Lance Armstrong has done just about everything possible to deny his dope taking, which the French authorities long suspected, until he could do so no more.
Now that Armstrong faces mounting fines and penalties, including lawsuits from sponsors from which he gained tens of millions of dollars, he has said he is willing to tell all about the shady side of cycling in return for leniency.
Somehow, the Texan cyclist has not lost his hubris, even after falling into very deep disgrace.
But it will an interesting take to see what Armstrong has in store, and if there is someone in the business who does know it all when it comes to doping, Armstrong is it.
One of the reasons Armstrong wants to talk is to lessen the blow of the coming penalties, citing for one, that he deserves the same treatment as other cheating cyclists. One of the things Armstrong forgets, is that at seven illegal wins of the Tour de France, he is the poster boy for sport cheating. And he has burned many, many bridges in his career, so that there are not a lot people willing to be loyal to the aging cyclist.
One of the things Armstrong seems to begrudge the most is the fact that while his finances are dwindling, and he stands to lose it all, others are, as he says, 'profiting' from telling his story.
Even as Armstrong stands at the brink of becoming a historical joke, his willingness to tell it all betrays an hypocrisy he expresses willingly when he says that digging up the dirt of cycling will not do the sport much good.
The reality of doping, who many suspected had been entrenched in the sport for many years, might help the sport come to terms with better tracking and testing. But the overarching reality is that doping is here to stay, in one form or another, because there is too much at stake for people not too cheat.
Op-Ed
Source : France 24/ 11.11.13
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