“Lancey, Lancey, pudding and pie,
Fleeced the world and made it cry!”
Do you know who I feel the most sorry for in this whole crazy, messed-up affair?
Lance Armstrong.
I feel sorry for a man who needs to win so desperately. I feel sorry for any human being who treats other people badly, as it is truly a sign of ill-feeling within oneself. And we all know how uncomfortable that can be in some measure. Imagine it on a huge, ginormous, self-inflicted Lance-Armstrong-sized scale. Blrgh.
My heart literally breaks for the guy. I couldn’t imagine living with such a manic desire to prove my worth to people, and fabricating a web of lies so intricate that it is impossible to see where the true man starts and the liar ends. I doubt he knows himself. What a nightmare.
Of course, he doesn’t need my puny amount of pity. No doubt he would find it excessively patronising. Who the hell is this pale, two-bit blogger who rides a 1970s Melvin Star, he might say. And he’d have a point. But for the record, the pity is there.
In saying I feel sorry for the guy, I am in no way taking his side. Far from it. I feel sorry for the people he has wronged, and for the damage he has done to the sport. For those poor blokes who rode clean and typically got used to wipe the Champs-Elysees by Armstrong and his dopey pals. Those guys, the ones who persisted in riding clean in the face of inevitable athletic and professional decimation, are the real champions.
By all accounts, Lancey has acted like a Grade A asshole for longer than anyone cares to remember. He has ruined countless lives and acted in a thuggish, calculated manner towards people he once called friends.
It is doubtful he has many friends left now though, and he will likely never be able to undo much of the damage he’s caused.
A glutton for accolades and public admiration, he will have to live the rest of his proud life with the knowledge that there are not many people left who respect him. His word has lost all credibility. His children will never escape the association of their history-making fraudster Dad, the object of the world’s unanimous (and probably long-standing) contempt.
From king of the castle to vilified criminal. Ouch.
But on the whole, I do feel sorry for the guy. Not because the public is going apeshit for his blood, but because of how unhappy he must be as a person, and how that won’t end any time soon. Perhaps he has always been unhappy.
Nobody is perfect. There are a trillion sides to every story. Just as one simply doesn’t walk into Mordor, one simply doesn’t act like a sociopath if one has a heart filled with gambolling kittens and fragrant cherry blossoms. This much is obvious.
It won’t hurt me to not hate Lance Armstrong. It would be a confirmed waste of energy. There are far more worthy avenues to channel my discontent, like at the monsters who recalled Wonka Mudsludges from the Australian chocolate market, and, in doing so, recalled a piece of my childhood forever.
I hope Lance has the courage to do the right thing, as I believe it is the only way he will be able to find peace and respect himself. He is no doubt a flawed human being, and in that he shares a commonality with every other person in human history, to varying degrees.
I hope he has the opportunity and ball to make amends. I hope those he wronged can move on and feel vindicated. I hope they get what they need to feel good about life again.
But hating is beneath anyone. It’s ugly and doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t help Lance or anyone else become a better person.
And as such, he’ll receive no hate mail from me.
Just a polite note praising the title choice of his famous book, It’s Not About the Bike.
Credit where credit is due. In this instance, the man spoke the truth.
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