Lance Armstrong's Legacy: Bullying and Lying Worse Than the Doping
In one of my earlier Forbes posts from June 2011, I drew a comparison between 3 separate cheating scenarios in sports:
- The act of cheating in recruiting by collegiate coaches;
- The act of steroids use in baseball during the so-called Steroids Era;
- The rampant use of PEDs in professional cycling.
I argued that the inclination to cheat could be somewhat understood by understanding the Prisoner's Dilemma, an economic theory discussed in the subcategory of game theory.
If you are an honest coach, you may still be inclined to cheat in recruiting if you think all of your main competitors are cheating. If you are a clean baseball player, you may be tempted to take steroids if you believe many of your teammates and opposing players are doing the same.
I'm not a cycling expert, but when I researched the history of doping in the sport, it becomes clear why any professional cyclist with pure intentions of racing clean in the late 1990s or thereafter could be drawn to the dark side of the peloton.
Whether you believe Jose Canseco or the Mitchell Report, it would appear that between 10-50% of Major League Baseball players used steroids during this tainted era of the game. Thus, easy to see why a clean player could be swayed towards using.
The evidence from professional cycling makes it appear as if at least 50% of the top cyclists (and perhaps as many as 75-90%) were doping. If I were a professional cyclist during this era, and I wanted to win and I knew these percentages, most anyone reading this piece would be tempted towards using PEDs.
Not to gain a competitive edge, but to simply keep up with the Joneses. Or the Bonds (low blow).
The moral of the story is quite simple.
Given the reality of the time during which he competed, it's easy to understand why Lance Armstrong was inclined to cheat. In this light, it's not his doping that bothers me.
But as summarized beautifully by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports, it's the lying and bullying of those that dare attempt to illuminate the truth that was considerably more sinful.
My mom passed away in September 2006 from pancreatic cancer. As such, I guess I'm inclined to salute anyone that can raise attention and money to the cause of defeating this dreadful disease.
I don't begrudge Mr. Armstrong the millions he earned in a sport where most of his competitors were also getting a synthetic enhancement to their performance.
I do, however, agree with Mr. Wetzel that he owes considerably more apologies to the people he tried to intimidate and bully while trying to maintain his lucrative sponsorships and his perch atop the cycling world.
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Patrick is the Director of Sportsimpacts and Economics Professor at Webster University. Follow him on Twitter.
