Dropping amidst this worldwide corona lockdown, the episodes of ESPN’s documentary on Michael Jordan played out like life-sustaining oases in a global desert. But those of its forthcoming documentary on Lance Armstrong can only play out like death-valley mirages.
Lance Armstrong has admitted he thinks doping might have caused his testicular cancer and also revealed that he was a drugs cheat from the age of 21.
The disgraced former cycling superstar was finally caught nineteen years later, stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and he eventually admitted to doping the following year in 2013.
In an upcoming ESPN documentary titled ‘Lance’, the 48-year-old shed further light on his cheating and now infamous career.
(Daily Mail, May 19, 2020)
Duh.
After all, Oprah scooped ESPN over seven years ago. And, true to her confessional style, she got Armstrong to say all anyone really wanted to hear from him.
But even back then his confession was so anticlimactic that I wrote a mocking commentary titled “Lance Confesses: Oprah’s Big Get?” January 13, 2013. More to the point, that commentary included this quote from an even earlier one:
It pains me to concede today that the evidence is indeed overwhelming that Lance fueled his way to cycling glory on a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs that makes those he took to treat his [testicular] cancer seem like mere aspirin. …
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.
(“Lance Armstrong: Falling from Grace,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 24, 2011)
More to the point, here is why I’m pooh-poohing this ESPN documentary, which ironically will premiere on Sunday – 9 years to the day since I published my commentary on Oprah’s scoop:
What the world needs in this time of corona are stories of people triumphing over adversity, not falling from grace. Beyond this, what kept us riveted to the Jordan documentary were the behind-the-scene glimpses into the private life and thoughts of arguably the most famous man in the history of the world.
By contrast, thanks to Oprah, Armstrong has nothing left to confess. Besides, we watch President Trump every day brazenly running plays from the same playbook they both mastered for success. And I can sum up those plays in four words: deny, lie, project, and repeat. (Hope springs eternal that it’s only a matter of time before Trump becomes a social pariah too.)
Mind you, as the May 2011 quote above indicates, nobody was a bigger Armstrong fan than I. This is why, in “The French Still Trying to Ensnare Cyclist Lance Armstrong in Drugs Scandal,” August 25, 2005, I heaped scorn on his French detractors – who were hounding him as doggedly as the literary Javert hounded Jean Valjean.
But, even then, I hedged a bit in that same commentary as follows:
The French are as notorious for their congenital envy as they are for whining sour grapes. …
If Armstrong turns out to be another [doper], then I’m sure his cycle of bad karma will soon render the one testicle he has left utterly useless.
I prefer not to think about, let alone comment on, the havoc karma might be wrecking on his one testicle these days. But I welcome this opportunity to apologize once again to his French detractors. They were right. I was wrong.
That said, we’re still reveling in the joy that Jordan documentary gave. Therefore, it reeks of cruel intentions for ESPN to take it away with this killjoy documentary on Armstrong.
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Jordan documentary… Oprah’s big get…
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