When First We Practice To Deceive, Or How Not To Win
Find me on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter
So having seen a very interesting trailer for a film about Lance Armstrong, the disgraced former Tour de France champion, I sat down to watch the film on BBC iplayer, before realising that I had actually watched the wrong programme and the one I wanted to watch was on Channel 4 at exactly the same time!
Ultimately I ended up watching both two hour films because I became fascinated by the whole story.
Lance Armstrong was never one of my heroes, I was never drawn to his story although I knew about Live Strong and occasionally read articles on his website so it didn’t shatter my world when it was revealed that he was more of a doping champion than a cycling champion. I took a distanced, pragmatic view; there will always be sportspeople who break the rules.
At first I looked at the whole story as a morality tale, how the truth will out, anytime we act without integrity, in any business or in life it can and usually will come back and bite us in the bottom. And how once we “practice to deceive”, as Shakespeare put it, we weave a tangled web around us that traps us and forces us to lie again and again to protect not only the lie but everything built and bought with the lie; business, charity, family, reputation, friends, home and even our children’s respect. It was hard not to feel sorry for him, except that the films also showed the people who had suffered as a result of his lies; others who had lost jobs, reputations, huge amounts of money in damages because they had dared to suspect or testify against him.
And then I saw a sadder truth in Lance’s own interview about his Tour de France wins (all now stripped from him by the governing body). As he reflected on one of the races he told how, because of the heavier security they could only risk one blood transfusion during the race (one of the ways that they cheated). As he told the story I saw a different person as he recounted the process and almost incredulously admitted to the camera and to himself, “we had already won the race in the early stages” before the blood transfusion. There was absolutely no reason for them to cheat. They were already winning.
Of all the things Lance lost from cheating perhaps the biggest was the clean win, the honest win that he could have had. How many of the other races could he have won, perhaps with a slimmer margin, by only a wheel rim perhaps, but honestly, decently. That makes me feel sorry for him, that he just didn’t have the guts to try it without cheating.
If a survivor of such a lethal form of cancer had come 3rd in the Tour de France it would have made headlines. If he had won it just once, instead of 7 times it would still have been an iconic victory.
Much of the defence for the cyclists’ actions (and, at the time, it is reputed that ALL of the cyclists competing at this level were doping) is that everyone else was doing it. Well, as my mother asked me, “what would you do if everyone else jumped off a cliff?” The only person who was involved who was dead set against the doping was Betsy Andreu, wife of Frankie, one of Lance’s team mates who tried to prevent her husband from doping and came down on him pretty hard when she saw him cycling too well on the Tour. Ultimately Frankie was dropped for not “getting on board” and they both testified against Lance, and were both accused of lying about Lance and lost friends, reputation, jobs and so on as a result.
Perhaps Lance was desperate, or greedy, but of all the people I think Betsy was truly brave, to tell her husband that his life and his health were more important than joining the doping train, and to have the courage to tell the truth.
I admire her fortitude and guts for following the course not just for 21 days but for 7 years until Lance finally admitted the truth. Maybe someone should give her a couple of yellow jerseys.
Much love, Pearl x
Follow me on Twitter
So having seen a very interesting trailer for a film about Lance Armstrong, the disgraced former Tour de France champion, I sat down to watch the film on BBC iplayer, before realising that I had actually watched the wrong programme and the one I wanted to watch was on Channel 4 at exactly the same time!
Ultimately I ended up watching both two hour films because I became fascinated by the whole story.
Lance Armstrong was never one of my heroes, I was never drawn to his story although I knew about Live Strong and occasionally read articles on his website so it didn’t shatter my world when it was revealed that he was more of a doping champion than a cycling champion. I took a distanced, pragmatic view; there will always be sportspeople who break the rules.
At first I looked at the whole story as a morality tale, how the truth will out, anytime we act without integrity, in any business or in life it can and usually will come back and bite us in the bottom. And how once we “practice to deceive”, as Shakespeare put it, we weave a tangled web around us that traps us and forces us to lie again and again to protect not only the lie but everything built and bought with the lie; business, charity, family, reputation, friends, home and even our children’s respect. It was hard not to feel sorry for him, except that the films also showed the people who had suffered as a result of his lies; others who had lost jobs, reputations, huge amounts of money in damages because they had dared to suspect or testify against him.
And then I saw a sadder truth in Lance’s own interview about his Tour de France wins (all now stripped from him by the governing body). As he reflected on one of the races he told how, because of the heavier security they could only risk one blood transfusion during the race (one of the ways that they cheated). As he told the story I saw a different person as he recounted the process and almost incredulously admitted to the camera and to himself, “we had already won the race in the early stages” before the blood transfusion. There was absolutely no reason for them to cheat. They were already winning.
Of all the things Lance lost from cheating perhaps the biggest was the clean win, the honest win that he could have had. How many of the other races could he have won, perhaps with a slimmer margin, by only a wheel rim perhaps, but honestly, decently. That makes me feel sorry for him, that he just didn’t have the guts to try it without cheating.
If a survivor of such a lethal form of cancer had come 3rd in the Tour de France it would have made headlines. If he had won it just once, instead of 7 times it would still have been an iconic victory.
Much of the defence for the cyclists’ actions (and, at the time, it is reputed that ALL of the cyclists competing at this level were doping) is that everyone else was doing it. Well, as my mother asked me, “what would you do if everyone else jumped off a cliff?” The only person who was involved who was dead set against the doping was Betsy Andreu, wife of Frankie, one of Lance’s team mates who tried to prevent her husband from doping and came down on him pretty hard when she saw him cycling too well on the Tour. Ultimately Frankie was dropped for not “getting on board” and they both testified against Lance, and were both accused of lying about Lance and lost friends, reputation, jobs and so on as a result.
Perhaps Lance was desperate, or greedy, but of all the people I think Betsy was truly brave, to tell her husband that his life and his health were more important than joining the doping train, and to have the courage to tell the truth.
I admire her fortitude and guts for following the course not just for 21 days but for 7 years until Lance finally admitted the truth. Maybe someone should give her a couple of yellow jerseys.
Much love, Pearl x
No comments have been added yet.
