Okay. And so we begin.
I've certainly not kept it a secret that I like sports. Yes, my number one favourite, as presented to you in the "p.s." sections of various posts, as well as in some of the songs themselves, is hockey. New Jersey Devils hockey, to be precise. But I like, and watch, others - you know, football, the other football, tennis, Formula 1. All those have been mentioned also in the course of my posting on this blog, too. But for years and years,
Oh, yes. You're probably beginning to see where exactly I am headed with this.
For my entire childhood, I was a cycling fiend. I'm not even kidding: after age two or three, when I learned to ride myself, I lived for every July, when that exalted race the Tour de France would again occur; and in the meantime, I gorged myself on anything I could get. Pre-Internet, I scoured the newspapers my dad would bring home (we subscribe to the New York Times, and George Vecsey, whose name I still remember well, was particularly adept at reporting about that sport) for any article, however small, about cycling in the sports section. I was glued to the TV to the channel that was, at the time, OLN (then Versus, and now goes by NBC Sports Network) whenever there was any cycling coverage. Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen were gods to me (they still are, and forever will be). I couldn't wait for the beginning months of the year, when the Tour Down Under would signal the start of a new season, and then the Belgian one-day races would start up; the Hell of the North (Paris-Roubaix) and the Tour of Flanders were especial favourites. I can still remember when the Tour of California was in February, and not in May conflicting with the Giro D'Italia as it is now; I remember a time the Tour de Georgia was an event. I can remember when the victor of the Vuelta a Espana received the golden-coloured jersey (or, as one of my favourite cycling sites used to call it, the "golden fleece") rather than the reddish coloured jersey he gets now. In my fifth grade yearbook, I listed as one of my dreams to be able to ride in the Tour myself one day. In high school, before class started, I used to read articles and interviews my dad printed out from online. Every time someone I loved retired, I cried (I will never forget English class sophomore year when I wrote an ode - it was really almost a eulogy - to my favourite cyclist, Jan Ullrich, my inexplicable first crush, when he retired that February; he still makes my speakers go boom-boom, even just for nostalgia's sake). I can recite statistics and general classifications (GCs) from back when my age was still in the single digits, and to this day, I keep detailed notes of each stage of the Tour de France every year - in a yellow composition notebook, naturally.
By now, you should realise just how much I love this sport. I loved it when I was young(er), and I still do love it, if only out of long-term loyalty. I loved it so much that, in 2005, I wanted to write a book (go ahead, try and keep pen and paper away from me) about how much I love the sport, because I thought that maybe one day, people would want to read my autobiography (I used to be very ambitious, apparently) and I wanted to capture that Tour, and my life and emotions as it unfolded, faithfully. Here's an excerpt from it, from the beginning of Chapter 5:
I don't know why I'm drawn to the Tour de France, or even to cycling. It could have something to do with the unexpected ending, or the spontaneity of it. Or maybe the thrill of the sprints at the end, or the brilliance of teamwork, or even the suspense of time trials. Or it might be a combination. Truth be told, my favorite parts are the time trials, the mountain stages, and the podium in Paris. I also like the joy on the faces of the jersey holders and the winners of the stages.I'm not going to lie, I really had to
Three guesses who. And your first two don't count.
If you guessed Lance Armstrong, you were right. This was a man I would have, quite literally, died for. There was not a battle I would not have fought for him, not a shred of his honour I would not have defended. To illustrate the nature of my relationship with my heroic idol, I turn again to my book (at one point, I called him "the most important person to me"; at another, "my hero"; at yet another, "the champion of my heart"), to Chapter 1:
One day in sixth grade, I was pretending I was riding [my bike] with Lance Armstrong, and could keep up with him (ha! yeah right! [sic]). I "showed" him my scars from third grade [when I fell off and skinned my knee and ankle] when, all of a sudden, he "suggested" we ride a little more. I, of course, agreed. Our house is the highest point on a hill, so each way from our house is downhill. I was riding beside him, faster, faster, faster, feeling the wind in my hair, feeling just like Lance, racing my own self and no one else...boom. I hit a hole in the sidewalk and, in my speed, went down hard. I lay sprawled on the pavement, the bike on top of me, and, once more, Lance's face appeared in front of me. "Get up," he told me, "get up, and go home."The result of that crash, by the way, is a big-ass scar that is still on my left knee (pardon the language). My very own experience with road rash, if you will. (By the way, I really like commas and punctuation. Not much has changed there.) Based on that, I guess you can consider my love affair innocent, and every shade of naive. And this was, ultimately, my tragic mistake.
You see, everything emotional I do, I do to a fault. When I fall in love, I do it to a fault. When I trust, I do it to a fault. When I believe in something and/or someone, I, again, do it to a fault. When I hate, I do even that to a fault. It can be a person, but it doesn't have to be. I become blinded and immerse myself in it. I'm not, by default, a fool - but this makes me one. Because it sets me up for nothing but extreme disappointment, inevitably. But I am getting ahead of myself.
And so, yes, I was flawlessly in admiration of the star of my favourite sport, who seemed to radiate authority and authenticity from every pore. From him, I imbibed every good quality I wanted to have, and wanted to learn to have. I learned to hope, how to dream, from watching him. I thought he personified things like character, integrity, honour, chivalry, respect and respectability, trustworthiness, and just plain hard work. And I wanted all of those things (again, to a fault), so I believed in him and started to believe in myself. I started to hold myself to a higher standard, because he so obviously held himself to one. So yes, my parents were formative role models in my childhood, and for my entire life, and so was my sister, but Lance was equally - if not more - involved with me becoming who I am. And who I want to be.
We came to the sport basically at the same time, he in his post-cancer-comeback and I for the first time, in 1999. That was the first of seven Tours de France dominated by Lance and Johan Bruyneel (whom I affectionately called "Jo-Jo," despite the fact that my dad did not like him and I've since inherited that distaste) and the Blue Train. Also known as Team US Postal. Which hurts to write now, but at the time was, for lack of a better word, awesome. And so I found everything I could about him. During the course of the next seven years, I became a teenager but also very nearly an expert on all things Lance. I read his book, and then the next one, which we own in autographed form and which used to be one of my most prized possessions. I read his mother's biography. I read so many other biographies about him until I could answer 99.9% of questions on the subject. I went back and watched the tapes my dad has so meticulously kept of previous Tours - 1996 being the most incredible to watch, with the stage where poor Fabio Casartelli passed away and then Lance went away and won the next stage (also, then the stage with Bruyneel and the great Miguel Indurain which the latter should absolutely have won). On his behalf, I hated Greg Lemond (still do, even though it turns out the guy with the unnaturally blue eyes was right). Year after year, I kept detailed binders chock-full of articles about him and his Tour victories clipped from newspapers and magazines and, later, printed from the Internet. When there was a cycling race in New York City - somewhere around South Street Seaport, I believe, because I remember there being cobblestones - we went, and met Paul Sherwen (!!!!!!) and even got to meet Lance himself. I later wrote a poem about the experience for my Creative Writing class freshman year in high school. I even began listening to Sheryl Crow music when the pair started dating, if you'll believe that my adoration went that far.
And when he retired in 2005, on the podium before the Arc de Triomphe, facing the Champs Elysees, flanked by his two biggest competitors at the time (Ivan Basso, who was second, and
Something about that still gives me chills. Even though time has proved how ironic those very words were.
Afterwards, I still followed him, going to see the NY Marathon when he participated, both times, and seeing him again. Which always made me exquisitely happy. But, thankfully, thus didn't end my love affair with the sport, which has only become more embattled as the years have gone on. 2006 was the Operation Puerto-Floyd Landis fiasco, holy mackerel, and 2007/2009 was Michael Rasmussen and Alberto Contador, among many others. These things only made me hold up the US Postal/Discovery Channel example of the preceding era higher, and be grateful that, despite the fact that the Tours during those seven years were boring in comparison, there was no doping on the top step of the podium.
Thinking about that makes me sick and disgusted.
Eventually, I became disenchanted with Lance as a person, and found him to be merely a man of flimsy character, for all of his superhuman athletic ability. He simply ceased to be someone I admired as a person. Hockey replaced cycling at the top of the list of my favourite sports. I took down my Lance posters, and put away the binders and books and magazines on the lowest bookshelf in my room, out of sight. Andy Schleck became (and has remained) my cycling crush. I wrote an editorial for my school newspaper senior year, calling his decision to come out of retirement at age 38 for the 2009 "harmful" to his reputation and "inconsiderate" of the younger generation of cyclists; the last sentences included the judgment that "the sport was not left wanting in his three years of retirement, and it doesn't need him anymore - the prodigal son can go back to Texas now." Ouch.
But none of this changed the fact that I believed in him as a cyclist, and would not hear criticism of his Tour victories. "He has never failed a drug test!" was my mantra, perhaps to convince even myself that (how did I put it?) a man of flimsy character could not possibly be an athlete of flimsy character. And so it happened that this year, when Phil and Paul and their broadcast partners, the incomparable Bob Roll and the way-better-than-Craig-Hummer-and-Al-Trautwig-ever-were Liam McHugh, talked about new reports surfacing about Jonathan Vaughters (he of the sideburns which must be seen to be believed) and David Zabriskie (one of my very, very favourites - I call him "Friskie") and George Hincapie (the Finn Hudson of the peloton, the most venerable and dependable person, let alone athlete) and Tommy Danielson ("the Great White Hope") and others testified to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) about US Postal/Disco and Lance, I realised that if anything were to happen based on those testimonies, that I would have the most insane mental breakdown and personal crisis.
After all, these are people we're supposed to trust. And so we do. We're supposed to believe that they honour the sport they uphold, the sport we love, and are, because of perseverance and a dream and public scrutiny, trustworthy people. So we do believe it. These are people from whom we learn life lessons. Lance and Co. are people I turned to, on a daily basis, when I didn't have friends. They were my childhood. As mentioned above, these are men who taught me how to put into practice every good quality humans have the ability to possess. And I was terrified that if they were found not to have these qualities, only to have pretended to have them, I would not know who to be.
Well, fast-forward a few months, and here I am, and I don't know who to be. I guess, at some point, when you internalise the qualities you see in your heroes, and you find them within yourself, you become your own hero. You become, as the expression goes, the good you see in the world. But I'm not at that point, because I was so violently misled, so viciously had, that I don't even know if I have those qualities. What do they mean? What are they? Is it possible to possess them without abusing them, like Lance and Co. did?
I guess we all lose our childhood idols at some point. I guess they do become human, after a while, and our eyes behold them differently than they've done. But I highly doubt that it's supposed to happen in this crash-and-burn spectacular, horrifying fashion.
This past Wednesday, USADA began printing articles and releasing reports about the US Postal Cycling Team. Remember from a gazillion paragraphs ago, Blue Train? And each one is worse than the last. It appears that, under the direction and careful meticulousness of Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong, it was a team which led the greatest organised doping ring the sport has ever seen. Athletes were forced to take EPO, or other performance-enhancing drugs, including their own enhanced blood, or else were sacked from the team. It wasn't just that they were afraid of not being good enough to compete with everyone else (who, by the way, were in all likelihood also doping). Oh, no. They were literally afraid for their jobs.
I mean, on the one hand, it makes tragic, logical sense. Everyone who eventually left US Postal tested positive for one thing or another - Roberto Heras, Tyler Hamilton (who came up with one of the most brilliant, and pathetic excuses ever), Floyd Landis...the list goes on.
What strikes me with painful, paralysing enormity is the complexity of it all, how deep this thing goes. I mean, when you have a man like George Hincapie doing something so morally wrong, it really makes you wonder.
The news of this broke, I think, Thursday. And I've been in a state of mental and emotional turmoil ever since. I pulled out the binders and things I had collected and fell into a teary mess over them. Then I put them in the attic, because I can't stand to look at them and I can't bear to throw them out. Later, I went on an angered rampage (in which I actually used the f-word once, shockhorror), because fundamentally, I think I'm just so profoundly pissed off about it. These people thoroughly and irreparably disrespected something I hold dear - how dare they?! That's one thing I can't get out of my mind - how dare they, how dare they, how dare they. And then, to hold their heads up high the way they did and accept all of the accolades (for YEARS!!) that came their way shows such goddamn arrogance and self-righteousness and feeling of unconquerability that it just ultimately makes me nauseous.
And then, of course, I dissolve into this insane puddle of nostalgia, when everything was easier because everything was black and white and lovely. I think of a time when I believed people and they didn't defraud me, disappoint me, betray me, cheat me, make me doubt myself. One of
I mean, they fooled everyone. And they took away our ability to wonder - now, instead of marvelling at someone's climbing ability, or something, in the back of our minds, we'll always be thinking, "is this real?" It's disheartening for the sport of cycling, it makes Americans look horrible in the eyes of international sport, and it just plain breaks my heart. I guess I do consider the fact that I am not (and hopefully never will be) a cancer patient or fighter, so I'm not one of those Lance inspired in a life-or-death scenario. Small comfort, but a silver lining nonetheless.
Now that I've taken up so much of your time talking about myself, I'll bring you to the song. I hope it isn't but this post could be the longest blog post in the history of the Internet.
It starts of a little universal, using "we" as the primary pronoun in the first verse, and then somehow, it went in a much more personal direction and I couldn't stop using "I." I guess I'm hoping you understand, through it or through the above epic, just how devastating these revelations and years of betrayal are to me. I realise it's not the end of the world, of course, but my childhood imploded and I'm distraught about it. Part of it is the futility of all those hours taken up by breathless fandom, probably. Well, here goes.
Wasted Summers
this is a fine way, to pay back, all those who believed in you
you must be so proud, you created, the things we bought into
year in and year out, new triumphs, oh how you must have laughed
and all the while, all you were was, the master of another craft
in the end, you've made us all the fools
CHORUS:
one moment we're riding high, while the sun shines, and it's a beautiful July
and then it's October, and it's turned cold, and we are standing on our own
it was just fleeting, seven years of never stop believing
and you kept on cheating, misleading, and never stopped deceiving
the sunset was brief, the twilight dark, and the summers wasted away
I have spent too much, of my time, being on your side
you misused that trust, you broke it, and took it for a ride
you just made your way, to the top, stacking lie upon lie
it is astounding, that you can, look yourself in the eye
how can you say you ever really tried?
CHORUS:
one moment we're riding high, while the sun shines, and it's a beautiful July
and then it's October, and it's turned cold, and we are standing on our own
it was just fleeting, fourteen years of never stop believing
and you kept on cheating, misleading, and never stopped deceiving
the sunset was brief, the twilight dark, and the summers wasted away
BRIDGE:
how dare you, I'm disappointed, disenchanted
how dare you disrespect something I love
how dare, I'm disgusted...
CHORUS:
one moment we're riding high, while the sun shines, it was a beautiful July
but now it's October, and it's turning cold, and we are standing on our own
it was just fleeting, seventeen years of never stop believing
still you kept on cheating, misleading, and never stopped deceiving
the sunset was brief, the twilight is dark, and the summers all wasted away
the sunset was brief, the twilight was dark, and the summers wasted away
Oh, oh, wasted away...
Based on the chart that is about halfway down on this page, the last thing I will say on the subject is: Thank goodness for Miguel Indurain. A great champion, and an undisputed one.
Much love, and thank you for the musik,
Just Another Ordinary Girl
I can't understand the way it goes, so I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know - 'cause everything I know makes me feel so low. I don't wanna know....
p.s. Look for another post by the end of next week. Because Red comes out on Monday!
p.p.s. The song by Tim McGraw, "Only Human," from his latest album has been amazing to me lately. The line, "I am fool enough to believe there's hope among the ruins," applies brilliantly to my attitude towards cycling at the moment. Everyone thought the US Postal era was a new dawn after the horrid Festina affair, but it seems we're right back there again. Maybe these are the complete ruins, nothing left of the doping empires of years prior, and now there's hope again. I'm just hoping beyond hope that Bruyneel didn't poison the Schlecks before he was fired from RadioSchleck (disclaimer: not the actual name of the team), because for me they are the future. Andy is the one in whom I am vesting my love for the sport (it's hard to do so with Frank, at the moment, even though it's sort of a package deal), and if that fails, I'm done.
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