By John Gleaves, California State University Fullerton, USA & Ask Vest Christiansen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Researching the world of doping can often feel like work as an undertaker: when business is good, it’s usually bad for someone else. And these past few months have been especially good for business. Confessions from high profile cyclists, including Lance Armstrong and a number of high profile Rabobank riders, e.g. Michael Rasmussen, doping scandals in American collegiate sport, a whole cluster of revelations from Australian elite sport and testimonies from the Operacion Puerto trial have added new information about closed doping practices. Moreover, it seems that the complex love-hate relationship between sporting organizations and their anti-doping programs has pointed towards previously underexplored conflicts of interest. So while the past few months would leave any hungry doctoral student salivating over the wealth of new material, it is important to separate out what has become clearer and what has become cloudier in the last few months.
Armstrong’s confession was not the Copernican revolution it would have been had he confessed a decade earlier but, despite what cynics say, it also wasn’t nothing. Even those people who were previously convinced that Armstrong doped would have not laid money on the brash Texan confessing. To simply hear the previously tight-lipped patron admit to doping during all seven of his tour wins closes a chapter in cycling’s history. However, his refusal to admit to doping after his comeback allowed Travis Tygert, Michael Ashenden, and many other critics to continue criticizing Armstrong as a liar, cheat, and many other names not worth repeating. Others, including Danish anti-doping scientists Rasmus Damsgaard and even Ashenden’s own analysis of Armstrong’s blood profiles, have indicated that the evidence leaves no reason to doubt Armstrong’s claims that he did not dope during his comeback in 2009 and 2010.
Still, other questions remain. If Armstrong was lying in his interview, why did he choose that small thing, of all other things, to lie about? Wouldn’t it have been better if he had not admitted to doping prior to cancer, which would implicate his Olympic medals and World Championships? And if Lance was telling the truth, why were so many people certain that he wasn’t? Last, if Armstrong’s confession was purely self-motivated in the hopes of getting something in return, why did he refuse to implicate the only fish bigger than him—the Union Cycliste Internationale—as a guilty party?
So in one sense, Armstrong’s confession cleared up some big things. In another, his confession left many questions in need of answers. What role did the U.C.I play in facilitating cycling’s doping culture? What, if anything, was Armstrong lying about? And, perhaps the most baffling question, what was Armstrong’s reason for confessing in the first place? Perhaps it is only the deranged mind of a post-enlightenment scholar who expects order, reason, cause and effect, and logical behavior to be found among elite athletes, professional coaches, and sporting bureaucrats. But knowing what we do know about Lance, he doesn’t leave much to chance and he isn’t likely to make an effort that doesn’t improve his chances of winning. So what end game is at work? These are the questions we are still left asking.