I have written many commentaries extolling Lance Armstrong’s remarkable accomplishments – not just as a professional cyclist (most notably his unprecedented and unequaled seven consecutive victories in the Tour de France), but also as a fundraiser for cancer research (most notably the over $400 million he has raised primarily through donations to his LIVESTRONG website).
But I’ve always been mindful of allegations (especially from former teammates like 2006 Tour de France champion Floyd Landis) that his accomplishments were the result of nothing more than his stealth and persistent use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
Here, for example, is what I wrote earlier this year (on February 25) in commentary entitled Lance Armstrong retires … again:
Even worse, his comeback was dogged by increasingly credible reports about his use of PEDs – reports which are now threatening to undermine, if not render null and void, all of his legendary accomplishments…
[S]everal teammates have already ratted on him to federal authorities. And I remember well watching three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond say (on the July 20, 2010 edition of CBS Evening News) that the evidence of Armstrong’s drug use is “overwhelming”. At the time I thought it was Tour envy, but the defiantly drug-free LeMond may yet be vindicated.
But I was not without my own suspicions. For here is how I presaged his fate in this respect almost six years ago (on August 25, 2005) in a commentary entitled French trying to ensnare Armstrong in drugs scandal:
Is Lance Armstrong a legitimate sports hero or a cycling dope fiend who used his cocktail of cancer drugs to mask the illegal drugs he took to juice his body through seven consecutive victories in the Tour de France? Lance, buddy, say it ain’t so…
[A]n indictment would precipitate a fall from grace that surpasses Bernie Madoff’s; not least because Armstrong traded on his reputation as testicular-cancer survivor to raise over $400 million for his LIVESTRONG Foundation. Indeed, I suspect people would not even wait for a jury verdict to begin ripping off their yellow bracelets in disillusionment and utter disgust.
Well, it pains me to concede today that the evidence is indeed overwhelming that Lance fueled his way to cycling glory on a cocktail of PEDs that make those he took to treat his cancer seem like mere aspirin by comparison. I was finally persuaded by the extremely credible revelations of two more former teammates on Sunday’s edition of 60 Minutes.
This program reported that Tyler Hamilton, the 2004 Olympic cycling champion and, more importantly, the teammate who was most closely associated with Lance when he won his first Tour in 1999, and George Hincapie, who was Lance’s best friend and his teammate in each of his seven Tour victories, have both corroborated the allegations of their other former teammate Floyd Landis, which I referenced above. Namely, that they saw Lance inject himself with PEDs; that he supplied them with the stuff; and that he discussed having used the banned steroid testosterone to prepare for competition.
Most troubling for Lance, however, is that Tyler and George have now joined a long list of witnesses, including Landis and LeMond, who have testified recently about his use of PEDs before a federal grand jury that is investigating the prevalence of doping in U.S. cycling.
Here, for example, is a little of how Tyler told 60 Minutes he testified during his appearance:
[Lance] took what we all took … there was EPO (erythropoietin) … testosterone … a blood transfusion… I saw (EPO) in his refrigerator. I saw him inject it more than one time, like we all did, like I did many, many times.
(May 22, 2011)
What made Tyler so credible to me was his obvious contrition and reluctance to implicate Lance – repeatedly insisting that this cycling God was only doing what he and all of the other cyclists were doing. Not to mention the honorable and instructive precedent he set by voluntarily returning his Olympic gold medal as part of his efforts to make restitution and seek redemption.
Even more telling, however, was Lance’s refusal to appear on 60 Minutes with Tyler to refute his accusations. Instead he had his lawyer issue a statement not just protesting his innocence, but dismissing Tyler in the same arrogant and self-righteous manner he has dismissed all previous accusers; i.e., by insisting that they were either jealous of his success or financially motivated. He then tweeted this pithy bit of information as if it were the official finding of the grand jury:
20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case.
Except that Tyler also said that Lance admitted to him that he tested positive for PEDs during the Tour of Switzerland in 2001. Tyler revealed, however, that such was the vested interest cycling’s governing body (the UCI) had in Lance’s unbelievable, in fact unnatural, success story that it covered up the test results. Furthermore, he said that the UCI continually looked the other way as Lance’s enablers executed the extensive doping regime that made him the cycling phenom he became.
In fact, the UCI’s credibility is fatally undermined by reports that it accepted over $125,000.00 in donations from Lance. And his protestation of innocence is further undermined by the fact that so many other superstars (including Marion Jones and Barry Bonds) did the same until they were convicted in a court of law.
This, I fear, is the ignominious fate that awaits Lance. For now he’s enjoying the presumption of innocence in the court of public opinion, which he’s cleverly stoking with his Twitter defense. Sadly, like O.J. Simpson, he clearly has so much vested in his own lies that he can never come clean about what he knows, and what the world now knows, he did.
But he will be indicted; he will be convicted; and he will go to prison. And, just like Marion, it won’t be for taking PEDs, but for lying so openly and notoriously about it. I am equally certain that it’s only a matter of time before the French move to strip him of his seven Tour titles.
That said, the real tragedy here is not Lance falling from grace, but the disillusionment this is bound to cause among the millions of cancer survivors who derived life-sustaining inspiration from his “LIVESTRONG” life story. That his life story is turning out to be a phenomenal fraud is devastating enough for me. I can only imagine the impact it’s having, and will have, on them.
Finally, I’m on record stating my libertarian belief that all drugs, including PEDs, should be decriminalized. These revelations about Lance only reinforce my belief:
Although Lance Armstrong never tested positive, practically every Frenchman believes the 7-time Tour de France Champion is nothing more than a cycling dope fiend. But similar clouds of suspicion hang over superstars in every sport these days – from those in baseball to swimming. And the only way to bring integrity to sports is to repeal the moral prohibition against drug use and allow athletes to do or take whatever they deem is necessary to be successful….
(A plea for Landis… et al: decriminalize drugs…, The iPINIONS Journal, August 3, 2006)
Hell, all we need now is to find out that Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt used PEDs to fuel their way to Olympic glory….
Anyway, having ridiculed the French for their contemporaneous and indignant complaints about Lance being a dirty American who was defiling their glorious Tour, I clearly owe them an apology. I hereby offer it, unreservedly.
Related commentaries:
Lance Armstrong retires…again
A plea for Landis…