Lance has been taking the last few months to keep insisting through things like Twitter that he had not admitted to anything and continued to portray himself as the victim of an overzealous organization bent on tearing him down. (I always wondered why USADA, or any cycling organization for that matter, would be so intent of exposing Armstrong as a fraud, considering he was the only thing keeping the sport of cycling relevant. It would be like women's tennis going after the Williams sisters.) Then this week came the news that Armstrong will sit down with Oprah and confess to using PEDs. As you can imagine, at this point I'm very skeptical of his motives. I can only assume a confession is the first step in some kind of larger plea deal where he won't face criminal charges. Also, America is a very forgiving country and he is probably thinking that the sooner he gets this over with the faster he can go back to earning hundreds of thousands of dollars on the speaking tour. I think he is going to find those speaking requests won't be as frequent as he would like. He was an inspiration to millions of cancer survivors, but now you have to question if any of it was real and his entire message has been diluted. Also, it is not like anyone cares about cycling anymore. Comebacks can only happen if people are watching and I'm pretty sure Lance's once-loyal audience have all moved on to other things. But, at least he will finally have a clear conscience.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Too Little, Too Late
As soon as Lance Armstrong announced a few months ago that he was no longer going to fight the United States Anti-Doping Agency's claims that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs while winning all those Tour de France titles, I immediately stopped caring about him and the sport of cycling forever. First of all, the idea he had been taking drugs was hardly Earth-shattering. I mean, were we really supposed to believe that in a sport where every other champion had been caught taking drugs the most dominant of them all was the only clean one? Secondly, the way he said he was going to stop fighting because he simply didn't have the energy to keep going against USADA's witchhunt was incredibly douchey. Innocent people don't stop declaring their innocence because the fighting is hard. All any reasonable person could conclude was that they had finally come up with some concrete evidence to push back on Armstrong's only defense, which was to point out he had never failed a drug test. I thought he did the smart thing by backing away from his LiveStrong foundation so as to not impact their fundraising ability and assumed he would take some time away to let the heat die down a little. Guess I was wrong.
Lance has been taking the last few months to keep insisting through things like Twitter that he had not admitted to anything and continued to portray himself as the victim of an overzealous organization bent on tearing him down. (I always wondered why USADA, or any cycling organization for that matter, would be so intent of exposing Armstrong as a fraud, considering he was the only thing keeping the sport of cycling relevant. It would be like women's tennis going after the Williams sisters.) Then this week came the news that Armstrong will sit down with Oprah and confess to using PEDs. As you can imagine, at this point I'm very skeptical of his motives. I can only assume a confession is the first step in some kind of larger plea deal where he won't face criminal charges. Also, America is a very forgiving country and he is probably thinking that the sooner he gets this over with the faster he can go back to earning hundreds of thousands of dollars on the speaking tour. I think he is going to find those speaking requests won't be as frequent as he would like. He was an inspiration to millions of cancer survivors, but now you have to question if any of it was real and his entire message has been diluted. Also, it is not like anyone cares about cycling anymore. Comebacks can only happen if people are watching and I'm pretty sure Lance's once-loyal audience have all moved on to other things. But, at least he will finally have a clear conscience.
Lance has been taking the last few months to keep insisting through things like Twitter that he had not admitted to anything and continued to portray himself as the victim of an overzealous organization bent on tearing him down. (I always wondered why USADA, or any cycling organization for that matter, would be so intent of exposing Armstrong as a fraud, considering he was the only thing keeping the sport of cycling relevant. It would be like women's tennis going after the Williams sisters.) Then this week came the news that Armstrong will sit down with Oprah and confess to using PEDs. As you can imagine, at this point I'm very skeptical of his motives. I can only assume a confession is the first step in some kind of larger plea deal where he won't face criminal charges. Also, America is a very forgiving country and he is probably thinking that the sooner he gets this over with the faster he can go back to earning hundreds of thousands of dollars on the speaking tour. I think he is going to find those speaking requests won't be as frequent as he would like. He was an inspiration to millions of cancer survivors, but now you have to question if any of it was real and his entire message has been diluted. Also, it is not like anyone cares about cycling anymore. Comebacks can only happen if people are watching and I'm pretty sure Lance's once-loyal audience have all moved on to other things. But, at least he will finally have a clear conscience.
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