No climbing back for Lance Armstrong now
Barb Shelly
Ice cold.
That’s how Lance Armstrong came across in his interview with Oprah. The angular, expressionless face, those hard blue eyes. His dispassionate answers to questions. He appeared calculating, not sorry.
Armstrong’s description of himself as “an arrogant prick” was accurate and appreciated. But as for the rest of it, coming clean was obviously all business, a necessary step in Lance’s quest to escape a lifetime ban from sanctioned sports. I can picture it now. Armstrong sits out six or seven years then returns to competition, wins the Ironman Triathlon or something, drug free! Wow, what a story. What a guy.
This probably won’t happen. Armstrong’s bad behavior went beyond mere doping and will likely get him banned from competition for life.
He sued people who said he did. He ruined the lives of people in the cycling universe. He looked journalists in the eye, pounded his fist and swore angrily that he was clean and always had been. He cultivated an image of himself as an inspirational figure. Cancer patients and kids bought into the myth.
Armstrong and others are portraying him as a competition junkie, the need to compete and win overruling his better angels. Maybe that was part of it. But he has been finally exposed as a bully and a phony. Even the master competitor will find it hard to climb back from that.
Mark Hastert
3 months, 4 weeks agoArmstrong acts as if he thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room and maybe he is since they never actually caught him red handed. His arrogance has damaged a lot of good earnest people and the good work they do at Livestrong. Odd though, cycling is widely said to be a sport where doping is rampant and Armstrong still managed to win seven titles. If he and all the others had competed clean he might well have still won several times.