One of the more bizarre stories of the past few days is that 12 former Tour de France winners — just under half of the 25 still living — think Lance Armstrong should get his seven ‘titles’ back.
Which is about as laughable as the Wolf of Wall Street’s, Jordan Belfort, reinventing himself as an ethics consultant.
Fortunately, it’s not under consideration. But for yesteryear peddlers such as 1987 champion Stephen Roche and 1980 victor Joop Zoetemelk, having no Tour de France winner for seven years is a very bad look. Much worse, apparently, that defending a victor that was doped to the eyeballs for each and every one of those races.
Even Andy Schleck, the most recent champion who supports Armstrong’s yellow jersey reunion, says: “Who remembers who was second place in those races? I wouldn’t know myself.”
Actually Andy, you were second in 2010 until Alberto Contador was done for doping and they gave you the title. Remember?
The other argument often touted for forgiving Armstrong his sins is that everyone in cycling was doping at the time, as if he deserves some consolation for being the poor schmuck that got caught.
Armstrong himself has wheeled out a similar line, telling Outside magazine just a few months ago “it was basically an arms race and we all played ball that way”.
He also argued it would be “disrespectful to the sport” to leave the Tour de France winnerless for seven years. He said all this with a straight face, even when he was mixing his metaphors.
But let’s indulge this fantasy for a moment. Let’s wash Armstrong’s tainted jerseys canary yellow clean, press them, fold them and return them to him gift wrapped and ribboned, complete with a ‘sorry for the bother’ card.
Then let’s give Marion Jones the good news that she can have her five ill-gotten Sydney Olympic gold medals after all, along with a decent whack of compensation for the jail time she did.
Imagine how thrilled Ben Johnson will be when we tell him we’ve accepted his story that one of Carl Lewis’ mates spiked his beer with stanozolol while he was waiting to be drug tested following his ‘victory’ at the Seoul Olympics. Well, someone had to win “the dirtiest race in history”, didn’t they?
While we’re at it, let’s posthumously recognise Fred Lorz as the rightful winner of the 1904 Olympic marathon, for the sheer ingenuity of covering almost half of the course in a car – and because the bloke who came second was juiced on rat poison and brandy.
Then we can pass a United Nations resolution to re-erect the Berlin Wall and rekindle the glory days of government-sponsored doping programs.
And finally, let’s tell Spain’s 2000 Paralympic basketball team what a giggle we all had when they won the competition for athletes with an intellectual disability, when only two members of their team had such a disability. Sure, it meant intellectually disabled athletes were banned from international competition for 12 years but that’s all forgotten now.
Armstrong has lost his credibility, his sponsors, his right to compete. He’s sold his house, his jet and various other knick knacks. I don’t care if he’s left with just the shirt on his back.
Just as long as it’s not a yellow one.
BKOK
Guest
Why has Armstrong been the only one stripped? Merckx failed tests. Anquetil openly admitted to doping (for the exact same reason that Armstrong gives as an excuse - "everyone else did it") and Indurain has been reliably and repeatedly linked to it. Save for Hinault, every one of the sports' Great Champions was a demonstrated cheater. I don't have a problem stripping him of his titles, nor do I have a problem leaving him as Champion under the argument that virtually every top ten rider he beat every single year was caught doping at one point or another. But there should be some consistency. If dopers can't remain as Champions, then we have an awful lot more titles to strip away.
Ruben
Guest
Lance Armstrong deserves those yellow jerseys. He won those tours. What you don't understand is that PED's are not the drugs that we know. PEDs only give a person a 5% advantage over their rivals. Lance's rivals were all on PEDs Ulrich, Basso, Pantani, Contador, Vinokourov, Hamilton, Rasmussen, Landis...then the ones before Lance like Riis even the greatest of them all was caught doping Eddie Mercx. Cycling has always had dopers and will always have dopers due to it being a grueling sport. Lance Armstrong still had to train to win just like everyone else, saying Lance is not worthy of those Tour wins when everyone else was in the same boat just doesn't cut it. His closest rivals know who won those tours...for those years to remain without a winner is to say no one participated even though most were on PEDs. Lance has become the scapegoat not just for his generation but for the generation before him too.
delbeato
Roar Guru
It wasn't just Armstrong who brutalised whisteblowers. It was most of the pro peloton. Maybe mull a bit on whether that's a defence of Lance, or a question of why the rest of the peloton appears to have gotten off scot free?
William Johnson
Guest
Isn't it really all just the cliquéd Hollywood story that we all know? Disconnected from the actual everyday reality that most of us are entangled with? It's like watching the movie Rocky, in which we see the Russian boxer doping, to fight Sly Stallone, the all American homegrown hero- also on the dope (but that's somehow absent from the narrative).
Steve Kerr
Roar Rookie
To be fair, I can't see many people here saying the others were 'helpless victims', they're just saying Armstrong was the worst of a bad bunch. For mine, Armstrong fought hard to make himself synonymous with cycling in those years: now he remains synonymous with cycling in those years. It seems inevitable, rather than unfair.
magila cutty
Guest
I find it unbelievable that people continue to defend this sociopathic cheat. That others were also cheats is entirely irrelevant. You cannot defend a murder charge by saying "everyone was doing it". The principle is the same. Also cancer is a disease of unregulated growth and given his use of human growth hormone it seems likely that he caused his own illness. His treatment of whistleblowers and anyone who questioned his "success" was dispicable and imo no punnishment would be too harsh.
delbeato
Roar Guru
Armstrong's supposed role in bullying team-mates to dope has been over-played. Yes, there is truth to it, but the popular myth has portrayed everyone else as helpless victims, bound to follow his orders. What a load of rot - they were all earning big money on the back of Armstrong's wins, they knew what they were doing. They have since abandoned that sinking ship with the excuse "he made me do it!" and people have lapped it up with amazing gullibility. Armstrong didn't invent team doping - it was the standard back then. I am appalled by efforts to revise history in this respect. It's just a load of nonsense. It's convenient for pro cycling to make Armstrong the scapegoat, as it leaves the sport with a better image than the alternative - that it was rotten to the core, all of it.
kazblah
Roar Guru
"...has never fully faced up to the consequences." I agree, Phast Phil. The defence that everyone else was doping doesn't wash with me. Armstrong didn't just dope, he made it a team dynamic and he bullied anyone who dared to question his integrity. He put a lot of honest people through hell. He was litigious, vicious in his condemnation of others and, at the end of the day, he knew what he was doing was wrong because he covered it up for so long. So, Robbie and delbeato, I can't go along with the scapegoat scenario because Armstrong took doping to a new level.
Sarah
Guest
To be fair to Andy Schleck he has been completely consistent. When he took first by default from Contador, he said "If now I am declared winner of the 2010 Tour de France it will not make me happy. I battled with Contador in that race and I lost. My goal is to win the Tour de France in a sporting way, being the best of all competitors, not in court. If I succeed this year I will consider it my first Tour de France victory.” Perhaps if they pursued other dopers, both within cycling, and without with the same fervour as they did Armstrong then there would be no case in his favour. But they don't. they even destroyed the records of Fuentes, including computer records and blood bags. Given that he claimed to work with not only cyclists but also tennis players and footballers, that was no doubt some pretty explosive stuff. yes, Armstrong was rich and successful, but so are the football players, tennis players and other elite sports people using Fuentes' services. If you are serious about anti-doping you need to pursue everyone, not just bang on and on about one guy in one sport. in the absence of real interest in other perpetrators it is pretty much just schadenfreude at work, and it's not pretty.
Phast Phil
Guest
Hi delbeato, in my view Lance Armstrong has to be the pin up pariah boy. He was the only one who won 7 straight and has still never fully (imho) faced up to the consequence. Sure cycling was the most drug addled sport aside from track sprinting, but he has to be the one most impacted because he benefitted the most financially and otherwise, by all means bring the rest down with him. I expect that one day there may be more than 7 empty names on the hall of shame/fame for the TDF and if that is what it takes, so be it.
Duncan
Guest
I think people forget Armstrong had twenty tumors some the size of grapefruit in his lungs and some of the venom directed at him has been unwarrented. It does raise the question though why dope particularly after a such a serious illness he would be tested constantly, it just seems farcical he would think he could get away with it. I could never understand after reading his autobiography why he wanted to pursue a career in pro cycling given he's from a poor single parent family and cycling at pro level due to the lack of of prize money except at the very top is an extremely wealthy and exclusive sport, which is the reason in my opinion why they came down on him but conveniently ignored others. In saying that he did do the crime and paid the ultimate penalty. His reaction after he got dumped by his team and sponsors after being diagnosed with the tumors showed to me his complete naieveity. Yes it was a heartless decision but when your dealing with big business and not cycling therefore making no money your not going to get cut any slack and he had only had a slim chance of surviving let alone race again .
delbeato
Roar Guru
I agree. The truth is that almost all Tour winners were doped - other than probably a few recent ones. Making Lance the pariah for a century of doping is disingenuous and entirely unfair. It just doesn't make sense. I wouldn't give him the wins back, though.
Robbie
Guest
Cycling is a dirty sport, Lance Armstrong is being used as a scapegoat for doing what every other cyclist of his era was doing. The reason those seven Tours have been left "winnerless" I because every other rider on the podium was just as pumped full of drugs as Lance Armstrong.
Sam Brown
Roar Guru
They should remain empty as a reminder of the inevitable result of turning a blind eye to doping: a sport that wound up so compromised there isn't even a clean rider to hang a moral victory on. Some may have been clean but as a whole the sport turned its back on the notion of fair play. The empty podiums in the sports biggest race are a mark of shame but they are marks that need to stay there as a reminder of why we can never go down that path again.
Phast Phil
Guest
Great article. It would return cycling to a level below the farce it was when he was winning.
Dave
Guest
It is 'disrespectful to the sport' to leave the TdF winnerless. Of course during that time the sport deserved to be disrespected There is plenty of evidence that during all those bad years (not just Armstrong's years) that the entire podium and many below it were doped up. I always like Jan Ulrich. It seems he was doped up to. My frustration is that the offending riders still try the justification "Everyone was doing it" But all these years later they are still perpetuating the cover up. Some years back I watched a documentary where Greg Lemond (he is seemingly clean) came out in favour of amnesty for riders that come clean 100%. That means implicating anyone that helped them, anyone that covered it up, everyone He doesnt say they should keep their titles but he says such confessions should allow them back. Logically I support Lemond. We cannot move past these things until its all out.