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Thursday, 11 October 2012

Can Lance rebuild his battered reputation?

Oh dear, dear me.  Lance.  What can you say? Having read some of the USADA's evidence against Lance, it's impossible not to come to the conclusion that he did it.  They've pretty much got him bang to rights.  
Of all the testimony, it's George Hincape's which is most damning.
While Lance and his team of lawyers have tried to swat away allegations from those they considered untrustworthy, having your chief lieutenant point the finger too, demolishes any shred of doubt there may have been.
Rather than analyse the quotes and testimony from the Reasoned Decision of the USADA - principally because other people have already done it and done it better than I would elsewhere - I'm going to explore what it could mean for Lance now.
Lance's moves thus far have been true to form: abrasive, dismissive and acerbic.  But now he's played those cards and its all blown up in his face, what options does he have to salvage a reputation which has fallen further than Jimmy Saville's - admittedly from a higher starting point.
Let's just imagine that I'm advising Lance on his reputation, what would I advise he do now?
Well, presuming he is as guilty as the evidence suggests, my advice would be to simply come clean.
Top half of Team Battenburg 
Lance's story remains a fascinating one and he can actually use the doping to his advantage by building the next stage of his life around it. As well as being driven to win, Lance could well point out pressures from sponsors like Nike and Trek and the requirement of the UCI to have a global figure for the sport which would build on the foundations set by Greg Lemond and sell the sport to the biggest market in the world.
These pressures, Lance could say, led him into a spiral of doping which had to be maintained to prevent the whole façade from crumbling. With each race, each transfusion and each denial, he was painting himself into a corner from which there was no escape but only denial.
An 'I did it and I'm sorry' followed with a pledge to continue raising money for his cancer charity, would be the first step toward his public rehabilitation.
The next steps from the UCI and Lance himself will be fascinating to watch. Whether he digs his heels in or comes clean, Lance will remain a divisive figure in the sport and while his record is still recognised by the UCI, he continues to cast a long shadow over it.

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