What'd you think?
They have a limited time to present the story, so it's understandable that they leave things out. I thought they conveyed how arrogant he was, even as a really young competitor. They didn't sufficiently illustrate the history of using people and then casting them aside, as he did with one interviewee, Rick Crawford.
I like that they put doping in perspective: it's a brutally hard sport where we expect the riders to do things that cannot be done on bread and water alone, thus doping in some form has been there almost since the beginning. That isn't necessarily a defense, just a recognition that what he was doing was typical. I think some folks are like me and just had a problem with him trying to destroy people and the level to which he took this lie, bamboozling a lot of naive people, in particular, some folks dealing with cancer.
I think one impression that viewers might get is that Armstrong was a phenom in Europe when he first arrived. He was very talented, but there were riders his age at that time from various European countries with better credentials and seen as more gifted. At that time, he was not seen as America's next big Tour hope. That was Bobby Julich. Had he come from Belgium, Spain, Italy at that time, the hype would've been considerably less. The simple fact is that some guys benefited much more from EPO than others. I think Armstrong's VO2 max was measured in the high 70s at some point. A tremendous number compared to the general population, and even most athletes, but within the pro peloton, it was lower than you would expect for someone who would go on to win seven Tours de France. Ivan Basso, who was interviewed in Part 1, had a VO2 of 84 and Greg Lemond famously had a VO2 of 92. Miguel Indurain's was like 88. And that's the number that cycling coaches looked at to determine which junior riders had what it took to ride in the pro peloton.
I used to go on rants about this guy. What's the point? I'm skeptical that he's really changed much, but who knows? His race analysis is spot on. I've listened to his Tour podcasts in the past and he's really good at it. If I owned a network covering the sport, I'd hire him in a second as a commentator.
The great hope because not much else was exciting from their demographic at the time.
I really enjoyed the film. Important that he settled his final lawsuit before filming, so that he could speak more freely to the questions of usage, friends/colleagues, etc. And while I get your point about how he treated many, there are quite a few I have minimal sympathy for: That twat Betsy Andreu, Floyd Landis, and a few others.
He did scummy things, too, but he was the only teammate really willing to say "Screw you" to Armstrong. His background was way more interesting than Armstrong's, to be honest. Plus, there are three athletic performances that stand above all others in my mind, when everything was on the line and the athletes pushed beyond what seemed possible: Rocket's punt return against Colorado, Franz Klammer's gold medal downhill run in 1976, and what Floyd did on Stage 16 of the 2006 Tour de France. He told everyone that he was going and he did it and pulled it off.
Screw him, too. What an emasculated bitch. He has been happy to tell stories about Armstrong's doping for years when there's a camera and compensation involved, and yet he conveniently skips over his own doping -- years worth -- in these stories.
He was all-in, along for the ride when it got him a spot on the team and they were winning. When Lance left and he felt it was his turn, he got popped almost right away.
He denied, denied, denied, until it was pointless. Then he fingered Lance.