I would not go as far as to say that Lance Armstrong and his downfall was dealt by me, by following many of the stories that appeared in newspapers from Argentina to Zimbabwe, with sadistic pleasure to watch and wait while a ruthless fighter was indubitably found to have cheated and was dealt with the harshest punishment and great humiliation. The 2010 article in Outside Online about Jeff Novitzki and his lone battle against the Armstrong Clique was an eye opener for me. I was then almost convinced that Armstrong would have doped. But the revealed extent of his doping was beyond my imagination.
To me Armstrong was a hero in the same league as Tiger Woods or a Sachin Tendulkar. I used to watch Tour De France broadcasts by Ten Sports channel in India for atleast the last 4 years when Armstrong won the tour. I still remember the feverish refreshing of my office computer to check the update on tour stages, much to the peril of wrath from my manager. I was a great fan of cycling, which stemmed partly from my two years cycling to college as well a general love for all sports. I adored all top names in cycling, genius Fausto Coppi, great Jacques Anquetil, fighter Raymond Poulidor, the inimitable Merckx, the boss Bernard Hinault, tragic Tom Simpson and coming all the way to majestic Fabian Cancellara, work man like Bradley Wiggins and even the much misunderstood Cadel Evans.
You dont have to be a fan of cycling and a fan of Armstrong to believe and appreciate the magnitude of positive adulation the guy had received with his 7th TdF win. There wasnt any global sports awards that he failed to win. He was in the front pages of almost all famous magazines at times. He dated the famous singer Sheryl Crow, who graced the occasion of 2005 tour during stage ends. He was masculinity personified and the story proved too good to be true, untill we started to believe in the impossible as far as this man was concerned. He was vulnerable in many ways, for me it was his emotional TdF stage win after the death of team mate (Fabio Casartelli) in an accident. It was reported that Armstrong was the most touched man by that tragedy, this to me showed a great human quality within Lance Armstrong. May be the excision of cancerous tumors also took out something valuable, the humaneness, from him.
Yes, unreasoned belief in truth in a man’s deeds is worse than believing in God, for we can reason the unreasonableness of latter but not of former. I can draw many parallels with Armstrongs downfall with other corporate scandals, even the subprime crisis in a broad sense. We all live in a world where the social contract is written and obeyed not for ones absolute benefit but is seen as the best of choices for all of us to live in relative harmony and comfort. So all laws are to be seen as man made creations. With the dawn of rationality we view of anyone, who seems to transgress the laws, as a criminal which was not the case earlier when the powerful could do anything and could get away with with the invocation of the “Sanction of God” as the ultimate ruse to conduct acts that were not optimal for benefit of society. In a strange way, when we as society is seemingly in the most rationalist in all its history, we are faced with such blatant cases of violation of code that, according to me is proof enough there is not any way when we humans will forever be happy living within a set of laws. (There has to be a law for that - behavioural theorists can note).
Even Armstrong for all of his doping career, was drunk in his own invincibility, helped by the army of unscrupulous lawyers at his disposal to come out of any accusation with impunity. Armstrong's interview in Oprah Winfrey Show, its first part, is telling in the way he seemed to justify his wrongdoing with lack of real remorse and with chillingly brutal candor. Yes, the field of cycling of was rife with doping. He seemed to understand the word "cheat" - more as someone who illegally gets performance enhancement, not as some one who works against the law or spirit of sport by transgressing laws. It didnt occur to Armstrong, or in that case some of others who has doped that "the world of cycling became more lope sided with systematic doping rampant in top teams". So much goes for sportsman spirit. Also the famous act of referring to past crimes of great scales to justify a crime, in this case reference of the 70's and 80's systematic doping of GDR athletics team (even US team were accused of doping - Carl Lewis for example), clearly shows that the collective conscience of the man, the team and his whole support system needs serious rethink on resetting the moral compass on what is right and just in the spirit of sport competition. In an insightful article in NYTimes, quoted a former a team mate of Jan Ullrich of T Mobile that most sponsors knew of widespread doping in the teams. The sudden departure of Rabo Bank and T mobiles association itself for 17 years in this sports, when they could easily have been privy to all the misdeeds of the team members and chose not to exit at that point, only to exit when the evidence seemed insurmountable and indubitable clearly show how profit motive drives, and not love of sports drives the whole sport. Gone are the days when pained legs and strained lungs hauled a bicycle unwillingly over treacherous paths for days on end in one grueling schedule to finish as a glorious testament of the power of human spirit.
I cannot come to hate this man any more, I even thought fleetingly of Oprah slapping Armstrong across his face at one point, but even this hate will subside for we all have the infinite capacity to empathize even with some sinners. Armstrong will never be forgiven in my mind, but I think he should not hounded any more and be allowed to live a normal life, for he cannot undo the damage that he has done and has to endure it in the future (economic fallouts seem most important than any other ethical dilemmas - Armstrong) that any thing worse is doing injustice to a man.
I must learn from Armstrong episode - as always is my policy - to be truthful to myself and others with clear moral principles from reasoned assessment of social contract and the set of laws prevailing and to always believe in power of truth that can surface, and also internalize the sense of justice that Paul Kimmage, David Walsh, Betsy Andreau, Emme O'Reilly experienced when the judgment day came, is far far better than living a life of lies and fabrications. Better be a wronged man in the short term and then be vindicated.
I didnt bother to watch the second part aired the very next day.
