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BY DC CUEVA
As sporting activity is slowly but surely reawakening from its spring slumber due to the COVID emergency, we will soon have an unprecedented and action-packed summer of sports: both the NBA and NHL are gearing up for their postseason runs, while soccer in Spain, Germany and England are now back up and running to complete their seasons that were interrupted by the pandemic. And there's UFC, golf, auto racing and a load of other events that are now starting up again to keep sports fans company in the warmest time of the year, along with The Challenge: Total Madness as well.
Usually, sports in the summertime means Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and an array of championship events... and since this is a leap year it would also mean the Summer Olympics. But COVID has caused Tokyo's Games to be bumped back by a year among other postponements and/or casualties. It has also caused a move to the fall of the one event of the year that brings the sport of cycling into the global spotlight: the Tour de France, called the toughest test in all of sports in mixing endurance with rides in the Alps, the French countryside and capping with a final day's sprint onto the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Cycling continues to grapple in the fight to public respect among both those follow the sport year-round and among mainstream sports fans in the aftermath of an era marked by scandals which have compromised the sport's integrity during the midst of the steroid era that marred baseball and Olympic sports in the '90s and 2000's. And one of the key figures in this unfortunate era is a recent subject of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, and given the tall task of following up the success of The Last Dance miniseries.
Armstrong returned to cycling in 1998 in joining the U.S. Postal Service/Discovery cycling team, and a year later he would join Greg LeMond as the only Americans to don the prestigious yellow jersey in Paris as the winner of the Tour de France for achieving the lowest-cumulative time of all cyclists in the general classification over the entire 3-week event. He settled into a rhythm of being in the back of the pack in the first half of the race, but when the peloton arrived in the mountains that was where he would overtake the field until they arrived on the Champs-Élysées. He would do that six more times before the first of two retirements, returning in 2009 to finish 3rd and competing in two more tours before calling it quits for good in 2011... also winning a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympics.
But soon, this was gonna be all for naught... shortly after that first triumph, there were doubters as to whether Armstrong competed cleanly or if he cheated his way to what the French call the "maillot jaune." During his dominance, he was the subject of doping allegations and whenever he was asked about it he would always deny that he had any involvement in that. During a period where Mark McGwire and Marion Jones were under the needle for such behavior, a 2012 probe by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found that Armstrong had used performance-enhancing drugs during his career and led a systematic doping program behind the scenes among his teammates.
After an emotional interview with Oprah Winfrey, Lance came clean to not contest those charges... and all of his achievements from summer 1998 onwards -- the seven Tour de France titles, that Olympic medal and everything else -- were swiped away from his trophy case and the record books, as well as having a lifetime ban stamped onto his head from competing in any sport that adheres to the World Anti-Doping Code. He's become the poster boy for the sorry state of professional cycling which has also seen fellow American Floyd Landis have his Tour de France title taken away for a similar doping offense, and where he blew the whistle on the feds and on Armstrong.
As mentioned above, after the epic 10-part series on the Chicago Bulls' NBA dynasty aired last month, Armstrong was the subject of a two-part ESPN documentary called Lance, which provided a look at his life before, during and after his rise to the top and his dramatic fall from grace. Cameras followed him in his post-competitive life as he tries to live a life outside of the public eye, including to a summer 2018 charitable event for breast cancer awareness where, despite what has happened since, Armstrong accepted an award while in the company of reality television's finest... and that's where we find a link to those who are familiar to those who watch three reality television franchises.
