Lance Armstrong - so evil he gave cancer a bad name

A convincing liar

Dear Cyclists,

          Armstrong and Marion Jones were two US cheating Greats with a difference.

          Was it because Jones was Black and Armstrong was White with a much bigger sporting profile that she got crucified at the same time that he was clocking up win after win in the Tour de France regardless of the mounting evidence that he was a crook?

          No, that couldn’t be. Not in the good old US of A where everybody is treated equally.

          There is no question of course that they were both cheats. 

          Jones, a huge track and field star at the age of 25, who won five medals at the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000 including gold in the 100 and 200m, has already paid her dues.

          So now that our peddling Lance has finally been exposed for what he was - the Mafia-like boss of the biggest doping scandal in sporting history - it will be interesting to see if he gets anything like an appropriate punishment.

On the face of it she was a naïve girl who was provided with undetectable designer steroids by her coach and it didn’t help that her shot putter husband at the time was also into performance enhancing drugs.

In 2007 Marion’s conscience got the better of her. She admitted to taking steroids before the Sydney Games and that she had previously lied when she denied this to the press, various sports agencies and most significantly to two grand juries.

She forfeited all her medals; accepted a two year suspension from athletics before announcing her retirement. Then she was jailed for six months for lying under oath to American federal agents.

Unlike our cycling Great she was unbelievably contrite and broke down in tears when she spoke openly on TV about her shame.

Me take drugs- never

But so far 41 year old Lance has admitted nothing. He seems to think that he can go on with his life as a crusader for the cancer cause and all his millions of admirers around the world will continue to worship the Armstrong name.

There was no chance of granite faced Lance bursting into tears when the US Anti Doping Agency announced that the evidence was overwhelming that he was at the heart of the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen.

He was stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles after members of his US Postal Services team ratted on him.

His only reaction to USADA’s announcement was typical of the man who had been lying under oath for years and swindling his way to one yellow jersey after another. He Tweeted: What am I doing tonight. Hanging with my family unaffected.

US Federal agents investigated Lance for 18 months before closing their probe without filing charges. At the time was he, unlike Black Marion, White and too big a fish to fry?

Will anything at last be done after USADA’s damning report?

Not only had Lance cheated his way to all those cycling titles he has also defrauded his sponsors like Nike, Trek bikes, 24-Hour Fitness Clubs, brewer Anheuser-Busch and Honey Stinger products who paid millions to use his name.

The gall of the man, who will always be going down hill from now on, was such that at an inquiry, where he denied doping, he said, If you have a doping offence or you test positive, it goes without saying that you’re fired from all your contracts.

So surely the millions he got from sponsors over the years was money obtained by false pretences, a crime that has put many people behind bars.

And what about lying under oath? If Marion got six months for this how many times has Lance sat there with his fingers crossed telling a pack of lies. But is he still too big to be jailed for this?

Only for medical purpose perhaps

Now that Lance has been exposed as a champion of just about everything that is bad can we believe that he ever had cancer? If his ingenuity was such that he could con his way passed 500 dope tests, couldn’t he have also staged his testicular cancer as a smoke screen for what was to follow.

He was diagnosed and supposedly cured of this life threatening disease before any of his Tour de France wins. Being the man who had conquered cancer and then gone on to win the greatest race in cycling just added to his cult, hero status.

Nobody would possible believe that he could be a cheat especially as Livestrong; the charity he founded had raised millions for cancer research.

Two witnesses who were present when he was diagnosed with cancer at the Indiana University Hospital gave evidence to investigators that he told the doctor about all the drugs he had been taking such as growth hormones, steroids and blood boosting EPO’s, which were undetectable at the time. Lance subsequently denied ever saying this.

Bye-bye Lance

But two days after the witnesses gave sworn statements $1.5-million was given to the University by the Lance Armstrong Foundation for a chair in oncology in honour of the doctor who treated Armstrong.

He was adept at giving donations at strategic times. He and his company even gave $1.25-million to the International Cycling Union, whose job it is to police cycling, to fund the fight against doping. Hush money perhaps?

Everything smells about the life of the man who took every one for a ride. And while he wasn’t the first person to give cycling a bad name we now know one thing for sure: he was the only man in history who was so evil he GAVE CANCER A BAD NAME.

Yours faithfully,

Jon, who has always thought that it’s hard enough to remain upright on two wheels, without being bombed up to the eyeballs on a cocktail of drugs.