Just a couple more hours…

…that’s what Lance Armstrong got out of me last week.

I had spent countless hours watching him and others ride incredible distances over incredibly daunting terrain.  Countless more hours were spent listening to him talk about the people who were trying to bring him down and their false accusations.  Days, weeks, and likely months were spent supporting and defending him to friends and acquaintances.

At a certain point, the tone of the watching and listening changed for me.  Perhaps it was after watching Armstrong chase down Filippo Simeoni on a strategically meaningless break away and the “zipping of the lips” gesture he made afterward.  It might have been the way Armstrong attacked Betsy Andreu and her husband Frankie, who it seemed to me was as loyal and trustworthy a person as could be found in the peloton.  Greg LeMond.  Tyler Hamilton.  Floyd Landis.  Emma O’Reilly.  The list of people accusing him grew and grew and seemed to be filling with people who were credible and had no reason to try and bring Armstrong down other than those proposed by the wrecking crew Armstrong hired to destroy anyone who dared tell a different story.  It could have been the things about his personal relationships that came to light.  Leaving his first wife, apparently leaving Sheryl Crow after she was diagnosed with cancer, even betraying his long-time friend Owen Wilson with Kate Hudson.  All signs pointed to someone who wasn’t worthy of many hours spent defending him.

But I still watched and listened, even if I stopped defending so vehemently.  I wanted to believe, even though it was difficult to if I was honest with myself.  Still I watched and listened through the remainder of his career.

So, when the interview with Oprah was scheduled and the content of it was made known, I planned to watch and listen.  Nothing that was said during the interview was a surprise, of course.  His demeanor was not even too surprising, though it was damning corroboration of his much less than admirable personality.

Armstrong could have chosen to be truly brave long ago and stand up for the sport he claims to love.  He could have honored that sport by being a leader in trying to clean it up for future generations.  He would almost definitely have been forgiven if he had been man enough to own up to his actions and face the consequences.  Instead he had chosen to lie unfailingly and to destroy any who dared contradict his story.  Only when he had nowhere else to turn did he choose to conveniently admit only those transgressions that were no longer punishable by statute of limitations.  His credibility is less than nothing at this point.

I was a fan of cycling before Lance, and I will remain one.  This year on April 7th I will be anxiously following the traverse of those treacherous cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, and it’s very likely in the heat of July I will be paying attention to the daily results coming from le Tour.  I will still occasionally pop in worn old tapes of Breaking Away and American Flyers, much to the chagrin of my lovely wife.  He didn’t ruin the sport for me even though he may have damaged it greatly for much of the U.S. population.  There are still great stories of legitimate triumph to tell.  I will spend countless hours in the future watching and listening to those stories…

…but, for me, these were the last hours of attention I plan to give to his story.