Jumbled in the labyrinth of litigation, among the supposed exposés, and building and falling evidence of admissions and retractions, is the proverbial, high-stakes, good-guys-bad-guys game, one that will be viewed through discriminatory lenses depending on what side of the chicken wire you’re on.
Much like war, who plays the heroes is largely a matter of perspective. In this case, will it be the pursuers or the pursued — the United States or famed cyclist Lance Armstrong?
For years, allegations of steroid use have hounded Armstrong. Now, with disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis as its key witness, the Food and Drug Administration has launched an investigation into cycling’s underground skin-deep, results-based culture.
Extenuating circumstances only complicate the matter. For cycling purists — imagining they exist, though the sport has long been contaminated — there’s no question: Cheaters deserve infamous punishment not prosperous posterity.
But for those fans who acknowledge the paucity of straight-shooters in the steroids era — an era that extends across all sports, but is just more visible in certain ones — use and abuse has become an accepted ethos, a determinant of winners. To win, you must sin, only the advent of moral relativism blurs the win-at-all-costs line.
Of course, the underpinning of logic behind it is: If everybody’s cheating, is anybody cheating? The simple answer is yes. After all, rules are rules, and bend but don’t break doesn’t apply here. If Armstrong — the quintessential American, clean and puritanical athlete who has dodged dogged allegations of performance-enhanced cheating — was juiced up on synthetics, what in American sporting culture isn’t fabricated?
The sad realization will be compounded by the fact that Armstrong is an inspirational icon, having defeated the scourge of testicular cancer. Should it come to light that Armstrong doped, the outrage will be swift, salty and unrepentant. There will be no introspection, no re-examination of what led Armstrong to accept steroids into his patented training regimen.
Still, it’s worth noting that the perversion of American culture, our capitalistically fueled infatuation with ultimate competition, will be responsible for Armstrong’s buildup and unraveling.
Even more sobering, it will be based on Landis’ sensational hearsay.
Neatly packaged all in one, Landis is a snitch and a whistleblower, a liar and a crusader for truth. Years of denying he doped, when he registered high levels of testosterone/epitestosterone in a drug test after winning the 2006 Tour de France, sullies his credibility. That said, as much as he is a syringe of lies, his complex account describing the way dopers avoid detection is not as perforated as his image.
No matter how inconvenient, it’s impossible to write off Landis’ claims. That’s why one of the best in the business has been contracted to investigate the validity of Landis’ accusations.
In a lengthy set-the-stage article, Time Magazine described Jeff Novitzky, an investigator for the Food and Drug Administration, as the “Elliot Ness of the steroid era.” Isn’t it evermore apropos then that Novitzky is dealing with The Untouchable (Armstrong)? Yet it is without hesitation that he dare explore Armstrong’s possible wrongdoing, unafraid of the far-reaching implications it could have on everyone who has ever drank the Livestrong Kool-Aid.
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A little more background and it becomes clear that Novitzky, the man who helped uproot baseball’s dirty little secret in the BALCO investigation, is as coiled as a rattlesnake, showing the same cold-blooded indifference that helped the Nesses and Melvin Pervises of the world ensnare notorious criminals like Al Capone and bank robber John Dillinger. By way of the analogy that would mean that Armstrong is perhaps on his way to becoming an immensely more endeared-to-the-public Dillinger.
While it’s far too premature to say charges appear in Armstrong’s future, despite what biker Greg LeMond told The Denver Post would be an “overwhelming case” against the fabled American, it is clear Novitzky has his network of informants.
On the backs of two soured Armstrong adversaries and a slew of subpoenaed others, Novitzky will build his case brick by brick, but will Armstrong be able to huff and puff and blow Novitzky’s investigative abode down, or will it be exposed that it’s actually America’s beloved hero who occupies a house of cards?
At the end of all this, even if Armstrong is vindicated, the damage has been done. Tainted public perception is as good as the admission of guilt. Had there been no doubt surrounding Armstrong before, his legacy might have been able to skate by unscathed.
Yet having any historical basis on Armstrong makes one weary of his innocence, even though he’s passed every drug test he’s been administered. In 1999, Armstrong had an encounter with Christophe Bassons, a former professional racing cyclist turned writer.
Since the 1998 Festina scandal, in which a cache of drugs was found in car driven to team riders in the Tour de France, Bassons became an opponent of performance-enhancing drugs. He was apparently, according to two riders quoted in the publication France Soir, the only rider who didn’t “load the cannon.”
In 1999, Armstrong told Bassons in the Alpe d’Huez stage that it was a mistake for Bassons to speak out about the sport’s rampant drug use. In less cynical times, Armstrong might have just been trying to garner support for the sport back in his homeland, where ratings in the pre-Armstrong era were insufferably poor. But that doesn’t exonerate him from endorsing a hush, blind-eye culture.
On top of that, in 2004, two reporters published a damaging book L.A. Confidentiel : Les secrets de Lance Armstrong about Armstrong’s alleged drug use. The book, however, was written off as completely circumstantial.
Following up on that in 2005, a French newspaper published a story saying that six of Armstrong’s 1999 Tour de France urine samples, which were stored at a laboratory, came back positive for erytherythropoietin. Again, Armstrong vehemently denied the allegations, writing on his website that the “witch hunt continues” — a phrase he recently invoked when telling reporters on what conditions he’d cooperate with Novitzky’s investigation.
Perhaps that’s what spurs on Novitzky’s whole investigation. Arguably, saying Landis’ claims are malicious isn’t far-fetched, but given the surrounding speculation, Novitzky’s probe doesn’t appear to be motivated by sink-or-float logic.
With the news that Alberto Contador won his third straight Tour de France, Armstrong’s stranglehold on the event is diminished. Could it be coincidence that The Untouchable’s legacy will be next to go?
With “Elliot Ness” at the handlebars steering the investigation’s direction, that question might soon be answered.
