Slowman wrote:
"i am singularly unimpressed with the quality of the 'apology.' (and with the form and timing of its delivery.)" i agree with you on the timing. look, there is nobody in all of this - no athlete, no cyclist - who made an apology if his own free will. everybody who made an apology made it because he was forced to. levi, george, dz, vdv, td, mb, floyd, tyler, lance, everybody. all these guys would be living their lies today if not forced by outside pressures to make their apologies. they all lied. they are all liars. they are all cheaters. they all put their own selfish ambitions above the health of the sport, and they all watched others - friends of theirs - suffer and they all could have eased that suffering had they just told what they knew. are we in any disagreement about this? george hincapie saw what happened to his teammate frankie andreu, and his wife, and said nothing. did nothing. let it happen. never said a word. courageous george. hero george. george the role model for your younger athletes. the template of the honorable cyclist. george who is the andy pettitte of cycling. teflon george.
i've got nothing against george. george was no worse than any of these riders. but i'm having a hard time understanding why he is better. i see apologies from these athletes in writing, on their blogs, on the very day they were named as dopers (and praised while dopers) by USADA. never prior to their being outed did they say word one.
once these riders decided that they had no choice but to abandon each of their big lies, we have all had occasion to hear and read their statements. on the once hand, we read what i think are non-apology apologies, like that by levi: "I regret that this was the state of affairs in the sport that we love and I chose as my career. I am sorry that I was forced to make the decisions I made."
i regret that i was forced? yes, and al gore and the secret service tied bill clinton to a chair and forced monica lewinsky on him. clinton regrets that that happened.
here's what i think about lance armstrong. i think lance is obsessed with being the best. the best cyclist. the best doper. and now i think he's made the choice that when it comes to the current task - owning up to 15 years of doping and lying; making restitution; turning the page - i think he's now determined to be the best at that. certainly, this massive drive at being the best pointed toward the task of being humble and contrite is like asking a sumo wrestler to take up needlepoint. but i look at redemption stories like that of michael milken and i do see that redemption is possible. but it's only possible if you just flat admit to yourself and others the depth of what you've done. to that end, lance has done more than just publish a careful statement written with the help of those of whom the rider asks, "do you think this will be enough?"
accordingly, i am impressed with the effort lance is making, altho i acknowledge that he's not finished, we haven't seen it all, and it isn't going to be satisfactory until it's all finally out there.
Frankie did. He stands alone in this mess.
I understand that you are making reference to him with the others later in the paragraph, but it is worth pointing out again to everyone that he spoke the truth on his own, with nothing to gain from doing so.