why is this guy getting any space, anywhere, at any time? did i miss something? as far as i can see it, LA has been making these fumbling, half-assed attempts at clawing back some public sympathy and some of his beaten, battered, smashed-to-a-bloody-oozy-pulp reputation for several months now – and we all knew better right?
we all knew better than to give him that breathing space, to provide him with a platform to pump out his kinky stuff. we all knew better because he wasn’t going to tell all, he wasn’t going to apologise to Betsy, nor anyone else he screwed, despite the constant exhortations of ‘100% honesty.’
we all know what a media manipulator he is, and yet he still remains one of the biggest draws in the sport – for some deluded journos – who are willing to allow him to get his rehab up and rolling.
they’re not all so dim though. speaking to a well-respected editor of one of cycling’s leading websites recently, he told me that he’d been offered a chat with Mr. Hospitality some weeks back, but that he had turned it down. the reason? he didn’t want the LA flame to get any oxygen, knowing that any chance of full disclosure and access all areas was zero.
and yet there we have CyclingNews giving LA a nice, chunky three-part interview last week. i’m not at all criticising the quality of the interview but it is the simple fact that LA said ZERO NADA ZILCH new. and of course he didn’t. this is all part of a lengthy rehab process, one that an public relations firm will know all too well.
it’s called ‘the process’, and involves, interviews like this, placed in carefully-selected spaces (interestingly, the un-named editor of the well known website was not a very welcome member in LA’s camp before, which may well be the reason he was approached), some public appearances, apologies and the like.
if you read the CN interview you may have noticed that LA says one of his biggest regrets was that he denied doping so forcefully. ok, hang on, so, had it been less ‘forceful’ (this is the guy who destroyed careers, remember), it would have been ok? does he really even feel sorry?
no, i don’t think so – just sorry he got caught. he’s now bemoaning the huge dent his fortune has taken, calling it ‘frustrating’. we know the feeling Lance, if it’s anything like seeing the sport you love being take over by King Bandit and his Bandoleros…
thankfully, others have said that they want his skin and all he knows in a bag, and hois desire to get his lifetime ban overturned will need a ‘miracle’, says WADA prez John Fahey.
the CN space given to LA wasn’t in any way ill-intentioned – it was just kinda dumb and very naive.
Dead-on! I read the first few paragraphs of Part 1, but a rancid stench seemed to be coming from my keyboard and I stopped. I’d smelled this before, why smell it again? As you said, the only real regret this jerk has is being caught and sanctioned. His whines of “but Mommy, the others did it too” show he’s mentally still in grade school. The authorities ought to keep dangling some reduction in the sanctions to tease the truth out of him if they can, but not for much longer. I fear this sociopath will never come 100% clean.
amen to that…