Lance Armstrong - Hero or Villian?

What is to be gained from the downfall of Lance Armstrong?

The amazing feats of Lance Armstrong in recovering from life threatening cancer and then winning seven Tour De France titles has lifted the profile of cycling in the US and around the world to a mainstream sport, introducing millions to the sport and making billons for suppliers to the industry. Lance did to cycling what Tiger did to golf. Not only did Lance make a huge impact on the popularity of cycling, he has also raised over $470M for cancer research and surely inspired many cancer sufferers by his amazing feats to fight through the illness.

Why then when Armstrong has never tested positive for an illegal substance during his illustrious career and is now in retirement, has the US Anti-Doping Agency continued to relentlessly pursue charges that he used performance enhancing drugs, even when he has not been found guilty after a 2-year federal investigation and when the International Cycling Union claims his innocence? What is Travis Tygart, Chief Executive at USDA, trying to achieve in discrediting Lance Armstrong of his cycling success? ''It's a sad day for all of us who love sport and our athletic heroes,'' Travis Tygart, chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency, said. ''It's yet another heartbreaking example of how the win-at-all-costs culture, if left unchecked, will overtake fair, safe and honest competition.''

First of all, who really believes that cycling competitions such as the Tour De France are mostly clean but for a few cheats? Recent winners Floyd Landis and Alberto Contador have been stripped of their titles due to positive drug tests. What about many more positive tests of prominent cyclists in The Tour. Many of the guys who placed behind Lance have subsequently been banned for drugs, so who should his titles now go to? The sport is obviously as dirty as body building and needs to be cleaned up but when Armstrong has tested positive hundreds of times, never had a negative test, and inspired so many young and old athletes and cancer sufferers, what is to be gained by an endless battle by the US Anti-Doping Agency to bring him down? Most will agree that the world is a better place for Lance Armstrong’s cycling career and triumph against cancer. I would love to ask Travis Tygart if he thought the same. I don’t know Travis, but seeing him interviewed on TV tonight, he does not look like he ever was much of an athlete, let alone someone who would understand how much work and sacrifice an elite athlete puts in to getting to that level, with no career to fall back on, dysfunctional personal relationships outside your team mates, where only a select few succeed – something most armchair experts have no idea about.

So let’s say Lance was guilty, and remember he still claims innocence and never tested positive. His winning of seven Tours after life threatening cancer against his main rivals that have almost all actually tested positive is still an amazing feat. You can’t deny this guy is an amazing athlete and an inspiration whatever the case!

I’m not talking about Lance anymore and want to throw a little flack at the ‘lily white’ media. It always amazes me how the media will raise a sporting hero on a pedestal, then when this hero is disgraced for drug use or poor behavior, will be the first to claim astonishment and surprise and throw the guy down the gutter. I don’t know if this is done for a good story or to distance the media from having any prior knowledge of wrong doings. A good reporter has access to inside information and has to know what is going on in a sport, that there are drugs, college football recruiting parties and the like and if they don’t say anything before they are caught, they are gutless to feign ignorance and disgust after the fact.

After fighting the US Anti-Doping Agency witch hunt for years, I can understand how Lance is just tired and not willing to fight any more. He has left a great legacy and if he is stripped of his Tour victories, Lance’s cycling peers know that in his time he was the best there was, drugs or not, and who gives a xxx what Tygart thinks.

Too Much Pressure on Aussie Olympic Athletes?

I have been reading the Aussie press during these Olympics Games to check the performance of the Australian athletes since in the U.S. you will only see an Aussie if he/she is competing against an American and that American is a medal chance. Nothing against the U.S. media as that is probably the case in any country. As the swimming competition is nearly finished, questions are being raised as to why so many of the Aussies are not performing to their potential, why aren’t they excelling on the sport's greatest stage, and why are our world champions settling for silver and bronze?

It is an interesting perspective living in the U.S. and comparing the media coverage of the local athletes leading up to and during the games with what I saw back in Australia. The media coverage of each Aussie medal hope is an order of magnitude greater than most of the U.S. medal prospects. As a result, public exposure and expectations on the Aussie athletes is much greater. These athletes are not like our good tennis players or footballers who are regularly in the media spotlight. Many of these athletes are relatively unknown until they make the Olympic Games, even if they won a World Championships title the previous year. The same can be said for U.S athletes in terms of media experience, but they typically don't get exposed to the pre-Games media analysis and subsequent public expectations in the lead up that you see in Australia.

Australia's success in the Summer Olympics is amazing based on our population. We were sixth on the list of medal winners at Beijing, ahead of much larger developed countries such as France and Japan and only just behind Germany. So why do we continue to put so much pressure on our athletes to succeed? Is it an inferiority complex Australians have, where we feel we have to prove ourselves in the world sporting arena? I heard an interview of Emily Seebohm this morning after she got a silver medal to Missy Franklin in the 100M backstroke. Rather than being happy to win a medal, she said she felt she let everyone down.... Is it fair she has to feel this way? She had trained her heart out I am sure and gave it all she had. If she swam the same time in the final as she did in her semi, she would have won, but I don’t blame that on the poor girl, I think it is the pressure to win, where nothing but gold is a success, that affects Seebohm and others such as James Magnussen and the men’s 4x100M relay team.

Missy Franklin, a 17 year old high school girl from Centennial Colorado, is a perfect contrast to Seebohm. Even though she had won World Championships medals and was in a record number of races for a US female swimmer, there was little pressure on her to bring home lots of gold. There were no predictions on how many medals she would win and being young and in her first Olympics, the media seemed to give her a break and just wished her well. No such leniency on Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, but they have won plenty of medals before and can handle the media (Phelps at least). So the outside pressure on Franklin was minimal and she could race with a clear conscience not concerned about letting down her team, the coaches and the public.


Why have I seen so many Aussies post fastest qualifying times in the semis, then swim slower for a minor medal in the final? Are they swimming under less pressure in the semis where a medal is not at risk, so they perform better? Aussies have traditionally been better underdogs than favorites, probably because they are not burdened by the overwhelming public expectations in the games lead-up. We often see Russian, Chinese and Japanese athletes underperform when they are favorites due to the pressure to succeed on these athletes also.

I believe the U.S. athletes have much less pressure and therefore are more likely to perform to their potential for two main reasons: The first is that there are so many U.S. medal chances and often multiple per event, that the athletes rarely have so much pressure to succeed compared to Australians who only have a limited number of medal opportunities. Related to this point is that in many cases the US athletes’ greatest competition comes in qualifying for the Olympics and they often feel less pressure in the Olympics (see comments from Gymnastics team). The second factor is that in the U.S., Olympic sports are second tier compared to the major US professional sports. For the vast majority of the public, the Olympics are a bridge between the end of the baseball season (for the 95% of fans who's teams are out of World Series contention) and the start of the football season. It is a sad fact that the popularity of the Olympics has gradually fallen in the past 20-30 years, and most medal winners are forgotten within days of the Olympics finishing. When the U.S. Olympic team left for London, most of the medal prospects were still unknowns and by the time the public got to know them through NBC's documentary style coverage, the athletes were largely insulated from any public expectations.

One final point: NBC's coverage continually displays U.S. teammates in the warm up room getting all excited when someone in the pool wins or gets an unexpected medal, and when defeated by a compatriot they are very complimentary and supportive. The team as a whole just seems happy and like a bunch of excited kids on a field trip. It reminds me of competing in Intervarsity athletics which was fun. I am not seeing the Aussie coverage, but wonder if there is the same display of team camaraderie. Or does the media and public pressure have everyone focusing on themselves, missing out on valuable support from teammates and perhaps more importantly the younger athletes are missing out on support and guidance from their more senior teammates.

As long as Australians feel a need to prove ourselves on the world stage, the pressure on Aussie medal prospects is not going to subside in this or future Olympics. So let's face it, there will always be pressure. How do Australian athletes therefore overcome this pressure to be able to perform at their best on the world stage? For a start, I think coaches and team management have to insulate the athletes as much as possible from the outside pressures, and don’t make wild predictions the media to put on even more pressure. Secondly, I think Olympic management should provide assistance via sports psychologists to help the athletes through the games. Maybe is wasn’t psychologists, but Missy Franklin seemed to have almost every minute mapped out for her by team management to carefully guide her through her busy competition schedule. Do the Australian athletes get this assistance? Maybe they do, but I knew athletes who competed in Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney and I don’t know of any real assistance they received to help them prepare for their events. I hope this hasn’t been the case, but if so, it is a huge area for improvement.

After working so hard to get to the Olympics it is a shame to not perform to your full potential because you were too concerned about letting everyone one down…..