Lance Armstrong’s life has turned dramatic. He once was sitting on top of the world with a stellar cycling career, including winning the Tour de France Cycling championship seven times. Not to mention the mountains of fame, honor and money he received. Now he’s been charged with being a doper and stripped of his accomplishments by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and the Union Cycliste International.
The sad thing is he’s running his mouth so much , it’s proving very easy to everyone to start speculating about his integrity. In essence, it’s Armstrong himself and his very own words that’s building the tragic narrative about his life. Recently, he told the New Yorker Magazine why he chose to accept the USADA’s offer to be stripped of titles by refusing to continue defend himself against their accusations of him taking steroids. He told them! His response to this not too smart tactic is that he just wanted everything over with.
A statement like this is shocking and disappointing, especially to everyone who believes in him. However, after defending his caving in, Armstrong follows up by saying he now wishes he had not done that. He simply defends his words with, “I see how foolish I was.”
Now his once supporters wonder, “What did he expect?” The agency’s offer was to make it easier for them to prove he was indeed a doper just as they had accused him of being in a two-hundred-and-two-page document that, according to Armstrong is, “filled with lies, each more ludicrous than the last. Lies about me forcing teammates to dope, lies that I threatened witnesses and their families, even lies suggesting that I thought the International Cycling Union was “somewhat at fault for the extent of my cancer,” so, “if I ever have a doping problem, I have this card to play.”
The flip side of this drama-filled tragedy is Armstrong is starting to sound like he may be the one who is telling whoppers all along. The question becomes where is he going from here? Particularly, in a world where so many people love to see their heroes fall and hate it when they don’t. Armstrong believes, “It comes as no surprise that the anti-cycling, anti-cycling-silence-code, pro-French-athletic-governing-board-doping-test-results media has disseminated the report with glee.”
Armstrong called them “subhuman piles of trashcan garbage.” He said his future will be “not keeping silent,” except to exercise his constitutional right not to be subpoenaed. He proceeds to give his readers a promise that he will have a triumphant return, offering very little details. He ends by calling his opponents morons, stating,
“Kill yourselves.”
Lance's self-inflicted woes are just too much drama in one tale, even if his story is about a fallen hero.
Comments