The two most famous Armstrongs have both been in the news recently: Neil for dying, and Lance for being banned for life from all sports the USADA has jurisdiction over. The two men led their lives in vastly different ways.
Neil was a fighter pilot, then a test pilot, then an astronaut. All three activities require significant physical courage.
After Neil retired from NASA in 1971, he initially avoided the many offers he had from various corporations to act as their spokesman. He finally relented in 1979, and became a spokesman for Chrysler, partly because he admired their engineering department, and partly just because they were in trouble. After that, he served as a spokesman and director for several other companies, though he refused to work for any non-American firms.
After 1994 Neil stopped giving autographs because he heard that they were being resold for large sums of money. According to Wikipedia, "He also stopped sending out congratulatory letters to new Eagle Scouts, because he believed that these letters should come from people who know the Eagle Scouts personally."
One way Neil probably didn't live his life on the straight and narrow was when it came to women. He met his second wife in 1992, two years before his first wife divorced him. I have to imagine that having been the first man on the moon, along with a certain amount of natural flyboy swagger, made him absolute catnip to the ladies.
Lance has been in the headlines much more than Neil for the past fifteen years. This blog made the case that he is a sociopath back in November of 2010; his recent behavior has been true to form.
As the United States Anti-Doping Agency net has closed around him, Lance has continued to deny all the claims against him. He continually cites the drug tests he passed, accused the USADA of acting unconstitutionally, and filed a countersuit against them trying to prevent them from proceeding. But early Friday morning he gave up his right to arbitration. The USADA reportedly had over ten former teammates, trainers and doctors ready to testify against him, and had recent blood samples which were "consistent with doping."
Lance was self-righteous to the end, saying, "there comes a time in every man's life when he has to say, 'Enough is enough.' For me, that time is now. The toll this has taken on my family and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today -- finished with this nonsense."
No mea culpas, no feelings of embarrassment that he has finally been caught, no sense of guilt that he might have deprived a clean athlete of his moment of glory. Just the anger that the constitutionally guiltless feel when accused of something they are guilty of.
Both Armstrongs were American icons. Only one stood up to close scrutiny, however.
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4 comments:
They'll take away his medals and officially award them to the runners-up? But maybe they also used performance enhancing drugs and escaped detection just like he did. Cheating seems to have been endemic in sports for a long time now. How do we know all the people he beat out weren't cheaters themselves?
Pete --
You're absolutely right, and cycling is probably the dirtiest sport of all. So taking a medal away from one cheater to give it to another wouldn't seem to represent justice.
But what I've always found repulsive about Armstrong is his self-righteousness and arrogance. He insists on being viewed as noble when he's just the opposite (he reportedly treats everybody who isn't famous like dirt), and instead of admitting guilt when he's caught, insults his accusers instead. Contrast his behavior to Mark McGwire, who always struck me as a decent guy, despite the fact that he too was a cheater. When he was caught, he obviously felt bad about what he'd done, and even broke down crying while testifying. No such reaction from Armstrong, who continues to insist on his innocence in the face of all the people willing to testify against him and the tainted blood sample.
None of this negates your point: the second through tenth place finishers at the Tour de France were probably dirty too. But it's not going to break my heart when they take the medals away from Lance.
Yes, unpleasant personalities abound in the world of elite sports. That's why much of it is a turn-off for me. Cycling being dirty, who'd-a-thunk it? After getting clued in to the whole subject one goes up and down the list of sports and starts seeing it everywhere. One gets into the habit of scrutinizing athletes much more closely for any tell-tale signs. Are there any sports out there that haven't been contaminated by drug cheating?
Pete --
Yes. Chess.
Actually, i think at this point it's a question of ranking the sports in terms of their dirtiness. At the bottom would be "sports" like billiards and auto racing where PED wouldn't help. At the top would be cycling, with track and field (especially sprinting) close behind. I like to think that my sport of swimming is relatively clean these days (meaning only 20% or so of the people at the top are cheating), but maybe I'm being naive. Anyway, yes, it's pretty endemic.
As far as the personalities being a turnoff, absolutely. I know guys who were basketball players who pretty much refuse to watch the NBA for that reason.
But then again, there are guys like Barry Bonds.
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