The world tuned into pt. 1/2 of Oprah's interview with Lance Armstrong yesterday.
Yikes. What an awkward interview. What an awkward scenario. What an awkward way to end the career of a 'world-class athlete', 'philanthropist', and cancer survivor.
The world's mad.
Supporters of Livestrong are mad.
We're dissapointed. We were tricked and cheated.
I write this piece with anger and dissapointment.
What he did is unforgiveable. He has to live with it.
However, what throws me off about yesterdays interview was his lack of emotion and remorse. He knows he cheated, but I'm not sure he thinks it was wrong. He repeatedly lied, he took down people who were telling the truth to continue on with this sprees.
However, what throws me off about yesterdays interview was his lack of emotion and remorse. He knows he cheated, but I'm not sure he thinks it was wrong. He repeatedly lied, he took down people who were telling the truth to continue on with this sprees.
Though I am angry with what he did, with what he represents and how far he took this, I'm more angry with where sports are today and how many athletes have the same story as dear ol' Lance.
Here's why...
Here's why...
"Do you think it's possible to win the Tour D'France without doping?"
"No."
Humans can do incredible things. I remember watching a tutorial video of olympics statistics from the early 1900's compared to the todays statistics. It's incredible what our bodies are capable of. However, we are reaching a point where alone, athletes are no longer able to win, pass world records and be the worlds greatest without the use of drugs.
Cycling passed this point a very long time ago.
Notoriously known for the overwhelming numbers of athletes that dope, cycling has acquired a bad name, and rightfully so. Can we blame Lance? NO. The International Cycling Union knew this day was coming sooner or later.
It is a personal choice to lie and cheat. It is a personal choice to dope. Andre Agassi made a choice. Stephen Alfre made a choice. Carlos Almanzar made a choice. Jose Canesco made a choice. Lance Armstrong made a choice. Thousands of athletes around the world make this choice because it's the only way to live up to the expectations that have been placed on them.
I find that it is often athletes who get criticized the most and who take the biggest blame. Not the organizations they fall under. Not their mentors and coaches. Not their providers.
We all watch those sports scenes where players get hurt, get taken to a back room, pumped up with drugs to numb the pain, and get their ass back on the field to perform. This is not an over dramatized depiciton of the real truth.
What I would do to be a fly on the wall in a locker room...
I don't feel bad for the negative attention that Lance has attracted. But do I think people are being harsh and naive and one-sided? Yes.
The ICU should be ashamed that it has let its own sport get to this point. Why are so many cyclists doping? Why aren't we asking ourselves why so many athletes are addicted, or compelled to cheat? Why are we not worried about the unsafe and negative environments that professional sports often foster.
I will never forget reading a New York Times article on Derek Boogard and the battles his father had, and continues to have with the NHL. I have attached the article, and have included a few quotes.
"Len Boogaard, knowing that his son had been enrolled in a substance-abuse program since September 2009, was surprised to see so many prescription bottles in the bathroom with the names of Rangers doctors. He was also surprised to hear from his son that he had been given four days’ notice for his next drug test."
"Boogaard was under the guidance of the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program, financed jointly by the N.H.L. and its players union. They would not make the co-directors — David Lewis, a psychiatrist, and Brian Shaw, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto — available for comment."
"Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler who is another co-director of the Boston University center, is the one who usually makes the initial call to a grieving family to request the brain. He does not want to put an end to hockey. He wants leagues to take every possible precaution to ensure that athletes are both better protected and better informed."
A Father Hunts for Answers
Len Boogaard, a cop and father, tries to make sense of it all. On leave from his desk job in Ottawa — a back injury years ago forced him off the streets — he patches together the remains of Derek’s world.
Like a detective, he dials contacts in Derek’s phone to ask who knows what. He explores hundreds of pages of phone records to reconstruct Derek’s relationships, his moods, his sleep patterns. He follows paper trails, trying to link the history of his son’s prescriptions to vague diagnoses in team medical reports.
Since the day of the funeral in May, Len Boogaard said, he has not heard from the Rangers.
The team refused to answer a detailed list of questions regarding their medical treatment of Boogaard during the season and his time in rehabilitation.
It also refused requests to speak to General Manager Glen Sather and the team physician, Dr. Andrew Feldman, among others, about Boogaard. Instead, it e-mailed a four-sentence statement from Sather that read, in part, “We worked very closely with Derek on and off the ice to provide him with the very best possible care.”
Boogaard’s death took on added weight when, in August, two other N.H.L. enforcers were found dead. Rick Rypien, 27, reportedly committed suicide after years of depression. Wade Belak, 35 and recently retired, reportedly hanged himself 16 days later. (The family has said it was an accident.)
Each bit of news, packed with a wallop, provided a backdrop for further debate about the role of fighting and the toll on enforcers. So did the start of the N.H.L. season in October, as teams began the ritual of glossy video tributes and moments of silence. The eccentric former coach and current television commentator Don Cherry chastised former enforcers who second-guess their past roles as “pukes,” “turncoats” and “hypocrites,” and the debate flared.
Yes, Derek's case is far different, but it too points to the expectations that professional athletes have to live up to, and more importantly, it points to the carlessness and inadequate treatment of athletes. Addictions to prescribed meds is all to familiar in the NHL, and instead of the league seriously taking measures to address these problems, we spend 100+ days feuding about a lockout.
It is this neglective environment which I believe fosters substance abuse, and in essence, fosters dissapointment among the public. However, this dissapointment is almost always directed at the athletes while team administrators, league commisioners, physcicians and union representatives fly under the radar, unnoticed, while still collecting their million dollar paychecks.
Lance lacks remorse and doesn't feel he did something wrong because doping is so normalized in his environment. He said something along the lines of: "cheating is having an edge on someone else, and I didn't feel like I was cheating." Not arguing in any way that it was okay or right, but it was normalized. When something like substance abuse becomes normalized, effective actions need to be persued, not only to prevent cheating, but to keep athletes safe and healthy. Maybe I'm too idealistic?
He made millions off his lies and he will now have to pay much of that money back. Do not think for one second that he is going to get away with what he did. But please be mindful that his actions and choices did not suddenly appear. His choices, like many others, may be attributed to unreasonable expectations, in combination with readily acessible perfromance enhancing drugs.
Accountability is lacking on all sides of the spectrum.
If it be the baseball diamond, the football field, the tennis court, the basketball court, the hockey rink, or the cycling track- we see more and more cases of doping, addictions,and concussed and injured players being played.
Please do not misinterpret my words.
What he did was wrong. He will pay for his sins, as we all do. We all make mistakes. We all have regrets.
But every problem, like every mistake, has its root.
It's scary. It's scary because we all want excellence- and we will go far to get it.
"No."
Humans can do incredible things. I remember watching a tutorial video of olympics statistics from the early 1900's compared to the todays statistics. It's incredible what our bodies are capable of. However, we are reaching a point where alone, athletes are no longer able to win, pass world records and be the worlds greatest without the use of drugs.
Cycling passed this point a very long time ago.
Notoriously known for the overwhelming numbers of athletes that dope, cycling has acquired a bad name, and rightfully so. Can we blame Lance? NO. The International Cycling Union knew this day was coming sooner or later.
It is a personal choice to lie and cheat. It is a personal choice to dope. Andre Agassi made a choice. Stephen Alfre made a choice. Carlos Almanzar made a choice. Jose Canesco made a choice. Lance Armstrong made a choice. Thousands of athletes around the world make this choice because it's the only way to live up to the expectations that have been placed on them.
I find that it is often athletes who get criticized the most and who take the biggest blame. Not the organizations they fall under. Not their mentors and coaches. Not their providers.
We all watch those sports scenes where players get hurt, get taken to a back room, pumped up with drugs to numb the pain, and get their ass back on the field to perform. This is not an over dramatized depiciton of the real truth.
What I would do to be a fly on the wall in a locker room...
I don't feel bad for the negative attention that Lance has attracted. But do I think people are being harsh and naive and one-sided? Yes.
The ICU should be ashamed that it has let its own sport get to this point. Why are so many cyclists doping? Why aren't we asking ourselves why so many athletes are addicted, or compelled to cheat? Why are we not worried about the unsafe and negative environments that professional sports often foster.
I will never forget reading a New York Times article on Derek Boogard and the battles his father had, and continues to have with the NHL. I have attached the article, and have included a few quotes.
"Len Boogaard, knowing that his son had been enrolled in a substance-abuse program since September 2009, was surprised to see so many prescription bottles in the bathroom with the names of Rangers doctors. He was also surprised to hear from his son that he had been given four days’ notice for his next drug test."
"Boogaard was under the guidance of the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program, financed jointly by the N.H.L. and its players union. They would not make the co-directors — David Lewis, a psychiatrist, and Brian Shaw, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto — available for comment."
"Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler who is another co-director of the Boston University center, is the one who usually makes the initial call to a grieving family to request the brain. He does not want to put an end to hockey. He wants leagues to take every possible precaution to ensure that athletes are both better protected and better informed."
A Father Hunts for Answers
Len Boogaard, a cop and father, tries to make sense of it all. On leave from his desk job in Ottawa — a back injury years ago forced him off the streets — he patches together the remains of Derek’s world.
Like a detective, he dials contacts in Derek’s phone to ask who knows what. He explores hundreds of pages of phone records to reconstruct Derek’s relationships, his moods, his sleep patterns. He follows paper trails, trying to link the history of his son’s prescriptions to vague diagnoses in team medical reports.
Since the day of the funeral in May, Len Boogaard said, he has not heard from the Rangers.
The team refused to answer a detailed list of questions regarding their medical treatment of Boogaard during the season and his time in rehabilitation.
It also refused requests to speak to General Manager Glen Sather and the team physician, Dr. Andrew Feldman, among others, about Boogaard. Instead, it e-mailed a four-sentence statement from Sather that read, in part, “We worked very closely with Derek on and off the ice to provide him with the very best possible care.”
Boogaard’s death took on added weight when, in August, two other N.H.L. enforcers were found dead. Rick Rypien, 27, reportedly committed suicide after years of depression. Wade Belak, 35 and recently retired, reportedly hanged himself 16 days later. (The family has said it was an accident.)
Each bit of news, packed with a wallop, provided a backdrop for further debate about the role of fighting and the toll on enforcers. So did the start of the N.H.L. season in October, as teams began the ritual of glossy video tributes and moments of silence. The eccentric former coach and current television commentator Don Cherry chastised former enforcers who second-guess their past roles as “pukes,” “turncoats” and “hypocrites,” and the debate flared.
Yes, Derek's case is far different, but it too points to the expectations that professional athletes have to live up to, and more importantly, it points to the carlessness and inadequate treatment of athletes. Addictions to prescribed meds is all to familiar in the NHL, and instead of the league seriously taking measures to address these problems, we spend 100+ days feuding about a lockout.
It is this neglective environment which I believe fosters substance abuse, and in essence, fosters dissapointment among the public. However, this dissapointment is almost always directed at the athletes while team administrators, league commisioners, physcicians and union representatives fly under the radar, unnoticed, while still collecting their million dollar paychecks.
Lance lacks remorse and doesn't feel he did something wrong because doping is so normalized in his environment. He said something along the lines of: "cheating is having an edge on someone else, and I didn't feel like I was cheating." Not arguing in any way that it was okay or right, but it was normalized. When something like substance abuse becomes normalized, effective actions need to be persued, not only to prevent cheating, but to keep athletes safe and healthy. Maybe I'm too idealistic?
He made millions off his lies and he will now have to pay much of that money back. Do not think for one second that he is going to get away with what he did. But please be mindful that his actions and choices did not suddenly appear. His choices, like many others, may be attributed to unreasonable expectations, in combination with readily acessible perfromance enhancing drugs.
Accountability is lacking on all sides of the spectrum.
If it be the baseball diamond, the football field, the tennis court, the basketball court, the hockey rink, or the cycling track- we see more and more cases of doping, addictions,and concussed and injured players being played.
Please do not misinterpret my words.
What he did was wrong. He will pay for his sins, as we all do. We all make mistakes. We all have regrets.
But every problem, like every mistake, has its root.
It's scary. It's scary because we all want excellence- and we will go far to get it.
