It's about the Dope

Good and Great Guys

I want to explore this idea later. I have a suspension that great people can't be good people. There is something about accomplishing greatness that requires a focus and narrow mindedness that isn't comparable with being a good person. I'm sure there are some outliers, until then, I bring to the stage Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong.

I used to love and admire Jordan and Armstrong, and in many ways I still do. I remember a story of Jordan losing his cool over losing a game of Monopoly, a game largely based on luck. For guys like Jordan and Armstrong it wasn't about giving your best, no spirit of the game. It was winning or losing. They are two of the most competitive humans in history.

First a brief look at Jordan, then more on Armstrong. This is a continuation of my previous post, Rereading Lance Armstrong.

Michael Jordan

In The Last Dance (a documentary I highly recommend), BJ Armstrong (former Bulls teammate) was asked if Michael Jordan was a nice guy.

BJ Armstrong said, “Was he a nice guy? He couldn’t have been nice. With that kind of mentality he had, you can’t be a nice guy. He would be difficult to be around if you didn’t truly love the game of basketball. He is difficult.”

Another former teammate Jud Buechler said. “People were afraid of him. I mean, we were his teammates, and we were afraid of him."

One more by another former teammate Will Perdue said.“Let’s not get it wrong. He was an asshole, he was a jerk, he crossed the line numerous times. But... he was a hell of a teammate.”

These quotes are out of context, but if you watch the series for yourself you can see the dynamics. Jordan wasn't a nice guy, but he was great. He is and was very respected. Could he have been that determined, could he have pushed and motivated his teammates, could he have had the focus, if he was a good and nice guy?

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong is like Michael Jordan. Both were multi sport athletes. Both were the undisputed best at their sport during their careers. One big difference, Armstrong has been practically erased from cycling for doping. His character has been completely ruined by the lengths he took to hide his lies. ESPN's 30/30 Lance is another documentary I recommend if you're interested in Lance Armstrong's rise and fall.

Rereading Lance Armstrong

I finished rereading It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. I enjoyed rereading it. But I'd have to drop the book down to two stars, it's okay.

Armstrong comes off as an asshole throughout the book, his mom too. They seem proud of it. His arrogance and pride comes off even more shallow when he has his cancer revelations. In hindsight, as an older reader, it's so clear that Armstrong isn't a good or nice guy.

He uses his cancer, his recovery, his wife, his marriage, and his child to create his myth. He supposedly learned the importance of life and how to live. He overcame his obsession with cycling and winning, except he didn't.

And you can see in some of the interactions Armstrong describes later in the book. He hasn't changed. If you read the book as fiction, he's a very flat character. Outside of his determination and arrogance, he is a boring character. The scenes within the story show Armstrong is a boring story teller too.

He gives a disclaimer about cancer killing indiscriminately those who try hard and don't try hard. Then he goes go to describe and brag about how hard he fought cancer. He says he printed, bought, and read everything on cancer and could speak the lingo to the doctors, yet his descriptions in the book come off as just some jock talking about cancer.

Some of these factors make me think the co author Sally Jenkins saw through him and didn't fix these discrepancies in the narrative.

Game Theory of Doping

"Doping is an unfortunate fact of life in cycling, or any other endurance sport for that matter. Inevitably, some teams and riders feel it’s like nuclear weapons—they have to do it to stay competitive within the peloton. I never felt that way, and certainly after chemo the idea of putting anything foreign in my body was especially repulsive," said Lance Armstrong in It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.

The first two sentences are true. It's an arms race. Pure game theory. If your opponents cheat and you don't, your opponents will have a huge advantage. If you cheat and your opponents don't, you'll have a huge advantage. If everyone cheats, no one has any additional advantages from cheating. 

(You never know for sure if your opponent is cheating. Even now, with drug testing getting a lot better, I'm not sure athletes can ignore that their rivals and other competition are all trying to find legal and illegal advantages.)

Armstrong came into cycling during a time when everyone was cheating. Cheating was part of the sport. Armstrong and his team were determined cheaters. They were doing everything. Even running around town secretly doing blood transfusions the mornings of races. 

For Armstrong, everyone knew everyone was cheating, so cheating wasn't optional. You don't cheat, you don't compete.

Then the problem becomes not getting caught.

The Lie

The book is part of not getting caught. The cancer foundation may have been part of not getting caught too. Here are a few of my favorite snap shots of the lie. All of the following are from the book.

Regarding doping, "certainly after chemo the idea of putting anything foreign in my body was especially repulsive."

"I WAS MAKING ENEMIES IN THE ALPS. MY NEWLY acquired climbing prowess aroused suspicion in the French press, still sniffing for blood after the scandal of the previous summer. A whispering campaign began: 'Armstrong must be on something.' Stories in L’Equipe and Le Monde insinuated, without saying it outright, that my comeback was a little too miraculous."

"I had absolutely nothing to hide, and the drug tests proved it... the drugs tests became my best friend, because they proved I was clean. I had been tested and checked, and retested."

“My life and my illness and my career are open... There was nothing mysterious about my ride at Sestriere: I had worked for it. I was lean, motivated, and prepared. Sestriere was a good climb for me. The gradient suited me, and so did the conditions–cold, wet, and rainy. If there was something unusual in my performance that day, it was the sense of out-of-body effortlessness I rode with– and that I attributed to sheer exultation in being alive to make the climb."

"I decided to address the charges outright, and held a press conference in Saint-Gaudens. 'I have been on my deathbed, and I am not stupid,' I said. Everyone knew that use of EPO and steroids by healthy people can cause blood disorders and strokes. What’s more, I told the press, it wasn’t so shocking that I won Sestriere; I was an established former world champion. 'I can emphatically say I am not on drugs,' I said. 'I thought a rider with my history and my health situation wouldn’t be such a surprise. I’m not a new rider. I know there’s been looking, and prying, and digging, but you’re not going to find anything. There’s nothing to find ... and once everyone has done their due diligence and realizes they need to be professional and can’t print a lot of crap, they’ll realize they’re dealing with a clean guy.'"

"I was hurt and demoralized by the constant barrage from the press. I put forth such effort, and had paid such a high price to ride again, and now that effort was being devalued. I tried to deal with the reports honestly and straightforwardly, but it didn’t seem to do any good."

 

Cycling in 2020s

I've started watching and following cycling the last couple years. I enjoy it. I realized reading Armstrong's book that current riders are winning and destroying the competition just like Armstrong did, but I'm not hearing suspicion of drugs and doping.

It seems obvious to me, based on game theory and the amount of money in sports, that these athletes and teams are most likely trying to cheat. Maybe the testing has advanced enough to make doping no longer possible? I don't know. I'm curious to look into it later on.

Conclusion

Lance Armstrong wasn't a nice guy.