This is a cautionary tale that should never be forgotten

Columnist and Senior Features Writer

Tuesday 23 October 2012

SO now the dismantling of a cycling demi-god begins.

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Susan Swarbrick

Lance Armstrong is to be officially stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, banned for life and, according to UCI president Pat McQuaid, has "no place in cycling" and "deserves to be forgotten".

The last of his sponsors, sunglasses manufacturer Oakley, who had held on until the bitter end – Nike, Trek and Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch have already severed ties – finally walked away yesterday.

But as the fervent airbrushing gets under way, Armstrong's name being wiped from the record books and the embers of his smouldering legacy swiftly extinguished, it begs the question: are we being too hasty in banishing him?Granted, it is a little early, the gaping wound still too raw and weeping to even contemplate an alternative. The aftershocks of his actions – not least the jawdropping and Machiavellian details of "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen" – continue to reverberate through the cycling world. Last week leading sponsor, Rabobank, announced its intention to end its 17-year association with the sport stating: "We are no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport."Scottish cyclist David Millar angrily declared: "How dare you walk away from your young clean guys who are part of the solution? Sickening." It is indeed a cruel travesty that, as the smoke and mirrors which shielded the murky world of professional cycling for decades are finally dispensed with, those who symbolise its future, in turn, become the collateral damage.Yet to move forward shouldn't mean to erase the past. Just as to forget, doesn't necessarily constitute forgiveness. By all accounts Armstrong has been a one-man tsunami who has ripped through and marred the lives of many. That can never be condoned.But amid the feverish unmasking of Armstrong like a Scooby Doo villain, are we being too quick to attempt to gloss over the ugly parts? Doping, whether we like it or not, cannot be relegated to a mere footnote in the margins of cycling history: be that Armstrong, the Festina Affair or Tom Simpson dying of exhaustion on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. It is what the sport was and, by the same token, will help mould its future incarnations. Armstrong may have been the master puppeteer among the former US Postal Service team, but for all his catalogued flaws – single-minded, egotistical, bullying – he was merely symptomatic of a wider problem. He simply did it on a grander scale than anyone else. Don't mistake that for misplaced empathy. Armstrong's lack of remorse and repeated failure to admit guilt is abhorrent. In a few years from now, when the millions gleaned through his ill-gotten gains begin to dry up, undoubtedly we will see him serve some sort of penance on the US chat show circuit, perhaps even pen a novel to put across his own carefully choreographed side of things. So, where does all this leave us? Like it or not we have the perfect poster boy for hope. Not hope in the traditional sense that Armstrong was once, the plucky cancer survivor who doggedly beat the odds to go on to win the world's toughest bike race. But of a future in which there are no more Lance Armstrongs. For that reason he should not be whitewashed from the annals of the sport, but rather held up as an Icarus-esque cautionary tale. An example of what arrogance and determination to win at all costs can bring. Only then can we truly move forward.

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This is a cautionary tale that should never be forgotten

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