Novak Djokovic: Armstrong Should Suffer For His Lies

In his post-match press conference Novak Djokovic was questioned about Lance Armstrong and doping & testing in tennis.
He insist Armstrong "should suffer for his lies"

The defending Australian Open champion said: "I think it's a disgrace for the sport to have an athlete like this.

"He cheated the sport. He cheated many people around the world with his career, with his life story. I think they should take all his titles away because it's not fair towards any sportsman, any athlete. It's just not the way to be successful.

"So I think he should suffer for his lies all these years.

"I lost a lot of faith in cycling. I used to watch it. All the big champions that were there, Marco Pantani, now Lance Armstrong. I don't
want to say all. There has been so much controversy about that sport.

"I'm sure that there are many cyclists in the world who are training very hard and trying to not use any enhancing drugs for their competition.

"But I think it's not acceptable that they have physically so much races in short period of the time. I think basically every single day,
day and a half, they have to go through 200 miles.

"Uphill, downhill in Giro D'Italia, Tour de France, that's an inhumaneffort. As you can see, Lance Armstrong, many other big champions, hadto use something to succeed."Internationa Tennis Federation records show that only 18 blood tests of top players were taken in 2011. And Djokovic admitted he has not been blood tested for the last "six or seven months".

But the 25-year-old backed Andy Murray's assertion that their sport is not in denial over doping.

"I believe tennis players are one of the most cleanest athletes in the world and one of the most competitive sports.

"In tennis, at least from my perspective, it's really good. Anti-doping regulations a little bit maybe more strict in sense that you
have to fill the whereabouts documents and you have to basically give an hour or two in every day of your life in a whole year, where you are.As long as it's fair, it's clean, we're trying to protect the identity of this sport.

"So as long as we keep it that way, I have no complaints about testing."


Djokovic was asked if this testing should give tennis fans the faith that tennis will not go the same way as cycling.

"The results are showing that," he said.

"In last few years there maybe has been one or two cases, but those players were more or less outside of the hundred. We are keeping this sport clean.

"We are working towards it. There is awareness with the players and with the officials. As long as is like that, we are in a good road."

I can't see how Armstrong can suffer. When you look at the field of cyclists he cheated out of titles and the long lasting damage he has done to the sport, he walks away like a sinner forgiven for his confessions. The fact he had the nerve to deny it and not come clean like his past team-mates/colleagues smacked even more of arrogance and lack of respect to the sport.

I am in agreement with Djokovic that tennis is on the right road and probably not as rife with doping as cycling is. Tennis can maintain it is doing it all it can with it's resources to ensure regular and consistent testing. I think it is good players recognise this and call for more to be done. Challenging the system and pressuring them to step up efforts is a good sign.

The problem with the Armstrong case for me is that it has caused everyone to look at respective sports, look at the successful athletes and cast doubt over the integrity of their accomplishments. What we musn't lose sight of is this Armstrong without question is the biggest scalp in a doping scandal that has shown the most advance doping programme seen in sport. The questions raised by people looking at other sports is that their are more athletes out there who have more money and resources than Armstrong and why couldn't someone else run a similar programme?

Tennis has caught dopers, despite them not really being household names calls into question whether the top players are subjected to the same testing requirements as the lower end players? Some will point to Agassi and rightfully say that the ATP/ITF were very sloppy in handling the whole affair. Granted it was a recreational drug, still it calls for the same punishment as a PED.

It would be poetic if Armstrong was 'punished' more for his lack of moral code, but what more can sporting bodies do? He is banned, he has been stripped of titles and for some that seems powderpuff. I think for me it is because it is the effect it has on the sport and also past competitors who's career will feel it was all for nothing. I think he should be made to face those he cheated and face the scrutiny that would go with it. Personally I would let those he cheated and let down give him lashes from the whip!

Can sport in general be harsher in punishment it serves to active or in-active athletes who cheat?

LA aside, I would like to see top players DEMAND strictest possible testing and results published quarterly.
That's the least they can do if the want us to believe them.

And all these doctors providing them with dope, either stick them all in jail or get them to work for WADA.

I think the doctors and the cheats should be branded with 'CHEAT' on their foreheads!

I agree top athletes should which is why I find Federer, Djokovic and Murray's views on more stringent testing quite refreshing.

legendkillar wrote: I agree top athletes should which is why I find Federer, Djokovic and Murray's views on more stringent testing quite refreshing.

Tbh LK, I think so far they have only paid lip service to it all. They could easily all be doped incl Federer.

None of them have ever made a proper stance, it's only been answering when asked those questions during pressers. Even then, it's all squirming and PR-ed to death. Utter minimum. Not good enough, I'm afraid.

noleisthebest wrote:

legendkillar wrote: I agree top athletes should which is why I find Federer, Djokovic and Murray's views on more stringent testing quite refreshing.

Tbh LK, I think so far they have only paid lip service to it all. They could easily all be doped incl Federer.

None of them have ever made a proper stance, it's only been answering when asked those questions during pressers. Even then, it's all squirming and PR-ed to death. Utter minimum. Not good enough, I'm afraid.

I think we are going into paranoia over-drive if we are to really look past such comments. Yes I agree anyone can say what they have without a sense of guilt or concern that it implicates them.

Some have remarked at the frustration of the testing and how it is carried out, but I think WADA/ITF should publish testing statistics so there is clarity to the frequency and fairness of testing.

The very fact they are NOT publishing them says enough, doesn't it.
Also there has been a precedent set with Aggassi, so we know how and why ATP don't publish results.

But why has LA been more of a problem to the sport than Riijs or all the others who cheated before him? He just cheated better that's all. ( I never thought I woudl defend him one day). It's only because he made the TDF more followed that he did more damage maybe ...but at the end of the day teh TDF is now a bigger event. The BBC put yesterday in his main headlines the TDF map of 2013...I do not think they were doing that before LA time.

Tenez wrote:But why has LA been more of a problem to the sport than Riijs or all the others who cheated before him? He just cheated better that's all. ( I never thought I woudl defend him one day). It's only because he made the TDF more followed that he did more damage maybe ...but at the end of the day teh TDF is now a bigger event. The BBC put yesterday in his main headlines the TDF map of 2013...I do not think they were doing that before LA time.

I think the thing that needs to be taken into consideration these days is growth of media in people's lives.

20 year-olds have almost all been born with mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter accounts now.

In the past you bought the papers to find one article and a photo of your favourite player (I used to spend all my lunch money like that for years, then cut the articles out and make a scrapbook).
Now, we know all the gory details about their lives, people are desperate for entertainment and there is a lot of money swirling around in that industry.
Information is available 24/7.

Media will be digging out anything to sell a story. So Lance with his cancer story was just a perfect guy, even I fell for it....

Nadal? Wow, so many loaded Hispanic Americans in need of having a hero, let's give them one! I can almost see them rub their sweaty palms with glee as he shoots another underwear session.

It's all gone overboard big time.
I am seriously hoping the bubble to burst in the next 5 years.

You just need a few brave people in the right places...even to keep screaming if nothing else.

Also, I am not sure many people who started following tennis because of Nadal will stick with following it once he retires OFFICIALLY.

My point is media can do anything now and you don't need to be a doper in order to sell products.

noleisthebest wrote:Media will be digging out anything to sell a story. So Lance with his cancer story was just a perfect guy, even I fell for it....

Did you?

noleisthebest wrote:Also, I am not sure many people who started following tennis because of Nadal will stick with following it once he retires OFFICIALLY.

My point is media can do anything now and you don't need to be a doper in order to sell products.

Well even if 75% of those who took on tennis because of Nadal fall out we are still left with 25% of millions. It;s a lot...and a lot more than Djoko and Murray can probably attract.

I may never been a tennis fan if it was not for Borg...and Borg would certainly not be the one I'd be supporting nowadays (though I still am a big fan).

Tenez wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Media will be digging out anything to sell a story. So Lance with his cancer story was just a perfect guy, even I fell for it....

Did you?

Of course I did. As someone who wasn't following cycling at all then finding out in passing by how some super-guy won his battle with cancer was so moving. I felt so sorry for him thinking he wouldn't be able to cycle again.

Nah...not me. I am an old monkey and it's difficult to grimace better than me. . It woudl have to be acted in a much better way for me to fall into it.

Tenez wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Also, I am not sure many people who started following tennis because of Nadal will stick with following it once he retires OFFICIALLY.

My point is media can do anything now and you don't need to be a doper in order to sell products.

Well even if 75% of those who took on tennis because of Nadal fall out we are still left with 25% of millions. It;s a lot...and a lot more than Djoko and Murray can probably attract.

I may never been a tennis fan if it was not for Borg...and Borg would certainly not be the one I'd be supporting nowadays (though I still am a big fan).

I liked tennis for years before I latched onto a player as a fan. Didn't start following it because of anyone in particular, just loved the game, the green court and the elegant silence that was so different from any other sport.
I was more a Wimbledon fan before I became a player fan.

Steve Tignor of tennis.com wrote a really good article during last year's USO.
I think it fits really well with this thread, so I'll post a few relevant paragraphs:

"Remember when it was “the French” who were out to get Lance for dominating their Tour? Quaint idea. Whatever you think of the USADA’s methods and goals, and the extra-judicial process that has led to Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, you can’t say that the U.S. protected one of it own. One line of thinking seems to
be that all of these investigations are a waste of time, that we don’t need to find out the truth in these situations, don’t need to drag our idols down, that the Armstrong story is another pointless “witch hunt,” as Lance called it, because fans don’t care. To me, all sports lovers and sports writers should think the opposite; we should care. Who wants to believe an athlete is heroic when he or she is really anything but? Sports is meaningful to us, as opposed to being merely entertaining, because it isn’t fiction.

Michael Specter of the New Yorker is dealing with these thoughts at the moment. In 2002, he wrote what he recently called a “lengthy and adulatory” profile of Armstrong for that magazine. At the time, after seeing Lance’s workout regimen, Specter was convinced that he was clean. This week, in a mea culpa post for the New Yorker’s website, Specter wrote of Armstrong, “He was the great American—a man of principle who also won. Now I am afraid he is nothing.” Nothing more than a man who “did not even have the decency to admit his guilt.” Specter refuses to feel sorry for Armstrong, because the cyclist vowed many times that he would never quit fighting.

Tennis, of course, isn’t cycling. Everyone in that sport really was doing it, and hitting a ball involves more hand-eye skill than powering a bicycle. But that doesn’t mean tennis players can’t benefit from the help these days. As we’ve been told many times, the game is “more physical than ever.” After baseball’s power surge of the late-90s was officially renamed the Steroid Era, any golden era in any sport will, unfortunately but necessarily, come with a degree of suspicion. In tennis, this is a time of unprecedented dominance and unprecedented performances, when records of all sorts—even the length of matches—have been shattered. None of these things by themselves mean that we should be suspicious of anything or any player. But, as Michael Specter found out with Lance Armstrong, it also doesn’t mean we can dismiss the possibility. The reason why I wouldn’t dismiss the idea of tennis players taking PEDs isn’t because of their builds or their stamina or their dominance or their titles or their improvement from one month to the next. It’s simply because they’re athletes, and humans.
Tennis fans watch Roger and Rafa and Serena and Novak not just for their dazzling shot-making and athleticism. We watch because we want to relate to, take something from, and join in their struggles and
triumphs. Whether the athletes like it or not, they represent us, and show us things about human frailty and possibility.
This group of tennis players has done that better, and more thrillingly, than any group I’ve seen. Doug Robson is right, we should relish and marvel at them. It has felt good just to be around to see what they’ve done, and to take a tiny part in it. Watching Lance Armstrong or Roger Clemens or Marion Jones or Barry Bonds wasn’t any less entertaining or amazing because they probably cheated to do it. But it didn’t tell us anything good about ourselves."

Tenez wrote:Nah...not me. I am an old monkey and it's difficult to grimace better than me. . It woudl have to be acted in a much better way for me to fall into it.

I give up ....

It's an old article from Tignor isn't it? I mean weeks old. Yes a good one. I howeer disagree with teh fact we can relate to the top tennis players. One is build like us but is a one-in-7-billion genius, and the others are athletes like none of us will ever be....thankfully. In our sport we have 3 LAs...sorry to say!

Just 3?

Murray on LA & testing:

Q. You talked about being encouraging of more blood testing in tennis. After seeing the Armstrong interview, have your views on that evolved further?
ANDY MURRAY: Not really. I only saw the first part of it yesterday. Everything that everyone knew already was just kind of confirmed. That really hasn't changed my stance on it. I think it's something that all sports are now trying to improve their doping controls and make it better, you know, make sure that every sport's as clean as possible.If that's more blood testing or the biological passports, you know, that's something we need to do and improve in tennis, as well.

Q. When Novak was here yesterday he said he'd only been blood tested once in the last six or seven months. Can you tell us how much you've been blood tested over the past 12 months.
ANDY MURRAY: I'd say four to six times every year. I mean, I'm not sure exactly how many. The last time I had a blood test done was in Paris. And then once every year I do my own sort of blood testing at the end of each year to make sure you're not low on iron, you know, or vitamins or whatever just as a checkup really.But, yeah, I'd say four to six times a year.

Q. Are they all out of competition?
ANDY MURRAY: No, no, they're not. I mean, it depends what you classify as 'out of competition.' If you get tested three days before a tournament starts, I would say that's out of competition.Yeah, I mean, I know after Wimbledon I got blood tested last year, after the final of Wimbledon. I got blood tested in Paris I think both times, after the French and also after I also got blood tested here last year I think when I lost to Novak.Yeah, but I wouldn't say the majority of the blood tests we do are out of competition."

Fed on LA:
Q. We've been asking some of the other players about their impression of Lance Armstrong. Love to get your impressions as well.
ROGER FEDERER: Love to get everybody's impressions. What a sad story.Look,I mean, I don't know what to say. It just really saddens me to see that someone did this for such a long time. Obviously he's hurt his sport in a big way, even though he helped it in the beginning.
But now the burden they live under, all other sports maybe as well. I'm an active athlete right now, and it's not fun times really to be in sports to a degree. I guess all I needed to see was the first few minutes of the interview and then I knew what was the deal, and the rest I don't really care.
It's just very saddening, really, this story, to be honest."

Very interesting. Nole being tested once in the last 7 months whereas Murray seems to say more. I guess one was referring to OOC while the other was trying to show that he was often tested...to admit later that it was not OOC.

Anyhow I think that says it best:

I'm an active athlete right now, and it's not fun times really to be in sports to a degree.