It’s not cool to be a sociopath, but also people can change. He was humbled and lost hundreds of millions potentially and has rebuilt himself. That doesn’t always happen. He talks about intensive therapy, and surrendering his power and position, and his turn to provide for his family.
This country is full of people who have insane power, and abuse it. And he was extremely powerful, drank the koolaid, ran over people. Hell, he’s not villified for the drugs as much as being a world class asshole. He acknowledges that. I don’t know. I think hating on LA for trying to move forward being a better person (because holy fuck we can’t change the past) kind of says more about the hater than the subject of the hate.
Yep,I agree,the amount of personal outrage directed at Lance is amazing. People act like they were personally attacked by him. There are people on this forum who have treated me waaaaay worse than Lance ever did so Ill save my “hate” for them and thank Lance for all the entertainment over the years as the best of the best in a dodgy, drug filled sport.
This is a brilliant catch and a life lesson on why the Oxford Comma is not optional. The AP, NYT, and similar style guides are wrong and part of the decline of society.
It seems that people who hate on Lance probably did not work for cut throat CEOs/Execs in the capitalist world. These guys routinely improve some lives and destroy others. I only worked for two public company tech CEOs who were nice guys all around (in three decades), the rest were pretty cut throat only using you when useful and discarding you when no longer useful to the mission, but these guys also got the “best results” for their shareholders and wall street. I can’t say I always agreed with “best result” but it was what it was. But largely the people saying Lance “was an asshole and destroyed lives” have not had sufficient exposore to the pointiest end of capitalism because a lot worse things happen there with an excel column coefficient change than anything that happened on any pro cycling team.
Essentially pro cycling or any pro sport is small potatoes in the bigger capitalism game. If people don’t understand this, look at the rolled up market value of all of the NFL teams combined which is roughly $227B according to Forbes. The roll up expeneses for all of pro cycling is barely 2/3 of a billion dollars (and since these are not franchises we could argue that they are worth no more than their current year expenses or whatever). Pro cycling is tiny.
But all of NFL is almost the same at just Intel alone or Pepsico alone. Lot more “lives” being destroyed by pen strokes over at Vanguard who owns enough share in many public companies than what Lance did and most people don’t even realize how messed up their lives get just by a few people at the likes of Vanguard or Blackstone, but let’s carry on with the hate of Lance (who actually did not destroy the lives of very few of us on ST)
Lance may be an ass, but to many American’s he’s America’s Ass. Well, we elected a new poster boy for that role, but you get the idea.
For myself, all the things said about him losing money, being a cheater, etc are all a bit of a curious take. As he had nothing to lose if he didn’t cheat, and I don’t for a second to believe his cheating made the wins easy, but just allowed his body to put up with the torture he subjected it to. That’s not an excuse at all, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he keels over with a heart attack or something next month.
But I have to admit, I was pretty enamored to see him come over to Ironman and was bizarrely (I admit) a little disappointed when he didn’t get to finish the job. I think there’s something that happens when a cheater gets to legendary status. The legend aura never fully fades. I have no vested interest in the guy, but I’m still curious to see what he’s up to for some reason.
Thanks for the honest take from your angle. I followed Lance since he raced Mark Allen in Bermuda in 1987 as a schoolboy:
all the way to now.
My main point is people bent out of joint about him destroying lives completely forget that Lance himself was a tiny pawn in the big business meat grinder of using and chewing up champions. I put the market cap comparisons because the CEO of Pepsico is a pawn in the larger picture of Vanguard and Blackstone etc, and Pepsico alone is the same size as NFL which is 200x larger than pro cycling and somewhere in the tiny world of pro cycling was Lance the effective CEO of UPS who happened to run a ruthless “win at all cost” operation. But how is that different from what goes on the rest of the sports world that is somewhere in between the same size of cycling and 200x cycling (NFL)which in itself is barely 1/20th the value of the largest semiconductor company in the world or 1/30th the size of Saudi Aramco (you know the guys all worried about the straits of Hormuz right now). The venom against Lance seems totally misplaced relative to the CEOs of all kinds of massive companies actually directly enhancing and messing with our own lives daily.
Lance = tiny pawn in global game of messing up lives
“I don’t for a second to believe his cheating made the wins easy”. The way he did it, he definitely had an advantage over his competitors who weren’t allowed to cheat the same way. As he said himself, he had the UCI in his pocket covering up for him, while the other guys were getting caught and dropping like flies trying to cheat and also beat the system (Hamilton, Pantani, Ullrich, Landis, etc.).
I don’t think that really matters to a lot of people: Where vanguard or PepsiCo or any other fortune X company CEO’s moral compass points because they weren’t parading around falsely like Lance was. Did they have LIVESTRONG bracelets or sell motivational books about overcoming adversity with hard work and as a straight arrow?
I don’t care one way or another about lance and ST doing a story. I see the entire thing as human nature. Good people can do fucked up things with the stresses of life and millions of dollars on the line. I get that he might not be a serial killer but still has the ability to fuck people over. You’re right, people get fucked over every day. But few of them do it being in the spotlight like he was and with a story to tell and a following gathered. That is where he is not just a “small pawn” as you are suggesting.
I don’t have strong opinions on the doping however I do agree with the poster that said he really just needs to fade out now. Anyone who chooses to go on Oprah is just grasping at attention to deflect whatever reality they made for themselves.
Here is the thing. People are all worked up about Lance destroying a few lives like Betsy Andreau or Floyd Landis (we can argue that Floyd dug his own hole but Floyd had the final say). But Lance is not destroying any of our lives, and probably he helped more random people fighting cancer via Livestrong, so there is another side to it (and I am not saying this gets him off the hook). But in the big scheme Lance was a small player. I pointed to Vanguard or public market CEOs just because people are worked up about Lance destroying Betsy’s life, when their own lives are being affected daily by random cut throat CEOs in board rooms.
I think why people pile on any celebrity is there is a degree of jealousy and animosity. There always is and the general public loves elevating people to hero status and then taking down too. It’s why I actually posted the video of 15 year old Lance racing Mark Allen in Bermuda, long before Lance got elevated and taken down. Pro athletes are just entertainer/pawns in the bigger show and us sports fans just get emotionally attached to narratives that are effectively meaningless in our day to day lives. What happens in board rooms is what affects our lives, but we’re too defocused by Lance <enter pro athlete name like Liu, or Vonn, or whomever) shenanigans to direct our outrage to where it really belongs. Meanwhle Lockheed, GD , RTI are going cha-ching with bombs all over the Gulf (and oh, Vanguard owns just under 10 percent of each of those companies)
Can we stop being so hyperbolic, Lance did not “destroy” anyones life. In all these peoples lives, doing sport was just a small fraction of time, and they have all moved onto what was next. Were they presented with big challenges, yes of course. I would venture not as bad as getting cancer, but hard things to overcome for sure.
I have a good friend who is one of Floyds best friends, and he is doing just fine. Certainly better than if he was never a cyclist to begin with, so life not ruined. Don’t know Betsy, but I bet she is doing just fine too, dealing with other life situations that we all do after sport no doubt, but life not ruined..
Did Lance do some shit things to people, yes, did he ruin their lives, not even close. Let’s stop with the demonization rhetoric to just put red horns on his head. He was just a dude who loved to compete and win, thrown into some really bad situations not of his making, and he took full advantage. Like Dev said, who of us here has not known, been friends with, or worked for people with these personality traits. He is just singled out because he did rise to the top of the cycling world, historically destroyed their records and perceptions of American riders. He also super sized that personality to protect itself from attacks, and that is where he got himself into trouble that all the others in his peer group did not. The secrets are out, it was decades ago, can we finally move onto where he is today and appreciate the growth that has come with all this time?
He has paid for his crimes, he deserves to not be reminded of them all of time.
Then, should he be going around TV/Radio shows to share wisdom, give life lessons? He has the right to do so, but decency says he should not. At a minimum out of respect for the people he has hurt.
Out of interest - did you listen to the interview? He talks about his faults, his struggles, his priority changes, his surrendering to therapy and help. It is like the idea that you learn 100x more from a loss than a win. The guy who never struggled, who can relate to that? He’s not selling over and over that he’s the 7x winner and such (and let’s face it, he is) but he is being vulnerable and honestly - a couple things in the interview - therapy and getting sober - really hit with me and might with others. If you don’t think that’s a good message to hear, fine. But there are still fans out there of his who might well listen and learn some things that help them down the road…
Do the people he hurt…not want this message to get out? It seems as if he has apologized, repayed debts, figured out a way to support his family. He’s charismatic (hell, people wanted him to run for governor of Texas back in the day) and why shouldn’t he have the ability to live his life to the fullest.
Your point is well taken, but what rubs me the wrong way is Lance’s attitude today. No rhyme intended.
Maybe it’s just me being from a Christian country (though not a Christian myself) and expecting that forgiveness be preceded by repentance. What I’m seeing is “growth” through reflection that being an asshole didn’t work.
While some people think repentance owes restitution and apology (and in many cases it should). I think the biggest part is has a person changed course.
Repent literally means to change your mind, heart, direction, understanding, etc.
I did listen, and thought it was the best interview from this podcast. I agree its very positive to hear that kind of message, therapy works and those out there who struggle benefit from hearing they are not alone.
But there are many other people who could give that exact same testimony - Sanders for example, did struggle with addictions - without the very controversial background Armstrong has.
His forfeits aside, I also remember him as the formidable athlete he was. But I have not suffered from his actions. I just try to put myself in the shoes of those who did.
