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As the European pro cycling season kicks into top gear, the question pops into my head yet again – can I still love this sport without the involvement of my hero Lance Armstrong?
Yes you heard me right, Lance Armstrong was my hero.
You see I’m one of the sad gits who believed until the last Lance Armstrong was clean. I assumed he was telling the truth and believed this legend of a man couldn’t possibly have been a cheat.
So how could anyone fall for the lie of all lies you ask when there was so much evidence to the contrary?
First of all I’m a sucker for a good story. Make it a story about someone beating the odds and, well you know the rest.
To be honest, I didn’t know much about this cycling caper back in 1999 but on a cold July evening my wandering remote lured me to the dulcet tones of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen.
I was instantly mesmerised. Who were these lycra clad heroes and what was this race these commentators were so excited about?
Liggett and Sherwen told me story after story about these riders as they took off one by one. I later learnt I was watching an individual time trial and this was the prologue to the 1999 Tour de France.
Then they told a story about this guy who was returning to the sport after a life threatening battle with cancer. He’d won a couple of other races in the lead up to this one but could a cancer ravaged body cope with the seemingly impossible task that he was about to put his body through?
Surely not.
From this very first introduction to the sport I came to love, there were so many references to drug abuses in cycling but strangely it never entered my head that Armstrong could also be doping.
I found out Armstrong had written a book about his cancer experience. His account was of a man who went through a super human effort to cheat death.
I was equally touched by the contrasting stories of loyalty and betrayal in the cycling fraternity and by the story of a man who was not ready to die.
As for those early doping claims, I applied my own brand of logic – how could someone who underwent such punishing treatment in order to live, abuse their body with anything that could jeopardise their health?
It didn’t make sense, despite the fact in 1999 everyone was doing it. We were, after all, just a year on from the notorious Festina doping scandal when a whole team was kicked out of the Tour de France. It was an event I’d seen in the news but taken little notice of.
As for the rest of the field in the Tour that year? Apparently French darling Richard Virenque was in the bad books because of his part in the Festina affair. Alex Zulle, we were told, had used EPO but he didn’t do that anymore.
The big names of Marco Pantani, Jan Ullrich and Bjarne Riis were missing from the field either due to drug bans, injury or simply to avoid the Tour’s strict drug testing policies.
Nevertheless I turned a blind eye and convinced myself my new hero was cut from a different cloth.
History of course tells us Armstrong won that prologue in 1999. He went on to win the first of his seven yellow jerseys and his stature grew across the world.
Many tried to convince me over the years that Lance was on the juice but I wouldn’t have it. It was just another case of tall poppy syndrome as far as I was concerned.
How could someone who had provided all those incredible moments over the years be a cheat? You know the moments I’m referring to – those late night incidents when you jump up from the couch and yell at your telly as if the guy on the bike, on the other side of the world, can actually hear you.
Remember that descent in 2003 when Armstrong and Joseba Beloki were 4km from the finish and Beloki popped a tyre? Armstrong not only avoided the crash, he rode through a grass field.
Yes he left the road, went across the grass and when he got to the other side, lifted his bike above over a ditch and jumped back on to finish the race. All of this while Beloki lay writhing on the ground in pain.
Then there was the attack on Marco Pantani on Mont Ventoux in 2000. That was just incredible. Sadly the ugly words shared between the two, when Armstrong claimed he allowed Pantani take the stage win, weren’t so amazing, but there you have it.
Pantani of course met his own sad end just a few years later.
Also back in 2003 that kid in the crowd pulled Armstrong off his bike with a flag. Armstrong went down like a ton of bricks but bounced back with a renewed determination only to pull his foot from his pedal and almost fall for a second time.
Forget the yellow jersey. This guy wore a big letter S on the front of his jersey. He was unbelievable!
Not only did he win bike races, he offered hope to cancer patients and clearly hadn’t forgotten the really important stuff behind his success.
He came to Adelaide in 2011 for the Tour Down Under. He visited cancer patients. He was the darling of the local media. He allowed thousands to join him on his twitter ride.
It was obvious he was a great guy and was nice to everybody.
Mr Armstrong I was your biggest defender. Everyone said you were a cheat but I wouldn’t have it. You cannot believe how many times I defended you through the years.
Well now I guess it’s time to finally admit they were right and I was wrong.
As my sad git friends and I get our body clocks turned upside down with the Spring classics, I want to say thank you for giving me the passion to follow this sport I now love.
I also want to let you know, I still believe in fairy tales – just not the one you created.
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