It’s been almost two years since Lance Armstrong confessed his sins to Oprah, after an eviscerating investigation by the US Anti-Doping Agency confirmed what cycling insiders knew for years: the seven-time Tour de France champion — one of the most famous athletes in the world — was a cheater.
Looking back, with the fury and rage beginning to settle, it’s time to consider the outcome. What do we think of the Great Hope now?
To recap: Armstrong wasn’t just a cheater. He was a cheater of astounding proportions, whose maniacal need to win and unflinching ability to lie turned him into a global icon of hope and perseverance. After surviving testicular cancer, Armstrong conquered the most grueling test in sport and won it seven times. It was unbelievable. Or should have been. But while some people didn’t believe it, most of us did and Armstrong became the embodiment of a miracle, much bigger than the sport he dominated. More than 90 million yellow Livestrong bracelets were sold for his foundation, while it’s safe to wager that only a fraction of the people wearing them could name another cyclist who has won the Tour de France.
Accordingly, Armstrong’s dismantling went beyond anything we’ve seen before. Stripped of seven yellow jerseys, a lifetime ban from any competition within the jurisdiction of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the loss of millions corporate sponsorships and being booted from his own charity (which saw a 30 per cent dip in donations in the year after the scandal broke).
And A-Rod thinks he has it tough?
I don’t feel bad for Lance Armstrong. He was an ego-driven bully who sought to crush anyone in his way; publicly from the soapbox of his fame and litigiously with a war chest no one could touch. He shamelessly exploited the inspiration he gave people affected by cancer in commercials for Nike that added to his rising fortune. He would have continued with the lie as long as we were willing to believe it.
A recent article by Esquire caught up with the Texan in exile. It was an honest account of a flawed man, trying desperately to be good at golf, and it caused me to feel a slight, fleeting pang of pity. Pity, of all things! The article also revealed that the president of Livestrong is willing to welcome Armstrong back to the charity. Later, the chairman of the Livestrong board doused the idea—but it was a clear indication that the namesake’s return has been considered.
And for good reason. Armstrong remains a hero to many people. He still represents the inspiration they found when all the fear and pain of that terrible, vicious disease threatened destroy their will. He is still a symbol of strength to many who have lost loved ones to cancer, and who plan to fight for a cure to this beast of an illness until their own time in this world is done.
When I first wrote about the USADA report and the fallout for Armstrong, I found the name of a young boy who Armstrong thanked in his second autobiography, Every Second Counts. Cameron Stewart was only three when he was diagnosed with leukemia. His two-year battle with the disease left him unable to walk. But he and his father Paul watched Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, and Cameron decided he wanted to be like the hero in yellow. The father and son practiced together on a bike—dad pushing along from behind—until one day Cameron found the strength to pedal himself. He dedicated his young life to raising money to support others with cancer to find a cure to the disease.
Cameron was 15 when his hero fell to earth. His walls were plastered in Armstrong posters and he wore his Livestrong bracelet every day. He was crushed, but he decided to keep wearing his bracelet, because the hope it gave him had been real all along.
I emailed Paul Stewart, Cameron’s dad, to ask what they think of Armstrong now, nearly two years on. Cameron still wears his bracelet. He also keeps one on the frame of his mountain bike when he races for his high school. His room is still lined with those posters and the photo of the time Armstrong came to visit. For Paul, there is no place for Armstrong to win back his admiration as an athlete. “But what he does have is our gratitude” Paul says. “(The pictures) serve as a reminder for the fight we all went through for three years to beat cancer.”
This was always bigger than sports. The Tour de France was just the setting for Armstrong’s myth. But even as the hero is exposed as a villain, what the myth provides—the hope and inspiration—can’t be entirely undone.
At the end of Alex Gibney’s fascinating documentary The Armstrong Lie, the disgraced cyclist thinks about the future:
“People will forgive and forget and move on, or they won’t,” he says. “At some point people will say, ‘Okay, here’s what happened’ and judge for themselves. I don’t know what people will think in 20, 40, 50 years. Is the record book going to be blank for seven years? … Or do people look at this thing in the context that it is and say ‘Yeah, he won the Tour de France seven times.’”
That’s my bet. The memory of the vindictive, cruel way he fought to contain his lies will fade. Remember, in all seven of Armstrong’s wins all but one of the cyclists who finished on the podium were implicated in doping scandals. Everyone was dirty. People still view him as a hero who did what he had to do to succeed in a sport that essentially accepted doping as a necessity, and managed to raise more than $500 million to support people with cancer.
Nothing about Armstrong’s story, from his truly inspirational bout with cancer to his fraudulent rise to the pantheon of sports, suggests that this is a man who is about to quit. He’s done in cycling, sure. But that was only part of him.
You can spew all the rage and hate you want—Armstrong’s legacy isn’t finished. He’ll be back, rising fast, and this is a man who doesn’t intend to lose.