially in sports. Doping of course changes the &amp;quot;sport&amp;quot; in many ways, and is illegal for good reason, but in a true competition of life and death, of success and failure, of rags to riches, of maintaining a family legacy, or of simply &amp;quot;winning&amp;quot; in today&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;winner&amp;#x27;s society&amp;quot;, the upside of cheating easily surpasses the downside. And for those who figure out how to cheat, it becomes easy, and part of the game. Then as they see everyone else cheat, the moral and ethical burden is easily nullified.&lt;p&gt;Rules in society are also pretty stupid. Drug dealers know this. Wall Street for sure knows this. And the smartest people who win, most often than not, do so by cheating, because it&amp;#x27;s all just a game. And it&amp;#x27;s okay to cheat in a game as long as you don&amp;#x27;t get caught. &amp;quot;Play dirty&amp;quot; is the western mantra that embodies this sentiment nicely, and it&amp;#x27;s a positive sentiment. It&amp;#x27;s antiestablishmentarianism, it&amp;#x27;s rock n&amp;#x27; roll, it&amp;#x27;s Bruce Willis in Die Hard.&lt;p&gt;Regardless of what anyone thinks of Lance Armstrong, you have to hand it to the guy. He certainly made the most out of his cheating win streak through one of the greatest charities of all time. Cheating in sports is one thing. His true legacy was doing whatever he could to help others cheat death as he did.&lt;p&gt;Devils don&amp;#x27;t save lives (people do).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>softyeti</author><text>On one hand, yes, I think you can say that to be a winner, you had to dope. But if you took all of the dopers out, we would still have a winner.&lt;p&gt;Consider Cadel Evans. In my opinion, I don&amp;#x27;t think he doped. He was always in the conversation with Vinokourav, Ullrich, and the other top guys. For years.&lt;p&gt;He eventually won, but the sport was much cleaner by then.&lt;p&gt;I was a huge Armstrong fan. When I heard that Hincapie admitted to doping, I knew it was over. Over because Hincapie was always Lance&amp;#x27;s right-hand man, and also over because Armstrong wouldn&amp;#x27;t go after Hincapie.&lt;p&gt;I think Armstrong was one of the best cyclists ever, but he is tarnished now just like the others. It&amp;#x27;s a cruel sport.</text></comment>