YES: Nick Burke
“I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles,” were the words Lance Armstrong declared after his momentous seventh Tour de France victory in 2005. No miracles were performed by Armstrong. His miracle of deliverance was one brought about with the aid of sports-enhancing drugs. He was a cheat.
Armstrong was regarded as one of the greats in sporting history; fighting against all the odds to return from life-threatening cancer to achieve unparalleled success. Yet his sporting achievement was all based upon an intricate web of lies, doping to ensure his success at the pinnacle of cycling.
The evidence against him is damning with the US Anti-Doping Agency producing a 1,000 page document loaded with forensic evidence. He was the ring-leader of the whole operation, fully in the knowledge that he was taking banned drugs.
One glimmer of redemption is that with his success and fame he set up his cancer research charity ‘Lance Armstrong Foundation.’ Set up in 1997, by 2010 the foundation had raised over $30million.
He was an inspiration, hero and role model for many. Now he is a fallen idol, denying any wrong in the face of uncompromising evidence. One last chance of minor redemption would be to admit his wrongdoings and apologise. But no, Armstrong is standing firm on the grounds that he never cheated. A cheat in a sport full of cheats, but one of the biggest cheats ever nonetheless.
NO: Dan Jones
The scandal engulfing Lance Armstrong continues to unravel, transforming a once heroic figure of bravery and persistence, into a serial cheat who conned the world for over a decade.
Whilst there are few examples of such a well-known and celebrated individual being disgraced so publicly, I do feel that the fact it has taken place in the world of cycling limits its impact. Had it featured in a sport such as football, rugby or cricket, the effects would have much wider ramifications.
There are simply too many scandals to name in full, such as ‘Bloodgate’ in Rugby Union, Allen Stanford and the Pakistani spot-fixing debacle in cricket, and football match-fixing in Italy and Turkey. However, a lesser known scandal, yet one that is just as staggering, is the mysterious takeover of Notts County Football Club in 2010. Notorious businessman Russell King fronted a bid to buy the League One club for a nominal £1 fee claiming to be backed by the billions at the disposal of the Bahraini royal family.
Such was the success of King’s fraudulent lies, he even convinced former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson, and former England international Sol Campbell, to jump on board. The club was sold five months later, with an astonishing £7 million worth of debt which almost crippled it.
Whilst the occurrences at a third-tier club may not appear to compare to the plight of a sporting superstar, scandals cannot be defined by their coverage in the media.