Commentary: Armstrong biographer still doesn’t get it

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Fifty years from now, when cyclists zoom around on hoverbikes and wear chamois made from unobtanium, cycling fans will have a starkly different perspective on Lance Armstrong and the dopers from his era. Instead of scorning the drug cheats of the 90s and aughts, fans will see dopers as the true victims of an ignorant, morals-obsessed fan base.

This dystopian take comes to us from renowned Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins, who went on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast this week to discuss, among other topics, Armstrong and doping. As you may recall, Jenkins co-wrote the two Armstrong autobiographies, “It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life,” and “Every Second Counts.” When Lance waved the white flag in 2012, Jenkins famously said she was not angry with him. 

In this recent interview with SI’s Richard Deitsch, Jenkins reaffirms her stance on Armstrong, saying she believes he made “terrible mistakes” during his career (well duh). But Jenkins still doesn’t really understand several important components of Armstrong and his impact on cycling. Jenkins said she also believes that, in the future, fans will look back on Armstrong and other disgraced athletes as the real victims in the doping story.

From Jenkins’s interview:

“I don’t have the moral clarity on doping that other people do. I don’t think it’s the crime of the century. I think we’re real paternalistic about it. I think we may look back someday, 50 years from now, and feel like doping was the sort of amateurism vs. professionalism of its day. We look back and feel like we did Jim Thorpe a real disservice for disgracing him over earning a little money playing baseball. I think someday we’re going to look back on the generation of athletes we hurled disgrace at for doping and say that maybe we were a little overly judgmental and unjust and our so-called purity code wasn’t the smartest, deepest thinking we did.”

Hoo-boy, how do we unpack Jenkins’s bad …

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