Once bitten, twice shy: Why cyclists will always be accused of doping

"If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to
itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything
in its way..."

- Emile Zola

Sports journalists and cycling experts have converged on British cyclist Chris Froome, alleging he is doping in this year’s Tour de France. Froome, however, denies the allegations: “Lance [Armstrong] cheated. I'm not cheating. End of story.”

Is he telling the truth? Probably. However, I would not blame the melee of voices that claim Froome is doping. After Armstrong’s fall from grace and his confession to TV show host Oprah Winfrey, cycling seems destined to be tainted with doping allegations forever.

I recently read Tyler Hamilton’s book, ‘The Secret Race’ *, where he takes readers behind the veil of bike racing, which is, unarguably, the toughest sport in the world. Hamilton’s book not only indicts Armstrong and himself, but also blows the lid off what the United States Anti-Doping Agency called “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”

Lance Armstrong confessed to doping in an interview with TV show host Oprah Winfrey in January this year

Armstrong was a control-freak obsessed with winning. For him, winning wasn’t the most important thing: it was the ONLY thing. And he would go to any lengths to ensure he got out there and won. Hamilton claims that Armstrong, ironically, called up the anti-doping authorities in 2004 and told them that Hamilton and his team were doping, only because he felt threatened by Hamilton, who had finished before him in one of the races leading up to the Tour. Hamilton said Armstrong was “…Donald Trump. He might own all of Manhattan, but if there’s one tiny corner grocery store out there without his name on it, it drives him crazy.”

Not only did Armstrong constantly deny that he doped, but he did it with shocking arrogance and defiance. His believed ‘attack is the best form of defence’. Whenever anyone attacked him, he hit back: attacking their credibility and their sources, convincing the masses that there was a huge conspiracy against him.

His recent statement to French magazine Le Monde, where he claims it was impossible to win the Tour de France without doping, is laughable, to say the least. I agree that cycling during Armstrong’s era was extremely dirty, but instead of trying to stop or tame it, he was in the forefront of the corruption plaguing the sport, not a ‘passive victim’. He is also, as he himself acknowledged, “not the most believable guy in the world right now”, and a lot of what he says must be taken with a pinch of salt.

He claimed he did not “force, pressure or encourage” anyone to dope during his era, and that it was a ‘level playing field’. However, scientists claim it can never be a level playing field, because each cyclist’s body is different, and thus reacts differently to drugs.

His confession has not assuaged the anger of his detractors or earned him the redemption he may have been seeking. They claim he only admitted to convenient truths, omitting and glossing over the grisly details, in an attempt to avoid going to prison.

The damage that Armstrong has caused not only to the sport, but also to all those connected with him, is too much to repair. As all the hullabaloo surrounding Froome’s victories has shown, no one who henceforth wins a Tour de France will be above suspicion; no sport lover will trust the purity of the sport; no cancer victim will believe he can surmount the odds and return to a normal life. 

Armstrong has let down his fans and his sponsors, but what hurts most of all is his betrayal. He betrayed those hundreds of millions who bought the yellow Livestrong (the cancer-fighting charity he founded in 1997) wrist bands, the thousands who supported him and lashed out against his detractors (his 13-year-old son included), the journalists who burnt the midnight oil trying to gather proof against him, only to be called liars, the teammates who came out against him and were threatened and shadowed, and the anti-doping agencies that worked tirelessly to try to keep the sport clean.

Most of all, though, he deprived those few genuine riders who rode clean, who wanted to win the Tour but never got the opportunity, thanks to his doping and ‘bullying’ tactics. Armstrong was stripped of his seven titles, but the Tour de France annals where Armstrong’s seven wins were recorded now lie vacant. No other cyclist was deemed to have won, which is perhaps the saddest part of this sordid drama.

A list of Tour de France cycling winners including the notation that disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong lost his titles, is displayed inside the Notre-Dame des Cyclistes (Our Lady of Cyclists) chapel near the village of Labastide-d'Armagnac in Landes, southwestern France.

Pictures courtesy: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jan/15/lance-armstrong-comes-clean-oprah
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/reasons-ignore-lance-latest-comments-article-1.1385191

*The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle, 2012.