The Cycliste Moderne, September 9, 2005

All Armstrong, All the Time

This week all the major US media outlets have been falling all over themselves to cover the latest about Lance Armstrong. CNN Headline News ran a story about his engagement to Sheryl Crow during their Idaho mountain bike vacation. CNN.com and ESPN.com ran pieces on his threat to come out of retirement. USAToday.com ran a piece on when Armstrong has to start making himself available for random drug tests if he wants to contest the Tour de France next year. Some of the cycling media outlets are reporting that Armstrong is bored and that is why he may come out of retirement. They have all interviewed teammates and opponents about will he or won’t he.

Enough already. It is time for everyone to move on, including Lance. Armstrong’s pride and ambition will certainly be his undoing. Much like Gary Hart, who called out the media to prove he was cheating, Armstrong has given the media, in particular the French media, an easy target. You cannot prove a negative and there are numerous European reporters who have made their careers based upon Armstrong’s career. Armstrong is frequently fueled by rage. He thrives when he has someone or something to fight.

It is amazing that he honestly thought that he could retire and walk away. The sports world is filled with people who tried to walk away from their sport at the top of their career. With the exception of Jim Brown and Barry Sanders, I cannot think of a single athlete who has ever managed to retire at the height of their career and stay away. Armstrong’s Russian teammate Slava Ekimov could not retire and stay away. Michael Jordan could not do it. Ryne Sandberg could not do it. Every heavyweight champion of the last thirty years has retired and unretired. Even if you cannot walk away, you do not want to be one of the guys who stay too long either.

He will never force the French to love him, even if he raced for another 5, 10 or 20 years. He has burned too many bridges with the media, the peleton and even his own teammates to occupy a place of beloved reverence in cycling history. He will always be recognized as a great Tour de France champion, but the rumors, innuendos and his own hubris will prevent him from gaining hero status. Winning an 8th Tour de France will make the French detest him even more. He will never force the Germans to love him. Jan Ullrich has proven incapable of beating him at the Tour de France and Jan is getting older too. Another Tour de France will do nothing to Lance’s reputation or his legacy. The Italians will never love him because he has not raced enough in Italy. The only ones who will love him are the Americans that know nothing about cycling except that Armstrong hates the French and got them to buy a yellow Livestrong band. Therefore, since most Americans also hate the French, Armstrong is their hero.

Armstrong spent the first half of 2005 telling the world he is retiring so he could spend more time with his kids. That is certainly noble, but threatening to race next year just to annoy the French probably does not guarantee more quality time with the kids. If Lance is like me, when you are working long hours and do not get to see your children, you have this romanticized notion of what it means to be a good father. The reality sets in about the third day home when you realize that while children are good in concept, they are not actually as much fun in person.

If Armstrong does in fact come back, then enough already about the importance of family to Armstrong. Everyone has to balance work and life and kids. Armstrong is not unique in that regard. Racing in Europe for much of the year certainly cannot be easy for Armstrong’s children. However, if Armstrong does decide to come out of retirement just to annoy the French, then his protestations about the importance of his family and his desire to be a better father than he had are hollow.