Lance........it's over!

Well well well. It was only yesterday that I was bemoaning the lack of decent sporting stories to write about, and then the mother of all bombshells was dropped by USADA last night. Since their damning report on Lance Armstrong was released Nicksportsrant has been lapping up as many of the 1000 pages of evidence (whilst working of course) and it is truly incredible stuff. True enough, some of it is regurgitated old hat stuff that we already knew about, but a lot of the new material is simply astonishing.

Witness after witness describes in graphic detail the lengths that this uber cheat went to in order to out-dope the competition and encourage other riders to follow his lead.

I don’t blame readers of this rant for not going to the USADA website and filing through an, at times, exhaustive array of documents. However if you have a genuine love of cycling or are interested in putting to bed the heroic pantomime show that is Lance Armstrong’s cycling career then I suggest you do. In particular read the testimony of his once best friend Frankie Andreu and that of his once trusted lieutenant George Hincapie. Having done that, go to the financial records that show Lance Armstrong syphoning huge amounts of money into a notoriously bent doctor’s (Michele Ferrari) account. Then have a look at some of the evidence given regarding associates of Armstrong threatening potential witnesses. Once you have done all this sit back and think to yourself; is there really any doubt now?

In between reading the report and working, I have become increasingly agitated by those personalities within cycling and individuals allied to Lance Armstrong who continue to churn out the same old comments on various media channels: “it’s a vendetta”, “it’s politically motivated”, and the even worse “well everyone else was doing it” and “he passed over 500 tests” and the one that annoys me the most “Lance hasn’t had a chance to defend himself”. Firstly he was given the option to defend himself in a court-like setting but chose not to. Secondly as is proven in the documents of the report Armstrong actually only ever passed around 200 tests which he found laughably easy to dupe. Finally the report shows that everyone else was not doing ‘it’ and certainly not to the same degree as Armstrong was.

So what happens now? It would be nice to think that Armstrong could come out and admit that he was wrong to dope. Unfortunately he still has too much to lose from coming clean and will perhaps take it with him to the grave. However his image is toast, his legacy destroyed, and his achievements tainted beyond repair. Lance Armstrong the man, the American hero, the miracle worker, no longer exists, and that’s a good thing.

There is of course the fact that the man has done a lot of positive work for cancer charities and of this there can be no denying his integrity. How unfortunate it is then, for him and his legal team to use that charitable work as a smoke screen or a type of get out of jail free card when any doping allegations are brought against him.

But that’s enough about Lance Armstrong. How will the sport he so skilfully plundered of its moral fibre recover in light of this report? Many people within cycling have already been showing their faces on news channels, and the standard message they’re sending is that this report harks back to a bygone era of cycling. They make it sound as if Armstrong was cycling back in the 60s. If cycling genuinely believes it no longer has a problem then its recovery will be doomed from the outset.

Team Sky like to extol the virtues of their tough anti-doping code, and yet only last year they hired  Dr. Geert Leinders who was synonymous with doping at the Rabobank cycling team. It should be made clear that Team Sky then fired the doctor, but only once the media had made a stink about it. Lance Armstrong’s main partner in crime Johan Bruyneel is still the general manager of a high profile professional team called RadioshackNissanTrek and even though he didn’t travel on the Tour de France with the team because of the allegations, his name remains on the team’s website. Sure enough at this year’s Tour de France star rider Frank Schleck was caught using a banned substance riding for, you guessed it, RadioshackNissanTreck. Finally how is the UCI’s president still in a job? The organisation obviously facilitated the cover up of Lance Armstrong’s doping program, so how is Pat McQuaid still the head of the sport?

Cycling has a rich history of doping. Even vaunted names such as Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil were found to be cheating as early as 1961. It seems that the sport has simply decided that the search for athletic perfection must include the use of banned substances and trying to alter mind-sets in 2012 will not be easy. However in bringing down the sport’s most high profile figure, USADA may just force the UCI and the Tour’s teams to once and for all, clean up their act!

Agassi is still a legend

Andre Agassi has admitted to using Crystal Meth and then concealing its use from tennis officials. Whilst many may be shocked by this overly hyped revelation, I am not. You just have to take a look at a picture of Andre Agassi in his youth to realise that he may have experimented with something other than protein shakes and tic tacs.


Its not as though Agassi took the drug to enhance his performance. In a moment of weakness he turned to a drug that he knew would lift him out of the state of depression he found himself in. To suggest that this confession of drug abuse could destroy Agassi's reputation as an all time tennis great is frankly stupid. Most media outlets have been largely philosophical about Agassi's comments apart that is from the BBC who seem hell bent on blowing things out of proportion. Jonathan Overend, who I'm unsure has ever picked up a racket in anger, has said that Agassi may well have "tarnished his reputation". So maybe if Agassi had gone on the mother of all drinking binges and ended up in a ditch his reputation would still be intact, as that would have been legal.

I of all people have not been a great fan of Agassi's 'butter wouldn't melt' public persona helped by his willing wife Steffi Graf. However after this admittance of weakness he has actually gone up in my estimations. Agassi was and always will be a sporting legend for the way he played the game and for a comeback that rivaled any other in the world of sport.

Of course Overend then goes on to needle at the ATP claiming that they are too lenient on drugs. On this issue its clear that Tennis is a little behind other sports when it comes to dealing with drug cheats. There is the case of Richard Gasquet who tested positive for cocaine but said he got it in his system after kissing a girl. There is also the case of 7 mystery players who tested positive for Nandrolone in 2003 but got off on a technicality. The later story is quite different from Agassi's though. Nandrolone is a substance taken for the sole purpose of better muscle regeneration. Crystal Meth is taken by desperate individuals trying to escape reality.

What the ATP did was in the best interest of its player. What he needed was support and understanding. What he didn't need was for his name to be dragged through the dirt by journalists like Overend who like nothing more than a good witch hunt.

People are wrong if they think tennis has been damaged by this whole episode. I believe it will only act to show youngsters that the stars they idolise are still only human and that, like the rest of us, they can have moments of weakness.

The BBC failed to ever break open the story that was waiting to be found in the form of the 'Nandrolone 7' instead they have given up and found it easier to use the poor example of Agassi's misdemeanor to highlight Tennis's drug problem. Maybe Mr Overend could go away and actually be a journalist and find us a story worth reading rather than just passing comment on a serialised book.

Not everyone has fallen into the trap of attacking the bold headed tennis wonder. The Telegraph in a moment of lightheartedness states that this may well be the first sporting autobiography worth reading in ages. And at the end of the day that is what the whole point of this rant is; Agassi courted controversy throughout his career. He was the first real rebel rock and roll tennis player. This is why tennis fans the world over loved him. He is a character who has stories to tell and emotions to share. I liked that, it made tennis that bit more interesting and allowed fans to feel better connected to the game. The fact he took Crystal Meth doesn't really change that.