Entranced by Lance, too brainwashed to see the truth

Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong framed by his US Postal Service teammates. Source: AP

IT'S THE way he looks at you. Those eyes. Most sportsmen are aloof when you interview them. You can see their eyes glaze over with answers they've parroted hundreds of times to questions they just knew they would be asked.

Not Lance Armstrong. He looks you in the eye and locks your gaze. There's no escaping those eyes. It's like you're in an arm wrestle, and let me give you a tip, the winner ain't gonna be you.

I should have realised right then and there that Lance Armstrong was capable of making half the sports fans in the world believe anything. Like a cult leader, the man is dripping in charisma. You don't just want to like him, you want to believe him.

Lance speaks a bit like a cult leader too, all visionary and big picture with little mention of minor detail.

And the weirder the stuff he says, the more you want to believe it. He told me he believed cancer would be eradicated from the face of the earth in his lifetime thanks to the work of his foundation. I gobbled that one up.

He told the whole world he was never a cheat despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Many of us swallowed that one too, myself well and truly included.

Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong during a recent news conference. Source: AP

I met the bloke in May 2006 in new York City. It was only for, oh, about two minutes. But some meetings tell you much about the other person and this was one such occasion.

The event was the launch of the Nike+ system, where iPods are inserted in your shoes so you can monitor your running regime. Lance was then in training for the New York marathon and was an ambassador for the product.

The head of Nike kicked the event off, but he didn't stay long on stage. He pretty much said "look, I'm not much of a techo, let me introduce you to a guy who knows way more about this stuff than me". And on walks Steve Jobs in his trademark jeans and skivvy.

After the presentation, the journos all got our 60 seconds of one-on-one interview time. In my case, that stretched out to about five minutes because the Spanish journos before me kept asking Lance for his thoughts on that year's Tour de France.

That really bored Lance. He clearly didn't like playing pundit, and he brushed the Spaniards off like flies. When it came to my turn, I thought, well, we're here at an iPod event, so let's talk about iPods. Lance had just broken up with Sheryl Crow, so I asked if her music was still on his iPod.

That look. That killer Armstrong gaze which could burn holes in diamonds.

Turns out he was just messing with me. The man has a sense of humour, you know. He actually liked the question and we then proceeded to talk about music, women, pain, sport, more women, more music... basically all the stuff blokes regularly talk about.

Like I say, though, there was a key difference between this conversation and a normal one. Lance held the psychological upper hand, not just because he was 10 million times more famous and powerful than me, but because he's got this manner about him. It's partly the way he looks at you but it's also about his attitude.

Lance is intense. There's a lot going on in that head of his, just as we now suspect beyond reasonable doubt that there was a lot of stuff besides courage coursing through his veins.

You get the impression Lance almost talked himself into believing his innocence. He sure talked millions of suckers like me into believing it. Well, it's hard to believe now. That 1,000 page USADA report appears just too damning.

Lance has done great things. His foundation has paid for medical staff to live with cancer patients in far flung regions of America. Without him, they would have died alone.

But none of that changes the fact that it now appears Lance Armstrong engaged in prolonged, systematic doping.

The cult of Lance is over now. He's no longer locking anyone with those eyes. His credibility is dead in the water.

Mind you, it doesn't say much about the health of the sport of cycling that he was allowed to win seven Tours de France in the first place.
 

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