Lance Armstrong--My Reaction

Lance's confession was to me like The Godfather confirming the olive oil business was not his true line of work.  Similar to Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, Lance denying use of PEDs was something most avid cyclists began to doubt as the evidence piled up even though we really wanted to believe him. For me the doubt really began during a Tour de France short  time trail when Lance caught and blew by Jan Ulrich.  It was hard for me to believe that anyone could do that to Ulrich over such a short distance without doping.  Anyway the confession's public.  Lance seemed contrite but at times he still put his own controlling spin on things.  Even though he apologized for being a "bully" sometimes he sounded defiant and fighting back.  Tyler Hamilton's reflection that when a person initially confesses it's still hard to be completely open about the past deception is very accurate in my opinion.

Many people still doubt aspects of Lance's confession, and only time will tell whether there are other secrets to be revealed.  I may be one of the minority that believe he did not dope during his comeback.  Any intelligent person--and Lance is very smart--would surely not take a chance on losing it all over a failed test post comeback.   I hope I'm right because his life story over 40+ years is pretty amazing to me. Last week's interview is only a first step and redemption will take a long time and may not be possible.  There are many who will despise him forever.  I think Lance's confession demonstrates to elite athletes that unlimited money and resources do not guarantee immunity.  If Lance can get caught anyone can so perhaps this will help clean up cheating in all elite competition not just cycling.


So what's to become of Lance Armstrong?  While his confessions perhaps are the initial step of a long redemption process, he stands to suffer financially.  Of course collaborating with someone like a David Walsh in a "tell all" memoir would put serious funds back in his bank account.  However, I wouldn't surprised if some years down the road you may see Lance running for governor of Texas.  After all look what 12 years redemption has done for the likes of Ray Lewis and Bill Clinton.  And if that happens--your read it here first!

America the Violent--Post Script

In today's Wall Street Journal I noticed a brief article about a shooting yesterday at a community college in Hazard, Kentucky.  Two people killed, one teenager wounded.  Found other articles on line which identified it as a domestic dispute which happened when very few students were on campus.  Apparently just another typical "debate"--the kind that happen almost every day somewhere in America--not worthy of the attention given to a mass shooting.