Waking up to a shocking headline on the morning news today prompted me to revisit a topic that I addressed in some detail recently [see blog of June 14th, 2012], and rather sadly I feel the need for further comment given recent developments. The topic of that blog was none other than cycling hero Lance Armstrong, and his ongoing and seemingly never-ending battle with the authorities over doping allegations.
The first words that I saw on NBC's Today show intro segment, with my eyes still waking up and a bit blurry, were "Armstrong stripped of his 7 Tour de France titles". Given that I knew that he had not gone up against the USADA as yet, and merely had failed in his attempts to have the charges against him ruled unconstitutional, I simply could not believe it! Armstrong is a man known as a fighter, and fighting until he wins, and that includes his own victory against the testicular cancer that he was diagnosed with back in 1996. So why is he giving up now?
As I said in my last blog on this subject, I strongly feel that any man (or woman) who was put through a two year investigation by federal prosecutors on criminal charges, which were dropped due to insufficient evidence, by the way, has been put through enough. One can only imagine what kind of personal toll such a process must involve, particularly when the subject is famous and subject to enormous media attention at the same time. It's the kind of pressure chamber that cannot do much good to a cancer survivor's system, I imagine.
But USADA head honcho Travis Tygart still had Armstrong firmly in his sights, and seemed determined to get him, one way or another. Although he appealed the charges initially, unsuccessfully trying to get them thrown out by an appeal judge, now seemingly out of the blue Armstrong has decided to give up the fight, which means giving in to and effectively accepting the charges. This is not like Armstrong and it will be seen by many as an admission of guilt.
It all depends which side you are on of course: loyal die-hard fans will claim the poor man was exhausted and it was not right to subject him to yet another witch hunt, and the skeptics will simply conclude that he was guilty all along, and now wants to run away. He is an extremely polarizing figure, not least due to the phenomenal success he has achieved, but also due to his apparent previous disregard for any claims against him, or the agencies placing the charges. It is either very ballsy to take that approach if you have cheated, or plain stupid, because if you did do it, and you look like you are mocking them, they are gonna come at you, harder. As they have done.
"I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won those seven Tours, and everyone I competed against knows who won those seven Tours. We all raced together. For three weeks over the same roads, the same mountains, and against all the weather and elements that we had to confront. There were no shortcuts, there was no special treatment. The same courses, the same rules. The toughest event in the world where the strongest man wins. Nobody can ever change that. Especially not Travis Tygart."
As much as this sounds righteous and the words of a real competitor, it is only valid if he didn't cheat. They are hollow empty words if he did in fact take a shortcut, and did in fact partake of special treatment, such as the "special" lunch bags that a former US Postal Service teammate said that the top riders were given. The USADA has stated that it has overwhelming evidence of such "special treatment" that includes blood doping, EPO use, hGH use, anabolic steroid use, and so on. Additionally, as I noted in my last blog about this, the agencies have now turned fellow riders into the equivalent of mafia rats, offering them deals so they can get testimony against the Godfather himself. This is quite despicable, I feel, in each direction; the people who bribe them into testifying, and the teammate (potentially rife with jealousy) who turns against his partner, are each held in contempt.
What I really cannot stand about this entire story is the hypocrisy. We all know (do we?) that cycling has a reputation as a dirty sport. Everyone knows that doping is going on, and many are doing it to be able to stay competitive. The International Cycling Union (ICU) is the sport's governing authority who should be dealing with Armstrong, and strictly it is them and only them who have the authority to strip Tour de France titles. However, the USADA claims that as a signee of the World Anti-Doping Code, the ICU has no choice but to approve the stripping of the 7 Tour titles, without argument. But the ICU has been relatively silent, and I am sure it's to do with the Catch 22 of this horrible situation: strip the titles, and deal a devastating blow to a living legend's legacy, to help clean up the sport, but at the same time having always known the truth, but not wanting to deal a devastating blow to the entire sport of cycling at the same time.
I cannot help but feel that what irks Armstrong most is the hypocrisy, too. For the longest time, it was an inside job, with everyone knowing that basically everyone was at it, so let's get on with the competitions, as it sort of is a level playing field, if everyone is at it. So if rider X is doing it, then the only way that rider Y gets a fair chance is to do it also. It was probably an unspoken rule to leave Armstrong alone, and let him shine as he was the future of the sport. Now, suddenly, the entire sport has turned against him, everyone is opening up about it, and as the big dog, he is the one they all wanna see shot down, in flames. But this is no phoenix; the stripping of the titles comes with a lifetime ban on competitive cycling, and he will also lose his Olympic bronze medal. The total irony being, of course, that each title taken off Armstrong and handed to the second-placed rider, might simply be the taking of a medal from one doper, and giving it to another!
Another question that arises out of this is whether an athlete who "beat the system" say, 10 years ago, and won various titles, should then be threatened with new technology 10 years later, and subsequently shamed in front of the world. This seems so destructive and is devastating to a public who worship the athlete like a demi-God over many years, only to have them declared a cheat and a liar later on. It comes back to a question that I have asked before, which is, what is the best thing to do and what is the right thing to do? Many believe that the best thing to do would have been to let it all go the second the US Justice Department dropped their charges, while still others believe that if he did use performance-enhancing methods to win those titles then the only right thing to do is to strip them.
It truly is a shocking fall from grace, not only for a superstar professional athlete, but for a man who is also a cancer survivor and whose LiveStrong Foundation has raised almost half a billion dollars to aid cancer victims. To accept the charges against him thereby allowing a default verdict of "guilty" will affect many people around him, and tens of millions around the world. The USADA has said that various revenues that Armstrong made from being the world's #1 rider may also be subject to confiscation, and if one takes that to an extreme, someone could claim that every dollar made even from his popular rubber wristbands was earned fraudulently, and must be handed back to the public. As I said, this is a mess that keeps on giving!
I shall close by remembering that when I asked someone (not just anyone, either) who is a former cycling professional and has even won a stage in the Tour de France, whether he thought that Armstrong was a clean rider, I got a smirk of ridicule, as if I had asked whether the sky was yellow, followed by an answer that was something like: "Did you have your coffee this morning? Wake up!". I shall leave it at that because the actual details were more depressing than they were revelatory, and I think that everyone's imagination is quite capable of creating the various scenarios that seem to be or are part and parcel of competition at that level. It is war, and all is fair in love and war, as they say in the trade! Now, where is my mug of coffee?! - Kevin Mc
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