The Ceremony of Innocence Is Drowned

Such a Melodramatic Title

January 18, 2013, Richmond VA USA, 1912 hrs.

Yesterday was the day that the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN, as in “I own your as* and will dominate all media by 2030.”) aired part one of her interview with Lance Armstrong. On OWN, I am reminded of the Sega Genesis game which had the late career #19 Joe Montana, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs, on its cover, called “NFL ’95,” which featured a voice that sounded like Lawrence Taylor trash talking, available after a QB sack or when you were breaking away for a touchdown. One of the trash talking lines was “I OWN you!” To be honest, I didn't know that Oprah owned a network until I heard about the interview, but that didn't surprise me. So I tuned in for this strange mutual bid for attention, as they sat there with two glasses of water with bendy straws between them.

Sega Genesis memories notwithstanding, the Oprah Winfrey Network aired part one of an interview with disgraced and fallen American cycling hero Lance Armstrong last night. “Lance” as I had come to call him, on a first name basis like so many others who probably wouldn't have ponied up more money than is logical for a machine to ride on myself. He has been a hero to zillions of people due to his cancer survival and foundational humanitarian efforts, plus those ubiquitous yellow bracelets. That is not why I considered him a hero, though. I considered him a hero for his cycling. Some seem surprised that he was or is as vituperative as he is, but to me, he always seemed like a bit of a jerk anyway- to ride the Alpe d’Huez you probably have, or need, to be possessed of some level of self-loathing, masochism, and be fiercely competitive. So I am not surprised to learn that so many people found him to be difficult and a bully. I guess many people had a saintly image of him, never had seen his curt, dismissive interviews after stage wins, didn’t know that the French always loathed him anyway, and just saw yellow bracelets and knew that he survived cancer and was “good.” Honestly, the humanitarian stuff had very little effect on my perception of the man; in the current era, many with means feel it necessary to start a charity or foundation that has a cause for goodwill, and I imagine it isn’t that hard, with that much money, to sit on a nominal board and pop in and out of events. This was not exceptional to me, but his cycling was. I judged him on his merits on the bike alone. (Similarly, Kelly Slater is probably the best surfer of all time, but is fairly boring in interviews. Big deal, he's known for surfing, not speaking).

During this current media circus surrounding Armstrong, it is interesting that there has been very little commentary or insight from those that actually knew who Armstrong was as a cyclist. Oprah Winfrey surely demonstrated that she does not know the sport last night, asking nothing specific after Lance claimed it is impossible to win seven times without doping; over on NBC, Bob Costas claimed to Brian Williams that maybe 2-3% of Americans followed the sport outside of Lance Armstrong, and that he enjoys a status different from a baseball player, for example, based on the reasoning that Americans are ignorant of the sport. I’m not sure I agree, but I guess if we found out that Michael Jordan were a fraud, there would be more collective disappointment? I’m not so sure it matters, when you’re talking about a figure of this magnitude. No one “follows” swimming, to speak of, but if Michael Phelps were doping, don’t you think that there’d be some level of disappointment in the air? Costas even claimed that many Americans would not recognize cycling luminaries like the American Greg LeMond or Spaniard Miguel Indurain. I can see that no one knows who Indurain is, a five-time Tour winner in the early 90’s, who also doped, but LeMond- an American three-time winner of the Tour? No one has heard of the now only legitimate American winner of the Tour de France, doing it on a diet of Mexican food and ice cream, riding with no helmet?

I already knew and accepted that Armstrong doped long before this interview, but unlike many in the sports media, at least in this country, who have a cursory interest in or knowledge of what the sport is, and only know vaguely that Armstrong had dominated the Tour for so long, I actually know that there are other events outside of grand tours, that there are actually three grand tours, and that the one day classics (Paris-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo, Milan-Torino, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, etc.) are actually equally and sometimes more prestigious events amongst actual cyclists. For that reason I don’t dismissively want him to be executed and talk about the Notre Dame player’s dead girlfriend hoax (that said, that other story shows that the media does little reporting, other than Twitter feed repeating, and shouldn’t you figure out if there is an obituary at least if you are going to report on a death?). All of that said, since I care about the sport, I am ultimately saddened and disappointed. I don’t hate him now or want him to die like so many angry comments on the Internet (never read comments to online articles unless you want to lose faith in mankind). 

I will still say that tactically and mentally he was an exceptional rider, at least to me, since I learned to understand the sport watching Armstrong. It is not for nothing that he won seven times, cheating or not, since yes basically the entire field was doping during that era. The only podium finisher of all twenty one during the seven Tours that Lance "won" who never admitted to doping, be convicted of doping or a related offense, or make a financial arrangement to have charges dismissed was Spanish rider and 2002 second place finisher Joseba Beloki, according to Bicycling Magazine. Floyd Landis, Jan Ullrich (paying 250,000 Euros to a German judge to stay on the podium for years outside of his positive drug test in 2006), Ivan Basso, Alberto Contador and countless others were implicated in doping scandals. In some of these cases, such as Ullrich’s, common European legal practices allowed them to remain winners of races that fell outside of the much less stringent statutes of limitations than those imposed by USADA (The United States Anti-Doping Agency), which of course is the governing body that ultimately provided the legal teeth which brought Armstrong’s story to light. Police had raided the 1998 Tour for drugs, finding them in a team car of Swiss rider Alex Zulle, who finished second in 1999. This was the penultimate Tour prior to Lance’s winning streak, which was partly why Armstrong was seen originally as the Savior. So much for that. The “generation,” as Lance put it to Oprah, is tainted as a whole.

Wouldn't it be great to have 250,000 Euros to throw away? (That's a little over 330,000 USD.)

Anyway, yes, he is clearly a fraud and a liar, and has behaved as such. But he has been treated differently because he won, and here in the United States, he has been treated differently because he is being viewed outside of the context of the sport he practiced, since barely anybody seems to be aware of that context. Costas is correct to a point. One online comment I read said something like, "If I wanted to read about a pr*ck who rode a bike, I would just read about Portland." That's pretty funny, actually, but shows a snapshot of how much people really understand cycling, the sport...Perhaps it is easier to picture the "Portlandia" character, self-righteously yelling that "Whole Foods is corporate!" from his fixed gear. I saw a guy last night riding in the snow adorned with a courier bag, on a vintage steel Motobecane sled, who had to be working quite hard for that affectation...you get the point. Neither of these archetypes of the studied, self-conscious hipster who rides dejectedly down the middle of the road, as some sort of stick it to the man gesture have anything to do with the sport cycling, of course. They have as much as common as "smear the queer" (a football-like game where anyone who has the ball gets tackled; no points can even be scored) has with the NFL. 

Considering that it is an unknown sport, overall, I don’t know why no American journalist that I have read so far (included heavyweights like deadspin.com or ESPN) have done any comprehensive research on the context of the Armstrong era and the sordid history of the many doping cases on the international circuit. I don’t think that diminishes the infractions, but it certainly makes them much more understandable. Does drug use amongst the urban and rural poor make more sociological sense to you? Probably, as it has an understandable context. Performance enhancing drug use is no different than any other societal ill being viewed through the peephole that is the public interest and the 24 hour news cycle- which of course happens all of the time, as the media and the public characterize so many events with glib, attention-deficient, voyeuristic fascination. Also, to an athlete at a certain level, there is not that much difference in their tunnel vision to win between pain killers and performance enhancers. It is further evidence that the drug culture is pervasive and pernicious. Considering that cyclists begin their serious careers at such a young age, how do we expect them to differentiate between druuuugs and drugs, as Homer Simpson once put it to Bart?

None of this diminishes the severity of his behavior, or justifies it. But context has been lacking from so many reports on this, like Lance Armstrong was a top-hatted, caped man with a large Fu Manchu mustache, tying young riders who didn’t dope to the train tracks.

Greg LeMond- who has a little more credibility than me, and won the Tour in 1986, ’89, and ‘90- will disagree with any positive assessment of Armstrong’s actual talents. LeMond, who has enjoyed a professional hatred of Armstrong for years, will say that his talents are average- not a great climber, not much of a time trialist- and that Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton could have beat him on a level playing field. (I’m not quoting). I don’t know if that is sour grapes or acrimonious jabbing in the media, as big personalities and egos are prone to do, or a reasoned assessment of his ability as a rider. If Armstrong is to be believed, which is hard to do these days, then he raced clean after his comeback to the Astana Team. He placed third in the 2009 Tour de France general classification, won a stage, while feuding throughout with Spanish winner and Astana captain Alberto Contador. During that Tour there was manufactured drama that Armstrong, while playing lieutenant to Contador, would mount an attack to capture the yellow jersey. To some it was reminiscent of the great battles between LeMond and Frenchman Bernard Hinault, known as the "The Badger," a 5-time Tour winner who once threw a punch at an obstructive spectator on the race course. Hinault also achieved the rare triple crown in cycling, winning the Tour de France five times, the Giro d'Italia three times, and the Vuelta a Espana twice.

It is impossible to know what would have happened, who would have won, and how anyone, Armstrong or not, would have done without the rampant drug epidemic that consumed the culture of the sport. Ultimately it is a lost decade or so. I see how Lance’s vociferous and acerbic lying must sting so much more for those with thoughts of the careers that could have been, those that refused to dope, and hence never rode a grand Tour- like all sports, cycling is a young man’s game and the window is small for competing at that demanding of a level.

I am reminded that the blessing of life is easily cursed with human indignity and pride: consider Job and Jeremiah cursing the hour they were born, despite their profound understanding of the promises that they were to receive. Why can success and abundance have the same effect, of creating evil in man’s heart? Pride, plenty and success seem to rain down in a pestilence on so many luminous figures through the ages, blackening their hearts and making them mad with pride. Watching Armstrong was almost like reading a less eloquent Solomon in Ecclesiastes, reflecting sagaciously after tasting the ephemeral pleasures of life and the flesh that all is nothing but vanity and chasing after the wind. Similarly, if he was actually contrite, it wasn’t that different than an alcoholic’s admission when they realize that they can’t lie anymore. Have you seen "Flight" with Denzel Washington? The denouement of the film features a similar moment. (Hope I didn't ruin it for you). It is like Lance Armstrong has experienced the apotheosis of a recovering alcoholic who can no longer allow himself to lie anymore. Or at least he is saying the right things. 

I offer these thoughts not as a professional sports commentator, or a professional cyclist, because I am neither, but just someone who admired the man for his ability and achievements in their own moment, who probably wants to find a way to forgive him, who gets a little sick of the fact that American sports outlets ignore everything outside of baseball, football, and basketball, who saw in Lance Armstrong something that was good and pure, performed with unapologetic zeal and conviction, and is now reduced to being a hated fraud…I am reminded of Yeats, possibly bemoaning the fallen state of the world, mortality’s stain: “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

P.S.- After I composed this I noticed that Armstrong said that he thought he could come back to the 2009 Tour and win during the second Oprah interview, which is interesting since he was not the captain of his team and it was his role to pull for Contador. (Again, I wished that she knew the sport better here because a claim like that demands a follow up question). Going back to the Hinault-LeMond comparison, some claimed that it was similar to Hinault's philosophy that LeMond would not become a great champion unless he was able to defend the yellow jersey, even if it were from a rider on his own team. Perhaps it is Pollyanna like to even talk about Armstrong as an athlete anymore, who had real winning ambition, but even in the throes of doping, watching the actual Tours, you saw that there was real conviction and desire in winning, perhaps furthered by a delusion in the fairness of cheating.