Armstrong’s road to redemption?
It is fascinating too, that brewer Lion has funded the visit.
Arthur Miller once labelled betrayal as the only truth that sticks.
The American playwright’s inspiration was not cyclist Lance Armstrong, who won his seventh consecutive Tour de France and seemed on top of the world in 2005, the year Miller died. But what a great example. Presumably Miller meant people who feel wronged tend to focus solely on the betrayal, ignoring any good that was also there.
Few sportsmen have gone from hero to zero, either as fast or as far, as Armstrong.
The Texan’s exploits in that toughest of disciplines, road cycling, seemed astonishing.
That his unprecedented run in cycling’s most prestigious event followed a successful battle with potentially fatal metastatic testicular cancer added heft and depth to his backstory.
He also built a Mr Clean image in a sport long muddied by chatter of widespread performance-enhancer use. His denials always seemed so genuine, so sincere, that the fall, when inevitably it came, was an epic one.
Four years after being outed by the US Anti-doping Agency as ringleader of ‘‘the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme sport has ever seen’’, Armstrong has turned up in New Zealand.
Is this the first, slightly wobbly push of the pedal on a hoped-for journey of redemption?
New Zealand is perhaps an easier start point than the US would be.
It is fascinating too, that brewer Lion has funded the visit.
An alcohol company running an advertising campaign on the theme of ‘‘consequence’’? There is irony aplenty in that.
The company says it is using Armstrong to tell a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of chasing success at all costs.
Who would exemplify that better? For all our sense of outrage, Armstrong must have been an extraordinarily tough, talented and focused athlete even without dope. How many of his opponents were clean? The pressure to succeed in toplevel sport is unimaginable.
And let’s not forget his influence in encouraging men to become more aware of their health.
Clearly, Armstrong’s cynical manipulation of the truth and betrayal of his sport and fans were wrong, wrong, wrong. But things are rarely as black and white as we would wish.
Only in hero-worship is anyone perfect.