Armstrong's disgrace and Phelps' appreciation night

It has been a dark week for sport. Lance Armstrong is now a hero-turned-villain. He battled testicular cancer, came back and won seven consecutive Tour de France races. It was a real-life fairytale. But then, fairytale is the key word. Armstrong, in his tell-it-all interview to Oprah Winfrey, admitted that winning seven consecutive races wasn’t humanly possible unless an athlete used performance-enhancing substances.

A number of people have lashed out at Armstrong for his actions. People have called him a cheat, a liar, and other expletives that cannot be mentioned. They have expressed shock at the way he answered Oprah’s questions without, in their eyes, feeling any remorse. He did apologize, but the people feel that it did not mean anything for what he had done.

Two contrasting reports have come out of this incident. One is a column by Sally Jenkins, who co-wrote his autobiography, in the Washington Post and the other is by cyclist Nicole Cook in The Guardian. Jenkins says that she isn’t angry with Armstrong, and at times while reading the article, goes on to justify his actions.

On the other hand, Cook has retired from professional cycling and feels that athletes such as Lance Armstrong deserve to be in jail. A number of people will agree with Nicole Cook’s sentiments. After all, Armstrong has been a role model for several in and outside the sport.

The last athlete who was caught lying after a fairytale success story was Marion Jones, who, after achieving history in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, was stripped of her medals and records after it was found that she had used performance-enhancing substances.

Jones’ admitted to cheating. She was stripped of her medals, but she wasn’t disgraced as much as Armstrong was. Had it been Michael Phelps testing positive instead of Jones, he would probably have been in the same space as Armstrong.

And now, we can actually look at how great an athlete Phelps is. We watched him create history in Beijing. We saw him swim to immortality in London. And not once – barring the incident where he was caught with a stash of marijuana – has he used performance-enhancing drugs. Had he used marijuana before a race, it would have been anything but performance enhancing!

Both Armstrong and Phelps had parallel careers. Armstrong’s peak was between 1999 and 2005. Phelps was recognized in the 2004 Athens’ Olympics, he achieved greatness in the 2008 Beijing Olympics – the same time Armstrong made a not-so-successful comeback – and achieved immortality in London 2012 – the same time Armstrong’s slide into disgrace began.

Phelps began his Olympic dream at 19 and ended it at 27. It was eight years of brilliance. We saw him rise. We saw him fall. We questioned whether he would be able to create history in London after Ryan Lochte was out-swimming him in the trials before the Olympics. But like always, he took the criticism personally and motivated himself to reach a point that only one in a million can reach. He reached immortality and will always be remembered as one of the greatest – if not the greatest – Olympians ever.

Which brings us back to Armstrong. We may be hurt at Armstrong’s actions, but thankfully the sporting fraternity moves on. We may never have someone winning seven consecutive Tour de France races. But we can still savour the race because of the intensity that it provides. And until then, we can always worship Phelps for what he has done for the world of sport.