Road to redemption a road known only too well
Vindication at last. Finally, after all these years, the admission tumbled: “I disrespected the colour yellow.”
It was as much as anyone could take from this week’s cold, cynical performance in Austin. Those nonsensical words carried as much weight as most of the others.
Oh, hang on; for Betsy Andreu, there was, of course, the ultimate absolution. “I called her crazy, I called her a bitch, but I never called her fat.”
An important clarification for anyone who has googled ‘Livestrong’, perhaps in search of information, or inspiration, or solace, and found first — since it ranks higher — the commercial wing, the dot-com, rather than the dot-org.
For a destination that promises to explore the ‘limitless potential of you’, things get underway in a depressingly prosaic place; our limitless waistlines. “Lose 10-25 pounds in eight weeks” is the promise. There is no 112 question cross-examination. Just two. Which membership plan works for you? How would you like to pay?
Maybe that’s where Lance Armstrong’s value system begins and ends. Your body fat ratio. His pocket. However you cheat, whoever you bully, whoever you defame, you cannot just throw around allegations of fatness lightly. There is one line Lance will not cross.
Everything else appeared to be up for grabs.
Probably still is, judging by his evasiveness when tackled by Oprah on most of the specifics of his fake career. Perhaps he brought the whole show down with him in last night’s instalment, but I doubt it.
All of that will be for another day, when there is something more at stake than the truth. That will come when there is something on the table in return.
For now, there was a glimpse of the next phase. The ultimate comeback.
This week, Lance wasn’t speaking to Oprah or David Walsh or Paul Kimmage or Travis Tygart. He wasn’t talking to Emma O’Reilly either or he would have apologised properly rather than pretending he couldn’t even recall he had sued her.
No, Lance was addressing the millions in his congregation who wear, or once wore, those yellow bands. Many are still with him and he has probably already projected how many more he can win back. Maybe someone on his team has already calculated how many will visit another dot-com, tug anxiously at their love handles and select the $99 option.
Hey Lance, the numbers look pretty good. Let’s do it.
So Lance had one message this week for these people.
EPO, testosterone, cortisone; no different, if you want to ride up mountains quickly, than water in your bottle and air in your tyres.
His organisation has specialised in catchy, digestible mantras. The best minds at his disposal have probably been blue-sky thinking and workshopping this one for months. Over two hours, those were the only eight words Lance really wanted to stick.
Water in Your Bottle. Air in Your Tyres.
What choice did Lance have?
He delivered one other ingenious line, which must have disgusted many cancer sufferers but they will have to be written off as collateral damage on this strike.
“This is only the second time in my life I don’t have control over the outcome.”
Now we are all the cancer. At least those of us who won’t give a sucker an even break. We are now the disease Lance must beat.
And when you heard him say, with a straight face, that he will be first in line if a truth and reconciliation commission was formed, it was possible to picture endgame.
He has given the rest of the peloton a head start on the ride to Damascus, but it’s possible to imagine him overtaking them all – Landis, Hamilton, all of them. Another book. Another movement. One day, might he become the most tireless advocate of dope-free sport? Who’d bet against it.
When Olympic champion Nicole Cooke retired from cycling in disgust this week, she reminded us that Tyler Hamilton will make more from describing how he cheated than she made in her entire career.
Let’s not worry too much about Lance’s pocket just yet. Sorry? Fat chance.
