Lance Armstrong Confesses to Oprah

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Jan. 19, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

           When seven-time Tour de France [1999-2005] champion and 2000 Sidney Olympic bronze medallist 41-year-old Lance Armstrong met with Oprah Winfrey for a tell-all interview aired Jan. 17, 18 he was supposed to make amends for years of lying about using Performance Enhancing Drugs.   While the rest of cycling world, including his U.S. Postal Service teammate Floyd Landis, ratted him out, it was just a matter of time before the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency got Lance.  When the USADA released its 200-page report Oct. 10, 2012, documenting Armstrong’s PED use, it didn’t take long for the Tour de France to strip Armstrong Oct. 22, 2012 of all his titles.  While everyone—including Oprah—focuses on Armstrong’s treachery, it’s easy to forget his battle with Stage-3 testicular cancer, including his brutal chemotherapy regimen and surgery to remove cancerous brain tumors in 1996.

             Armstrong’s return to competitive cycling took the world by storm after barely surviving State-3 metastatic cancer.  Oprah’s interview focused almost exclusively on Armstrong’s use of PEDs and various kinds of blood doping, including blood transfusions and used of EPO or Erythropoietan, a drug used to escalate the growth of red blood cells.  After admitting to blood doping and PED use in 2005 and before, Armstrong emphatically denied taking blood transfusions in 2009.  “That’s the only thing I this whole report that upsets me,” said Armstrong, referring to the USADA’s allegation that he blood doped in 2009.  “You did not do a blood transfusion in 2009,” Winfrey asked.  “No, 2009 and 2010 absolutely, not,” replied Armstrong, not admitting whether or not he used EPO or Human Growth Hormone.   Blood doping and EPO are different, warranting different questions from Oprah.

             Representatives from the USADA said Armstrong’s mature erythrocytes were too elevated in 2009, consistent with blood transfusions.  They questioned whether or not Armstrong was truthful with Oprah because of a seven-years statute of limitations that would have expired from 2005 but not 2009.  Oprah’s interview focused on a confession not the context in which Lance, as a cancer survivor, needed extra octane to race comepetively.  Oprah wasn’t interested in the extent to which competitive cycling was dominated by PED use and blood doping in Armstrong’s competitive years.  While it’s true there’s always someone that didn’t do it, it’s also true that Armstrong wasn’t the only professional cyclist using PEDs and blood doping.  Columnists like USA Today’s Christine Brennen went too far criticizing Armstrong’s confession and calculated attempt at damage control.

              Brennan believes that Armstrong damaged his reputation more meeting with Oprah.  “This is like Bernie Madoff coming back after three months or Richard Nixon coming back after three months.  No one wants to hear from those people so soon,” Brennan told George Stephanapoulos on “Good Morning,” showing the kind of hyperbole that gives journalists a black eye.  It’s one thing to comment about Armstrong’s surprising confession.  It’s another to equate PED use with criminal behavior.  Whatever your feelings about PEDs and blood doping, it’s typically performed under a doctor’s care.  There’s nothing illegal when a licensed physician prescribes FDA approved medications, treatments or procedures.  Whether banned in individuals sports or not, PEDs are routinely prescribed by doctors with solid medical necessity, including recovery from various injuries.

             Comparing PED use to Madoff’s  $60 billion Ponzi Scheme or Nixon’s Watergate burglary shows how far things have gone awry.  “It was a lose-lose going in.  I think he did more harm that good to his reputation, and he just looked cold-blooded, and cutthroat, and ruthless,” Brennan said, showing no sense of proportion.  Brennan and other sports journalists know that most sports dealt with drug issues during the ‘80s and ‘90s.  While now banned by all professional sports, PED use and blood doping have been going on since the early ‘70s, perhaps before.  When Finland’s great 5K and 10K Olympic champion Lasse Virén won four gold medals in 1972 and 1976, it was known to almost everyone he blood doped.  No one on the International Olympic Committee stripped Virén of his gold medals.  No scientific study has proved that PEDs or blood doping produce consistent results.

              All the damaging testimony about Armstrong’s PED use and blood doping doesn’t really detract from his wins in the Tour de France or any other competitive cycling event.  Plenty of other athletes used PEDs and blood doped, finishing out of medal contention.  “He was wrong, he cheated and there was no excuse for what he did.  If he was looking for redemption, he didn’t succeed in getting that,” said John Farley, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency.  Farley knows that PED use and blood doping was rampant during Armstrong’s era.  He knew Lance survived Stage-3 testicular cancer and brain surgery in 1996, before miraculously returning in 1998 to competitive cycling.  Everyone now holding Armstrong’s feet to the fire forgets he was practically pegged for dead by the medical community, certainly not to win the Tour de France seven consecutive times.

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.