So I watched the Lance Armstrong documentary from ESPN a couple of days ago, I’d been wondering what I wanted to write about for a little while and if there’s ever a divisive person Lance is it.
I got into watching the Tour de France when I met my wife (which was 17 years ago) so I caught the Lance years. It ignited my enthusiasm for this special race to this day. (Although I’m a mountain biker at heart)
So first of all the Tour de France is an epic race which requires really quite special athletes to complete it let alone win it. The physiology of 2500-3000km over three weeks is something to behold.
It has been marred by drug scandals for years and years. During the Lance Armstrong years it was inconceivable that the UCI (international cycling body) didn’t know that doping was occurring.
So that makes Lance Armstrong, who was the poster boy and most powerful and famous rider of the times and the UCI complicit. Worth remembering later.
So it isn’t in question that doping was happening. But what is interesting is how it happened.
But I’ll take a step back. Lance Armstrong was a supreme athlete before he took drugs. From the age of 15 he was lauded. He was (and is) an arrogant, hard headed SOB. That was what made him a winner. Not only a winner but the winner.
So you’re 15 and you think you’re ace and not only that you have the stones to back up that assertion. Then in your 20’s you create a team around you that tells you you’re ace to the exclusion of all others.
Then you go racing at the Tour de France and being ace isn’t good enough. You have to be ace and take drugs. That’s the only way you succeed. Bearing in mind he didn’t turn up there on the juice… and not only that you probably start to learn that the governing body generally turns a blind eye to it…
Well everyone tells you you’re a winner and you firmly believe you are as well. So you do what you need to do to win. And because cycling is a team sport you make everybody else do it with you.
In your head everybody is doing it so it’s not cheating it’s the norm. And why do you think that – because the UCI has tacitly condoned it for decades.
But then I personally think a bit of psychopathy is inherent in Lance Armstrong. That’s what made him win – he didn’t give a stuff about other’s feelings. (Remember that’s what makes a good percentage of our CEO’s in industry – apparently a worthy trait there)
So then he got cancer – he had chemotherapy, he had craniotomies for goodness sake. He had lung mets. I don’t care what you say, drugs or not, to turn up to the Tour de France at all is really quite a feat.
If you watch the documentary Floyd Landis is guilty of the same behaviour in a way. When he got rejected by the cycling community after his two year ban, he thought “screw you” (perhaps not unreasonably) and then he brought the whole edifice down. He didn’t care who came down with him he was just pissed…
But Lance doubled down because of his psychopathy and because he had been told since he was 15 that he couldn’t be touched because he was too good. Too big to fail eh!
But backed into a corner and believing the lie so absolutely he came out fighting, like he always did, like he did to win the Tour de France. Unfortunately when you’ve gone through life screwing people around you, all those little slights over the years have been waiting for an outlet.
(In my line of work we know who the disagreeable people are. Everybody does. But pen isn’t usually put to paper unless something egregious happens and then the evidence appears – most of the time people don’t want to complain, through fear or apathy. So the accused finally gets accused and says “but nobody ever told me?!”)
So did Lance think “nobody said I was an arsehole?” I don’t think so, I think he knew he was a git, but just didn’t care.
And ultimately (apart from his hubris about re-entering the tour when he should have stayed retired) that is what got him. All those people eventually got their payback.
I agree he was the whipping boy and that the ban from all sports forever was more than anyone else ever got. I would have banned him until he was no longer relevant. But he lied and attacked so deeply and aggressively I think his punishment reflected that more than the actual drug taking.
So how do I see it? I can’t answer the should he have doped question. No he shouldn’t but I know why he did. Was he the best athlete of a generation, actually I think he was (he was also the best doper of a generation but that was the game at the time). Is he a nice person? Well if he likes you, I’m sure he’s the most loyal friend in the world ever and would die for you. But if he doesn’t, well we’ve all seen how that goes…
He says at the end of the documentary “I can sleep at night” having said he wouldn’t change it if he had his time again. I think it’s pretty interesting that the documentary makers left that as the final words…