(Photo: Carrie Devorah / WENN)
Seven-time Tour de France cycling champion Lance Armstrong cheated. When confronted about it, he lied. To this day he continues to lie. In recent months USADA, the US Anti-Doping Agency, has finally slammed him with the full weight of its charges against him and the evidence to back them up. His titles have been stripped and he has been banned from the sport. His major sponsors have dropped him. And still he denies any wrongdoing.
This evening, CNN banged the nails into Armstrong’s figurative coffin and kicked the dirt in after him with its hour-long program “The World According to Lance Armstrong.” Every sordid detail. Interviews with many of the principals. Evidence from Europe. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Armstrong is not an admirable person. He is not a sportsman. He is not a winner or a champion. He is a cheat and a liar. The only honorable thing he can do now is confess.
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You know what is weird – how often this happens.
Completely unrelated, but I read a news story recently (I think in Time or Newsweek) about the former BBC newscaster Jimmy Savile. He supposedly got away with some horrendous activity for his entire career.
It got me thinking about why we get taken in by these characters. How do they get away with what they get away with? I guess we are all too trusting. Or, rather, we want to believe the story. So much so, we’ll forgive (or forget) anything.
I’ve always been too trusting. I’ve always wanted the fairy tale, the storybook ending, the hero on a pedestal. I set myself up for disappointments like Armstrong. On the flip side, the thing I can least tolerate in others is lying. Especially when someone lies to me. When it happens, I’m unlikely to forgive or forget.
Hope he does! I stupidly thought he was being honest!
Oh, I did too. As recently as two months ago I was still holding out some hope. Now he just needs to man up and admit it.
So wanted to believe him but no more…
My book of role models and heroes is getting perilously thin …