How Armstrong escaped the Sword of Damocles

This time when the sword was about to drop when Lance Armstrong, who was sitting under it, was smart enough to escape. Not so smart or lucky were the high profile Ben Johnson and Marion Jones.

I do not hero worship, even as I adore the exploits – those that I can, if not understand, at least feel amazed at – of some people. In sports, beyond cricket (Garfield Sobers), tennis (John McEnroe), diving (Greg Louganis), golf (Tom Watson and Severiano Ballesteros) – you would observe that my heroes, except for Sobers, occupy a small time window – I confer my hero status to the one and only Greg Lemond, the cyclist. He won the Tour three times.

But, that is not the reason he is my cycling hero. The Spaniard Miguel Indurain had after all won the Tour five successive years and was a certified hero in Europe. Yet, Lemond’s last day heroics, one of the few times the Tour ended on an individual Time Trial stage, of beating Laurent Fignon (sounded more like Filet Mignon!) in 1989 by eight seconds. Take that, after twenty plus days of grueling tour across France and northern Spain, the difference was a mere eight seconds! That clinched Greg Lemond’s hero status in my book. He beat his rival in his rival’s homeland. That added to his mystique.

Then came Lance Armstrong, another American, and his seven Tour victories. And, I had long resented that Lance Armstrong had usurped the position rightfully held by my hero. OK, there was a human-interest side to the legend of Armstrong – he being a cancer survivor. But, I resented his Tour exploits. And, so did the French.

As an aside, the French did not embrace Greg, in my opinion, as gracefully as they should have. Though the French gifted the Lady in the Harbor to the US, that warm feeling had evaporated over time.

Coming back to Armstrong, there had been suspicions galore that he had used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tours. In normal parlance, this meant that his victories were “tainted”. But nothing could be proved. And, nothing has been proved yet. That is why the US authorities were contemplating arbitration proceedings against Armstrong. The single hair from the tail of a horse by which the sword was hanging was thinning.

But Armstrong will not let the sword fall. He came clean, but not so clean. He almost admitted that he cheated but said that he did not cheat. It is precisely like our politician’s apology: “If I have offended you, I did not do it intentionally. I, hmm, ... err ... sorry!” But, this does not concern me much.

What I am happy about is Greg Lemond is back on top. It is almost like how Carl Lewis won his Gold Medal in 100 m sprint at the Seoul Olympics after Ben Johnson was stripped of his victory. But, there is a huge difference between Lewis and Lemond, and on that later.

For now, I am enjoying that people will hear more about Greg Lemond (courtesy me and this post for a start?) and less about Lance Armstrong.

Raghuram Ekambaram