Stop at Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story

Drugs and cycling go to together like a horse and carriage, or is that love and marriage? No matter, as a sport cycling has been traditionally riddled with drug cheats so when any past racers turn up in this documentary finger wagging you think to yourself as if your era was any cleaner!

Any serious racer, commentator, journalist with knowledge of how gruelling road cycling is would or should had realised that some competitors are drug assisted simply because of the energy that they still have after hours of cycling on the edge of endurance. As Greg Lemond recounts after seeing Lance Armstrong race on Le Tour and someone turned round and remarked to him, 'he is on the juice.'

Of course accusations are one thing, proving it is another. While commentators on television threw platitudes at Armstrong the super athlete, some racers and journalists did have suspicions. However Armstrong, his cycling team, his team of lawyers would ruthlessly bring down any dissenting voices, even friends.

This documentary strips Armstrong of any last vestiges of dignity. Even his early victories are reduced to results of deal makings rather than racing. Armstrong realised early in his career that in a sport where drug taking is rife that the only way to win was to take drugs and call it hard work and training.

Of course if Armstrong remained retired after his string of Le Tour victories this documentary would not had been made, however his comeback meant as one writer said, 'the cancer had returned.' It was the blood samples taken during his comeback that led to the US doping agency to accuse him of cheating backed up with witness testimonies.

The documentary highlights the rise and fall of this superstar in cycling. Armstrong comes across as tough, determined, ruthless, two faced, hypocritical. Although he saw off all previous attempts to bring him down eventually he was demolished and confessed in 2013 in an interview with Oprah Winfrey and headed for financial and professional ruin.

A cautionary tale, maybe overlong but also enthralling. I never liked Armstrong so I do not feel sorry for him and this documentary does not try to elicit any sympathy for him.

The Lance Armstrong story is sad and incredible: a talented young athlete cheats and bullies his way to the top, threatening to ruin anyone who attempts to expose him; and this against a backdrop of nearly dying and making a comeback, not only as a sportsman, but as a campaigner against cancer. Meanwhile, a worrying number of other cyclists seem to have dropped dead for no conceivable reason other than suspected abuse of their bodies. 'Stop At Nothing' is a competent documentary: its makers have spoken to the right people, they have the right interviews, but it doesn't need to be artistically stunning, because of the power of the tale it tells. One of the people who appears in this film is journalist David Walsh: read his book, 'Seven Deadly Sins', for a more personalised account of the long, and ultimately victorious, fight against Armstrong.

"Stop at Nothing" follows the history of Lance Armstrong as he made extensive use of performance-enhancing drugs and hormones on his long sportive career. It managed to get great testimonials from people who worked very close with Armstrong for years, such as cycling teammates, assistants, his foundation's former manager, sport reporters and more, and this is a very positive aspect of this documentary compared to other features made about the fallen athlete. The personal on-screen first-hand accounts are very interesting and personal.

Throughout the movie, Armstrong is portrayed as a ruthless person who'd stop at nothing to conceal his own cheating and his own fraud, stomping and kicking everybody around him if necessary. First-hand accounts of those on the receiving end of his wrath give a picture many had never seen from following his media appearances over the years and how he was portrayed as an inspirational leader after overcoming cancer and returning to win several times more the Tour de France.

The only critical issue missing is any discussion about the behaviors of sponsors and others whose made huge money out of Armstrong's career, and the indirect or sometimes direct role they play in cycling doping culture. They were treated almost as an afterthought, and considering how many people related to the sport the producers had access to, they should have been able to explore it better, so I give it an overall 8/10 score.

I watched most of Lance Armstrong's seven Tour de France "wins" as they happened. I had a yellow bracelet, I owned his two memoirs, and I bought into the myth. It wasn't until just before his seventh "win" that I began to wonder if the rumors and allegations were true. I brecame convinced he was riding dirty when he staged his ill-advised comeback to the Tour, finishing third (this after Floyd Landis was disqualifed). Since then, I've seen several news stories and documentaries and have read several articles. So when I recently watched this documentary, several years after it was made in 2014, I didn't learn much new.

Still, I found this documentary to be very well done with lots of first-person accounts to build the case against Armstrong.

My only complaint is that after spending so much time with Betsy Andreu and Greg LeMond, detailing how Armstrong bullied, threatened, and did everything he could to destroy their characters, and with is non-apology confession on "Oprah," I would have liked to have seen more of a follow-up with Andreu and LeMond. I suppose that is for the sequel.

This Australian made documentary takes a look at Lance Armstrong's doping scandal including interviews with his former teammates, friends and enemies. Using assorted TV clips it follows his career from the beginning, including his seven wins in Tour de France, his battle against cancer, his come back, and the suspicions, all the way to his downfall culminating with him finally admitting everything to Oprah Winfrey on live TV. -Which ultimately made me feel really sad, a feeling I didn't expect.

After so many years of adamantly denying he was doping he finally just... admits it. I tried to figure out why this bothered me so much and I think its because everybody wants a hero.

A well done documentary but not impartial, this destroys him from beginning to end, while also showing just how big this scandal was and the (apparent) lengths that were undergone to keep certain people quiet. It felt like a giant conspiracy with huge companies, millions of dollars and death threats. Wow. 7/7/14