That Armstrong doped wasn't exactly a surprise to me, as I imagine it wasn't a surprise to very many here. I've been saying it on this forum since 2005, and most of what we know now, we already knew then, down to the details.
Yet, the way it has unfolded lately, I can't say I would have predicted even 10% of it. The fall has simply been stunning. Here are some of the things that have astounded me most:
- The fact that it happened through a US outfit. I always thought a French, Italian or some other European anti-doping agency or reporter would nail him (and in many ways, several already had), but that nobody here would truly believe them so it wouldn't have changed anything. And I never thought a US agency would go that hard after him. After all, even the Feds didn't.
- The public confession and how fast it unfolded once the evidence in the USADA file was made public. Don't tell me that any of you would have predicted the Oprah thing back in October. Just 2 weeks ago, nobody even thought he was capable of admitting anything, let alone having wronged people.
- How hard the fall. I always thought he would keep a large share of his supporters, people and corporations, especially in the US. I mean, he did even after USADA said 26 people testified against him. Yet people still believed him, or at least defended him. Now I read mainstream press articles where you can go through 100s of comments before finding a single supporting one (the fact that 4 of his 7 or 8 remaining supporters worldwide are on this forum is amusing, though.)
- The mainstream press turning against him. For a decade, they were the ones helping him keep the story alive. From publishing his mythical physical numbers to calling it a level-playing field, the cancer story, the Foundation, etc. From that to being called the world's biggest liar deserving of 28 Pinocchios on a scale of 1 to 4, in the newspaper that outed Richard Nixon:
Like I said, the whole thing is just stunning!
