OK. Let’s talk about Lance, then
On Monday, the Rouleur came through the post. Nothing unusual, there. I remembered that I was looking forward to it, but I couldn’t remember why. So, I took it out of its wrapping (if you don’t know the subscriber’s edition of the Rouleur magazine comes in a non-transparent nylon wrapping) and the first thing I saw was a half a face that looked very familiar. This is Lance. It is Lance! And then the penny dropped… that’s why I was looking forward to it! The Interview with Lance Armstrong.
Then, yesterday I saw this tweet:
The tweet points to this blog post. I read the interview (the first part; the second part will be on the next edition of the Rouleur) and since Ian says “We need to talk about Lance“, I thought “yes, why not?”
So, what do I think of it? and him? OK, Lance is angry. No, I mean really angry. The guy is pissed. “Who cares?” I hear some of you, shouting there at the back. “He deserves worse” somebody else says. I know, I know, but let’s hear him out first. Shall we? I am not going to spoil it for you; you will have to read The Interview on Rouleur. Basically what Lance says is that he got a life-time ban from all Olympic sports whilst other walked away with a 6-month off-season ban. He also claims that he wasn’t the only one doping,
Let’s see what his peers say. Many riders, say that he is the worst thing that happened to cycling. There are those, though, who although do not shout from the top of their voices, they say that he wasn’t the only one. The stories of former pro-cyclists who admitted one way or another that they were doping are there for everyone to read.
As for the fact that the others got away with a slap on the wrist while he is banned for life from all sports (apart from chess, maybe), he is right too. The worst thing he did, I think, was the intimidation and bullying of anyone that went against him. On that he admitted that he was being an idiot (to put it mildly). The admission does not make it right, but I think that we need to recognise that and give him half a point.
Then, I hear you say that he is an arrogant so and so. And I say, “show me a professional athlete that competes in international level and I will show you an arrogant so and so. you don’t go to win the Tour saying “Well, if we are good enough and a bit lucky and the other competitors are not in a great shape and with God’s will, we might win this year”. No, you go all psyched-up saying “I am the best. I am the bloody best and everybody else is a whole lot of nothing!”. That’s how you become arrogant and intimidating and a bully. Don’t get me wrong, I do not say in any way that he was right to be a bully and intimidate people the way he did the Andreus, for example.
But, at the end of the day, Lance has some things to say that I think they could help the sport. I don’t really think he has anything to lose any more. The only thing that he might try to gain is to look a bit less of an idiot. Will he lie? Maybe. But as long as people treat him with decency, without glorifying him either, it will be fine. For some reason, I think that if at any time he suspects that he can become a demigod, again, he will take the chance to project himself as the unlucky soul that got caught having taken a couple of paracetamol tablets more than the doctor prescribed. So, lets treat him like another human being that made a mistake and feels sorry about it, hear what he has to say and see what we can do to save cycling. Shall we?