The Scummy Lance Armstrong

By Rod Dreher • January 15, 2013, 12:28 AM

AP reports that he admits doping to Oprah Winfrey. If so, he is a dirtbag for the ages, a lying, despicable cheater who deserves to be stripped of his dignity and his winnings. May we never hear from him again, except as a warning to others. Unless, of course, he goes away and quietly — quietly! — redeems himself like the saintly John Profumo did.

Honestly, Lance Armstrong. Honestly. I really thought he was one of the good guys.

I count it against him that he’s doing this confessional with Oprah. Nothing against Oprah at all, but this is a pretty blatant PR move by Armstrong. If he really felt shame and regret for what he’s reportedly admitted to, why go on TV and agonize over it? I don’t get it. At all. It’s all so repulsive and cynical and … American.

Posted in Decline and Fall. Tagged Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey.

59 Responses to The Scummy Lance Armstrong

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The Wet One says:

January 15, 2013 at 11:40 am

As what I hope, but probably won’t be, my final comment on this thread, this example in sport along with all the others exemplies why I can’t stand my fellow humans and myself. We’re all fallen, broken, corrupt creatures worthy of nothing more than condemnation, persecution and hellfire.

I know that’s why Jesus died on the cross for us to save us from our sins (which most of us are doing here, a la he who is without sin can cast the first stone…) but I don’t have to be as magnanimous as Christ the Lord. Were it up to me (and thankfully it’s not) we’d all be in the Void for failing to meet my expectations, moral or otherwise. Lance is just a public failure. The rest of you, I’ll see your failures on the road and that’s enough to cast you into hellfire.

In short, judge not lest ye be judged, for you have not yet taken the log out of your eye before criticizing your brother for the speck in his.

I’ll go away now.
J Harris says:

January 15, 2013 at 12:27 pm

@thehova

I disagree with your assessment. Just because they all cheated doesn’t mean that his accomplishment stands. How do you know the levels at which he juiced versus their juicing. Once you introduce another variable, especially one that increases performance so much it is not a level playing field.

He was a win at all costs type of guy. I wouldn’t put it past him to pay other doper’s doctors to give them some tainted, or less than ideal, EPO or whatever else the cyclists were using.

The thing about riding a bike that is different from nearly all other sports is that it is basically just an assessment of cardiovascular and muscular ability (not to the extent that the Olympic sprints are, but close) I would wager my entire life savings that all Olympic sprinters are on steroids.

Someone else brought up Tiger Woods saying that he possibly was on steroids. The difference there is that hitting a golf ball requires a skill set apart from pure athletic ability.

I have played basketball with a few guys on steroids, they got huge but still couldn’t hit a field goal.

Doping is a complex system and I am sure that he had the best of the best juicing him. So I think they might as well give each of his doctors a tour medal. They won the thing for him.

I agree with Rod regarding Lance’s attitude around the whole thing. The guy is a classless jerk and I hope that they uphold his lifetime ban. I am sure he will throw countless others that he bullied under the bus just so he can win some marathons with some new drug and feel like he is a champion again.
Church Lady says:

January 15, 2013 at 1:38 pm

I’m not one who follows cycling or most sports, and have nothing to say about Lance himself as a person, I can only say that this sort of thing is inevitable when the purpose of sports is reduced solely to winning. Once upon a time, sports was considered a leisurely way of simply staying in shape. Then it’s competitive element began to take over, bit by bit, until it became completely dominant, and fueled by humungous amounts of money and attention. From what I can tell, Armstrong is the product of this reduction of sports to a purely competitive enterprise, such that only the winners are celebrated and rewarded. It’s not Armstrong who is the asshole here, it’s the fans, who celebrated him for winning, and thus enabled his strategy of winning at all costs. He just did what everyone required him to do. And it would appear that he was far from alone. Most of the other world class athletes were also doping. Lance was just so competitive that he made sure he was better at doping than everyone else too.
KC says:

January 15, 2013 at 4:06 pm

But why? Media reports he has a fortune of over $1oo million. Why not just slink away & enjoy his money?

Is he just unable to stand not being in the limelight?

If he competes in professional sports again, surely he has a limited shelflife given his age.
David J. White says:

January 15, 2013 at 6:12 pm

I hold no brief for Lance Armstrong, as an athlete or a human being, and I certainly don’t admire a number of things he’s done in his life. I am also not particularly a sports fan.

But as for doping, I really cannot for the life of me see the difference between taking a drug that enhances your performance, and wearing a specially-designed shoe that enhances your performances, or following a particular diet or training regimen that enhances your performance. These drugs are dangerous and can have long-term health consequences? So can a lot of things that people do. We’re finding out more and more that the simple act of playing football over a period of years can cause irreversible brain damage. One only has to look at Muhammad Ali to see what years of prizefighting can do to a person. I think an argument can be made that competing at the highest level in any athletic endeavor requires athletes to punish their bodies in ways that may have long-term deleterious consequences.

So, I am disgusted with the Lance Armstrong who lied consistently and repeatedly, who slandered his teammates, who ditched the wife who stood by him. The Lance Armstrong who took performance-enhancing drugs doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

If you really want all athletes to compete on a level playing field so that it really is all about — and only about — individual athletic ability, then for a specified period of time before the competition — say, six months — the athletes in a given competition should all have to eat the same diet, follow the same training regimen, receive the same medical care, wear the same gear, and use the same equipment. Otherwise, let it be every man for himself.

But then, as I said, I’m not particularly a sports fan. I don’t care about this stuff enough to have much interest in what these people do with themselves.

As for the argument that athletes who dope make poor role models, well, who said we should be looking at professional athletes as role models?

I also don’t buy the analogy comparing performance-enhancing drugs to academic cheating. In academic cheating, you get the answers ahead of time. That would be like Lance Armstrong hiring a driver to deposit him at the finish line, and then claim that the cycled the whole way. He still cycled the distance, and no one can take that away from him.

But I do like the argument about keeping a level playing field. If performance-enhancing drugs are considered cheating, then in an academic setting I would define cheating to include special tutoring, special prep classes, etc. — anything that some kids have access to that others don’t, is cheating. That’s a level playing field. If you got a higher score on the SAT because your parents paid $500 for you to take some special prep class that not all other students in your cohort had access to, you cheated. But if things like that are OK, then I don’t see why doping isn’t OK too.
Ostrea says:

January 15, 2013 at 7:15 pm

I am a sports fan to some degree. I follow football and baseball and watch golf when I need help getting to sleep. I have no use for basketball or hockey. That being said, I largely agree with what David J. White said about doping. To my mind, drugs are just another tool and not much different from nutrition regimes and customized equipment. Doping in cycling (and other sports) – meh. Lance Armstrong’s real sin is breaking rules and lying about it, even if the anti-doping rules make no sense.
Josh McGee says:

January 15, 2013 at 11:17 pm

Church Lady,

To add to that, we might all be surprised how low we might be willing to stoop if were so close to that multi-million dollar contract or that lucrative endorsement deal or the adoration of millions of fans.

That we don’t like to think of ourselves in that way or that we are confident we would never do such a thing may only reveal we’ve never been thus tempted. Stories like Armstrong’s and those of baseball always make me amazed when I learn about the person who was almost good enough, likely would have made it had they just juiced, yet chose not to. That, to me, is the more interesting story. People often say, “Everyone was doing it.” Not true. Many, maybe even most, may have been doing it. But in all of these scandals you find about the person who refrained. To that person I tip my cap and say, “You are a far better person than I.”
Rich says:

January 16, 2013 at 12:09 am

Rod: “I really thought he was one of the good guys.”

Really? At the height of his fame, the dude left is wife and two young kids. This was the wife who helped him through his cancer treatment. I had him ID’d as scummy as soon as I heard that, which was years ago.
Sean Scallon says:

January 16, 2013 at 1:43 pm

Thanks for all the compliments from everyone. I must give credit to Chris Hayes for coming up with the term “Fail Decade” and I’m glad he did because I myself have been racking my brain trying to figure out the demarcation line of the past 10 years. While a lot of these problems were of long standing, theirs really came to light during these decades. I agree there has been more demand for honesty and authenticity and I think 9-11 is the main culprit. When something like that happens to your country, you can’t but help demand more accountability in institutions if only so the dead that do not so in vain. The 90s were a much more cynical time, politics more bemusement than civil combat (Hulk Hogan for President anyone?). Perhaps it was time we were growing up from the Cold War and perhaps growing up from more of the American mythos. That ended on 9-11. The nation was at war again and when you’re war there’s no time cynicism and snark. It’s time to rally all together in act as one . But in so doing exposed the rot behind the means of acting in a time of war. It could not help but happen. If Obama is “managing our decline” it I suspect that’s because it’s true and people wanted someone competent in that position, not someone still in delusion.