A True Champion

Given the recent revelations from Lance Armstrong (or lack thereof depending on your perspective), we are again having to question our ideas of what makes a champion or what makes an athlete worthy of our adulation.  In the spirit of Lance being the "champion" of a sport most Americans know little about but has a massive following in Europe, I'd put forward another little-known (in the US) champion who embodied many of the things we so enjoyed about Lance but managed to steer clear of the megalomania and urge to destroy others who stood up to him (off the bike) that Lance did.

If you haven't watched Senna the documentary from Working Title Films, I must recommend very strongly that you do.  It isn't overly long, it isn't overly sappy, but it will change the way you view racing and introduce you to at least several sides of an interesting man who was a great champion.

As someone who has driven a car, even one with a turbo and a manual transmission, I always felt I had some appreciation for race car drivers.  This film helped to absolve me of that stupid assumption.  The images from inside the cockpit as Ayrton wrestles a car described by the boys at "Top Gear" as more akin to a wild ferocious animal than the powerful but refined machines that F1 drivers today manage will awaken you to what it must have taken to do what he did.

And then it starts to rain.  And suddenly he is even better, in fact his coming out party came at Monaco when driving a really crappy car (compared to other F1 cars) and the rain began and suddenly he was making up between 6-8 seconds on the leader every lap.  Alain Prost, the reigning world champ, luckily convinced the officials to call the race just before Senna overtook him.

The hosts of Top Gear help to give more credence to the feeling I had watching the documentary that Senna was something very special.  And in some ways coming to that realization long after the fact makes it even more valuable in my mind.  Here is a man who was a hero to millions and millions of people and respected by drivers and F1 fans the world over and I'd never heard of him.  Suddenly I have this opportunity to not only know something about the man but to appreciate this sport and some of its nuance by getting this glimpse into one of its greatest champions.

And his "champion" ness is confirmed by his ruthlessness as a driver, his willingness to place other drivers in position to either crash or give way, his attention to detail and precise approach, his unwillingness to accept anything less than being the best, all of these make him a champion.  And strangely enough, or perhaps it seems strange now, I think Lance shared many of these traits.  One of the reasons he was so fun to watch was that he was a ruthless competitor on the bike and he doped himself into a position to be ruthless but if anything is easy to forgive it is that, given its ubiquity at the time in the pro peleton.

But what Senna had that Lance lacked, what made him a true champion was the humility to forgive, the humility to understand his place even as he was worshipped by millions, the humility to care for those around him even as he was trying his very best to obliterate them in competition.  In the documentary "Ayrton Senna - The Right to Win" one of his rivals describes the last moment he shared with him prior to his death and the way that Ayrton clearly showed that he could be happy for others when things went well for them.  This is one of the things that makes a great champion and separates them from someone like Lance.

If you watched Lance's interview with Oprah, you may recall his discussion of doping to win the seven tours and his suggestion that he already knew he was going to win, he almost laughed about it, telling Oprah that they already knew they would win.  He had doped, built a doped super team, done everything he could to be certain that his rivals could not win.  And if you watched Ayrton crash into Alain Prost in the first half mile of the Grand Prix of Japan, you might say look, they are the same, they will do anything to win.  Ayrton argued that he should have the outside lane, that it was the clean part of the track and since he won the pole he should take the outside.  He didn't get it, and knowing that Prost not finishing would make him world champ, he made sure Prost didn't finish, simple as that.

The difference is that when Ayrton faced cars that were technically superior to his, he either couldn't or didn't use his influence or his power to either crush those teams or steal the technology or jump across into one of those cars.  He fought to compete and lost with grace.

The difference is that Ayrton was not selected by the governing body of F1 to be the winner as Lance was selected by the UCI and Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid to be immune to doping controls and to be informed of testers arrival, etc.  Ayrton was victimized by Jean Marie Balestre who repeatedly took the side of Alain Prost even costing Ayrton a shot at the World Title in 1989 and stole one of the greatest victories in F1 history from him.  (A lap or two here) Prost (arguably) crashed Senna out of the race but Senna pitted, got a new front wing, came back and re-took the lead in just the remaining 5 laps only to be disqualified by Belestre at the behest of Prost.

The day that Senna died at Imola, he remarked that morning that he missed Alain Prost, missed racing against him.  Not because they were always best friends, not because they didn't do spectacularly dangerous things to each other to try and win.

Senna missed Prost because he liked having a great rival, someone who he could rejoice in beating when they both were at their best.  Someone who had beaten him, someone who gave Senna's dominance a definite lack of certainty, someone who gave him doubts about his own greatness.

Lance can't handle doubts about his greatness, even as he admits cheating his way to it.

PS - How a race car driver drives a regular car (watch his feet)


PPS - The book about Ayrton by Christopher Hilton, Ayrton Senna: The Whole Story has been great so far.  I am just about 1/4 of the way through after getting it in the mail today.  So far it would suggest that he is even more of a champ than I thought!

Interview on Bob Long Sports Radio

Got on Bob Long Sports for their weekly show last night.  Talked about Lance and the reactions to his interview.

Same old Lance

Lance Armstrong pretended to tell the truth for the past 15 years about his cycling accomplishments, the doping he didn't practice, the things that other people said that he did, about who he was as a person.  And then he went on Oprah last night to tell the truth, the real truth.  And he continued to pretend.

But don't get caught in the "level playing field argument."  

Don't for a minute think that Lance himself is anything but a cheater, a liar, a bully, and isn't repentant about a single one of those things.

It is telling that those who know him, those who were his friends are the most vocal about how little his interview on Oprah has changed things or perhaps made it worse.  

Read Rick Reilly's column and be aware that he played people who then went to bat for him over and over and over again.  Everything he did, the number of tests he claimed to have passed, everything was a lie and he was incredibly adept at making people believe them. 

Read Betsy Andreu's interview with Austin Murphy prior to the Oprah show and after Lance called her to begin apologizing.  Then watch her interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN last night post Oprah.  She is furious, and rightly so about the lack of contrition, the unwillingness to answer arguably the most important question for her about whether he told doctors that he doped prior to his cancer diagnosis.  She is hurt by his boorish comment about not calling her fat and points out that he gives little reason to trust him now.  Perhaps even more importantly, she points out in her interview this morning on ABC that he can't admit that the hospital room conversation happened because it would open up more legal issues.

Read Greg Lemond's comments on cyclingnews.com and elsewhere.  He argues that it is possible to win the Tour without doping.  He points out that Lance never apologized to the people he destroyed, the people like Lemond.  He also points out that Lance's story included the whole idea of his incredible talent, all the myths about his body not producing lactic acid, etc.  Lemond suggests that “If Armstrong had given Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton the same stuff he was taking, he would never have won – they would have beaten him.”  

Remember that he made it very clear that all doping ceased after 2005.  He had to make this point to keep him safe using the statute of limitations.  If he admits doping in 2009 and 2010 he is wide open for perjury charges and likely jail time.  If he admits that, and his blood values from those tours suggest very strongly that he did, he stands to lose even more money.  The prospect of him being bled dry has become very real with the Landis whistleblower suit along with SCA trying to get their money back, the Sunday Times going after theirs and the possibility of other civil suits that could be filed depending on what he admits to.

Lance said last night that he "wanted to control the narrative," that he always wanted to be sure that the story fit with his version.  And nothing, absolutely nothing has changed.  He is attempting to use Oprah and this two-part "confession" to clear the way for him returning to competition earlier than he hoped while still keeping him free of the legal troubles that a real admission would bring.  He is still covering for his friends McQuaid, Verbruggen, Ferrari and Bruyneel.  He is trying to make it clear that he never was the ringleader of doping at US Postal because that might protect him in Landis' lawsuit.

The bottom line? Lance hasn't changed at all.  He isn't contrite any more than he thinks he needs to be.  He isn't admitting any more than he thinks he can get away with.  He isn't answering the toughest questions thoroughly and none of it is under oath.  He is protecting the figures that sullied the sport for years.  He admits that he was treated differently because he won so many races and had so much money but then continuously makes the "level playing field" argument, one that is disproved by his own admission as well as the different physiological reactions to doping and different systems and levels of doping.

Lance is still a bully and a jerk and a liar.  The only difference is that perhaps now without all the glitz and the money and the foundation and everything else, more people will see through his charade.  And there's still a possibility that someday he will drop it and come clean.  But I doubt it.

Watch out, its the tyranny police

I just read something on facebook that got my attention.  The premise was that the second amendment is about allowing people to wield power as individuals within a collective.  That just as individuals voting responsibly keeps the collective healthy, individuals wielding firearms (whether as a peace-keeping citizen or a member of the military) responsibly helps maintain a proper balance of power within the collective.

In his article, Kevin Yuill at least points out the fact that most people tend to ignore which is that there are quite a few powerful people who really would like to repeal or change the 2nd amendment but of course they realize this is impossible given that the majority of Americans would not support it.  Because of this impossibility, the drive is for gun control whether through Congressional measures or by executive order or both.  But Yuill's argument is that the 2nd amendment is not about who can or can't bear arms but is aimed at preventing the "tyranny of the seizure of weapons."

In a literal sense, he is correct.  The amendment states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."  And if the state or federal government decided that they should take guns away from people or tried to prevent certain people from having them, that would be a tyrannical action.

But what about the tyranny of gun owners and wielders that is carried out against Americans every day?  Anyone taking someone else's life with a gun is certainly practicing tyranny.  I think it is fair to extend that to the idea that simply living in a country with so many guns means that I or my family are more likely to be killed by someone with a gun than in many other civilized countries.  I think Yuill and others that use the tyranny argument want to make it clear that only a government or group of lawmakers or even an individual like the president are being tyrannical in suggesting controls on who can own guns.

But he's wrong.  There's plenty of tyranny to go around.

If you as an individual decide that you want to have fewer restrictions on who can have what kinds of guns and where they can carry them, you are in favor of a tyranny that is visited upon those who would like to go to the park or into a school under the assumption that no one is carrying firearms.

Of course "bad people" or "sick people" may break those rules and you can argue that the tyranny of the sick or bad can only be stopped by the tyranny of the responsible gun owner.  You can argue that the rules shouldn't be decided by the tyranny of the ignorant who don't know the difference between an AR-15 or an H&K-5 or even a .40 S&W.

But I'd appreciate it if we could stop pretending that tyranny is something only the government can wield.  When you walk around carrying a gun and most other people around you don't have one, you are capable of more tyranny than many of those people put together.  When you have a gun in your home, particularly if it isn't locked up and stored securely, you can even be a victim to the tyranny of the accidental or the stupid.

So while we are standing up for our rights and protesting against tyranny, real or just possible, I just want to make sure there is a space for me to do the same.

(And I am super curious how many guns I'd have to mention and link to within a blog post to make an adsense thing pop up advertising a gun store or particular weapon.  Apparently this wasn't enough, maybe next time!)

I put the new photo in above, along with a few other changes.  The reasons I put that particular photo in are as follows:

1.  I never understood what people meant when they said "bike porn."  To a certain extent I think I do now and that photo would fit the definition for me.  I objectify to a rather absurd degree that beautiful mixture of carbon fiber, aluminum and other stuff.

2.  I really want one of them and perhaps putting pictures of it will convince the powers that be at Argon that they should let me ride one.  (without charging me for it of course)

3.  I think it is really a beautiful object, maybe even for those who've not caught the wanna be big time bike racer's disease.

Dare I also add that I'd really like to get this too since it matches so well?

I write this from my parents couch while I should be back home in Pennsylvania.  I am not home in Pennsylvania because I am not very good at riding bikes, mis-judged a very innocent and non-dangerous turn and then went off said turn into a significantly less innocent and rather dangerous and angry ditch.  A ditch with big teeth made of rocks, one of which I struck with a great and powerful blow.  Sadly the rock-tooth shook off the blow and my ribs did not.  Four of them gave way, and also allowed something called a "pleural effusion" to open up which then required a chest tube to drain.  Chest tubes are not fun though I suppose it can be interesting to watch bloody fluid drain out of your chest through a tube inserted in your armpit.  It gets old after a rather short time though.
I learned a lot of new words like hemopneumothorax and flail chest, and that you can use the word "paradoxical" to describe the motion of your ribs, but generally only the broken ones.  But it has been a couple weeks and things seem to be coming along nicely.  Maybe someday I will be good at riding my bike around turns.  For now I still seem to excel mostly at riding in straight lines by myself.  And I am ok at going uphill.

I had a fun year last year on the bike except for that most recent incident.  I got dragged up to the Killington Stage Race (really, I still get super nervous about any race since it involves almost invariably going downhill with other people that I trust almost as much as I trust myself.  Which isn't much.) where I had a lovely time and managed to win the GC despite not winning any stages and almost getting crashed out in the 45mph sprint on the first day in which I was not participating.  But being the Cat.4 race, there's always shenanigans.  But that was fun, I got a nice pink jersey out of it and had a wonderful time with Goates, Alan Royek, Paul Frandsen and his lovely wife, Jonathan Marshall, the eldest Goates child and met some of the Round Here guys that I hadn't met before.

I managed to pick up another GC win at the Tour of Washington County in decidedly baby-baby fashion.  Finish in the front group (15th or something) on the first day's circuit race (while riding with a back wheel that I kept worrying about as it felt rather squirrelly and then realized at the end of the race that it was not tight at all in the dropouts...) win the TT by 40 seconds or so and then hang around the back end of the crit and not lose too much time there.  Now on to Cat. 3, should be fun.  My goal of racing with Goates is foiled again however as he has been forced to move up to Cat. 2 after a banner year and who knows if I will ever make that kind of leap.

So after finishing December with just under 1000 miles, many of which were logged on the trainer so I am almost tempted to count them double, I will probably miss most/all of January and start the year in incredibly bad shape.  Super.

By the way, I'd need a small in the Gallium Pro road frame and probably a medium in the E-118.  Just in case you need to check before boxing them up.

Thanks.