Lance Armstrong Looked Up The Definition of Cheat

And decided that he wasn’t a cheater. What made him look up the definition? Some need to find a justification for what he knew was wrong? For what he knew was against the rules? He said “I did not feel like I was cheating. It was just like putting air in the tires. I looked up the definition of cheat, it meant gaining an advantage, I didn’t gain an advantage, I just levelled the playing field.” So in Lance’s opinion the sport was so rampant with doping that you couldn’t win without doping and thus event though doping was against the rules it wasn’t cheating. That is really parsing a word to your own advantage. He was so competitive, and wanted to win at any cost, that he wanted to be the best cheater there was. In so doing, he also became one of the best liars and one of the biggest bullies in sport. When speaking about the culture of doping, Lance said “I didn’t invent it, but I didn’t try to stop it.” How many times through history have we heard this excuse? From bullies, from criminals, from athletes. It was difficult to watch the interview last night, not because of what he was saying, but because of how he said it, and what he still maintains. Lance maintains he raced clean since 2005, even though the evidence says otherwise. Lance won’t name names, which means he still isn’t trying to stop the culture of doping. Lance didn’t do anything except talk to Oprah for his own personal gain, and no-one seems to know what that is. That’s not enough Lance. It’s not enough for you, and it’s not enough for me. Here’s the thing that Lance still hasn’t realized. Even though he didn’t create the culture of doping in the sport, he created it on his team. And even though he didn’t create the culture in his sport, he did nothing to try to change the sport. If he had tried, the victory in the attempt would have been infinitely more profound than the seven tainted wins. Bradley Wiggins’ one yellow jersey, if it is clean, is worth more than all seven of Lance’s tainted jerseys put together. Lance said he wanted to control every outcome. By maintaining his purity after 2005, by refusing to name names, by taking the positions that he took last night, Lance is controlling one outcome, that all of us who believed him, will never believe him, even if we forgive him at some distant point in the future.