The more I think about this Lance Armstrong business, the more I’ve come to have a sort of perverse admiration for the way he put one over on the world. The sheer scale of the deception is mind-boggling; the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) says that Lance presided over “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.” I think they meant that as criticism, but still — if cheating and lying were an endurance sport, Lance would be the all-time champion. He denied everything with a straight face, often bristling with righteous anger, for a full decade-plus; in its own sick way, that’s just an impressive as winning seven straight Tours de France.
And what elevates this achievement to a whole other level is that he didn’t just cheat, he didn’t just lie — he lied so boldly and so successfully that he actually filed, and won, libel suits against people who were telling the truth. Think about that for a minute. This is a historic achievement in mendacity that ought to be recognized — if not celebrated, exactly.
I find myself wondering about the mechanics of how they did it. Part of the reason I was willing to believe that Lance was clean was that it just seemed too hard to cheat that much for that long while under constant scrutiny by a phalanx of drug testers, not to mention the entire population of France. But somehow he and his teammates pulled it off.
A lot of people are very pissed at Lance right now. I personally can’t summon up much in the way of anger over all this; more than anything I’m just sad. Sad that cynicism won another one. Sad that cancer patients have to learn their hero was a fraud. Sad that people like Lance think winning is worth the cost of their integrity and self-respect. And sad that right now, people all over France are cocking an eyebrow and saying “Je vous l’avais bien dit.“
In light of recent events I’m wondering if I am now supposed to rescind all of my blog entries that mention Lance Armstrong — of which there are quite a few, clustered around my “coverage” of the Tour de France in 2005 and 2010. After starting off as a Lance skeptic I eventually drank the Kool-Aid and started pulling for him, partly because I loved the way he pissed off the French, and partly because I just liked his style. I am only slightly embarrassed now to admit that these words are my own:
[Lance Armstrong] is supremely self-confident without crossing the line into arrogance. He believes in himself more than anyone I’ve ever seen with the possible exception of Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan…. But he never talks trash about his opponents, never disparages them, just crushes their will by outperforming them.
So if Lance inspired me to turn a phrase I rather liked, and Lance turns out to be a fraud, does that make my writing fraudulent as well? This now is the central question. If Lance’s accomplishments are tainted, does that make them not accomplishments at all, or just something we need to view in a different light? I would kind of like to say the latter, though I’m hard-pressed to marshal any arguments on that side.
Quite frankly the whole thing just makes me sad and tired. As I said later in that same post,
We have precious few heroes and precious few reasons to celebrate these days.
Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen: a very close relationship.
Re the Tour de France, Merle Baggard writes:
OK, glad it’s over. Please get back to more important subjects.
Merle likes to push my buttons, but I take his point. I do want to make just one more note before moving on, though.
The one thing that seemed to get people really emotionally involved this year was only tangentially related to the race itself. This was what has become known as the “falling out” incident involving longtime Tour commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. (more…)
And just like that, it’s so long to the Tour de France for another year.
So long to having my morning coffee as the broadcasters give the stage profile and make their predictions for the day. Some days I enjoy the contest between these guys as much as I enjoy the actual race. Nice to see Grandpa Phil take the title this year, although he was still griping about the rules even as he draped the final yellow jersey over his shoulders.
So long to idiot Frankie Andreu asking Alberto Contador complicated questions after the stage, oblivious to the fact that Contador doesn’t speak English worth a damn. (Why not give Contador a translator? Maybe there was no budget for it; maybe it was a sinister Yankee conspiracy to make him look bad.) (more…)
There were no miracles today. Just for a moment there, it looked like Andy Schleck was going to shock the world by beating Alberto Contador in the time trial; he was up by two seconds at the first time check, but as time went on Contador’s superior speed reasserted itself. In the end Contador bested Schleck’s time by 31 seconds, extending his lead in the Tour to 39 seconds.
Interesting, that, given that 39 seconds was the exact amount Contador gained in the controversial Stage 15. This will give fans something to debate for years to come: Is Contador’s victory tainted by the fact that he transgressed the unwritten rules, taking the yellow jersey due to a mechanical issue? I for one am inclined to say it is. You could say that Contador not only cheated Andy Schleck out of the jersey, he cheated us out of the prospect of the Tour entering its final day with two riders exactly tied, which I don’t believe has ever happened before.
I’m not sure what would have transpired in that case. It’s hard to gain time on the final day, which is always a flat ride into Paris. Someone might have ended up winning the Tour by a fraction of a second. But it would have been a dramatic stage fraught with tension, where any advantage gained would have been decisive. Instead, we will get the usual ceremonial procession with Champagne, and most likely a Mark Cavendish stage win. Oh well. Like the man says: Of all the words of blog and pen, the saddest are “it might have been.”
They tell me that Mark Cavendish achieves a top speed on his sprints of something like 74 kph, or 46 miles an hour. Some people, especially in my neighborhood, can’t go that fast in a car. This is why Cavendish wins stage after stage after stage; Stage 18 was his 4th this year and the 14th of his career.
To put that in perspective a little, Cavendish’s coach and mentor, Erik Zabel—a cycling legend in his own right—had 12 stage wins in a long and illustrious career. Cavendish is barely 25 years old and already has 14, maybe 15 if he takes the final stage in Paris as he did last year.
The record for most career stage wins is held by Eddy Merckx with 34, and you’d have to view Cavendish as a threat to this record, though Cavendish will never in a million years be the cyclist Merckx was. Merckx was a dominant all-around talent who won five Tours and might have won more if he hadn’t been punched in the kidney by a spectator. Cavendish is a specialist who struggles to get through the mountains without being eliminated; he currently sits 154th in the general classification, 3 hours and 49 minutes behind Alberto Contador. But in the last 200 meters or so that determine who is going to win a bunch sprint, Cavendish makes the other very fast professionals look like toddlers riding trikes. In Stage 18 he was without his leadout team but still shot out of the pack and won going away.
Contador still sits an agonizing 8 seconds in front of Andy Schleck, who was powerless to make any headway on a flat, straight stage. He did get to meet Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise, who presumably were in France to promote that movie they made together. They also stood on the podium with Contador at his behest. Is it worth having to put up with Tom Cruise if you get to hang out with Cameron Diaz? That’s a personal decision, I guess.
