Lance - the Corporate indignados

Cycling began with Lance Armstrong. It started around 1999 when he heroically won his first of seven tours whilst recovering from cancer. After the Festina scandal cycling was cleaned up and Lance was symbolic of a new era of cycling sweeping out the perfidious non-English speaking dopers.

Lance then beat a whole peleton of clean cyclists, ground them down, chewed then up and spat them out, gave them "the look". The corporate types loved him and flocked to him in droves. Sportives began to grow, much to the consternation of traditional cyclists who saw their beloved time trials getting less coverage in Cycling Weekly, and the brands followed - Trek bikes, Cyclops turbo trainers, Nike gear, US Postal gear, Chris Carmichael DVDs. They devoured "It's Not About the Bike". That was not enough to fuel the Lance fest so he had to write a second book "Every Second Counts".

Typical of corporate types who find a new hobby they had little interest in the sport before they were interested in it. They had no idea who the Cannibal was, the Badger, Greg LeMond or that Britain's until then greatest ever cyclist had died on Mont Ventoux after a toxic concoction of amphetemines and alcholol. Cycling was and always had always been a clean sport.

Those who actually knew something about the sport, whilst they hoped that Lance was clean,  thought that that was probably wishful thinking, especially when slowly the reputations of Armstrong's rivals started to topple - Pantani, Ulrich, Basso. On reflection though they suspected he was a doper who beat a field of dopers. At the end of the day he still had to ride his bike.

And then the USADA report putting him and his team under the kind of scrutiny given to no other trade team of that era.  Then a different narrative began. Armstrong was a shameless cheat and liar. He polluted the sport like no other. Armstrong invented doping and dragged to the sport to depths previously unheard of. The cottage industry continued, with journalists queuing up to make money out of Lance-villification. Quite a fall.

The corporates have been happy to follow the narrative, one can hear the sound of Livestrong gear being ripped up in disgust. From near deification Armstrong is now the worst human being ever to walk the earth. He should be thrown into prison, made to apologise individually to every fan who ever bought a Johann Bruynell nutrition guide or a Livestrong bracelet. A lifetime ban and stripping of titles is barely enough punishment. They are the new English indignados. Of course that shameless dopers like Vinokourov won Olympic gold and Contador still rides in the peleton nicely passed everyone by.

It's an easy narrative that nicely ignores the facts.

So where now for the corporates? No doubt they'll move on to their next sport, pick another hero to elevate to impossible levels, buy their kit, their books, ignore any history and once again act as though it didn't exist before them.