Anyway, that's parts I and II in the books ... anyone reckon we'll complete the trilogy before the year is out?
If it was tears you were looking for, you almost got it. If it was a sappy ending you wanted, the only thing missing was the orchestra playing.
Tonight it was all about family, friends, the sponsors and the charity, with Lance even creating sympathy from Oprah when he explained that the day his sponsors walked away it cost him seventy-five million dollars ... as though this was the moment we should swing from anger to pity. To heck with the money Lance cost the likes of Greg LeMond by shafting his bike companies deal with Trek ... poor Lance lost $75-million folks.
After last night it apparent that day two would focus on the personal side of things. This was Oprah's playground and try as Lance might at times to delve into the subjects we wanted to hear, Oprah was determined to steer him down the line of public sympathy. At one point Lance addressed the question as to whether he owed David Walsh an apology after mentioning a host of others that he felt he had to reach out to. He said he did and appeared to be continuing with his answer before Oprah cut him off with another question.
It's clear that these kind of interviews are not Oprah's speciality. She was sticking to a script and was terrified to let it run off course and into a dark area from which she had no idea about, nor how to get it back on track. It was actually Lance who seemed more like the one who wanted to delve deeper into the subjects he was being questioned on, but it was Oprah who kept dragging him away and onto the next topic.
That became especially frustrating when Oprah asked Lance if anyone else was fully aware of what he was doing. Lance said "yes", but rather than ask who, Oprah moved onto the next question. It was almost as though she expected Lance to say no, and the flow chart in front of her had no direction with which to lead her if he answered the question with a yes. She simply took it as a no.
It was getting tedious -- Oprah's line of questioning and Lance only telling the truth about some things -- but then BOOM! ... Lance dropped a line from the Shawshank Redemption and all his years of lying and cheating were forgiven. It was one that his ex-wife Kristin had used, that 'The truth shall set you free' and it was a line Oprah came back to at the very end of the interview. It immediately got me thinking that Lance would be the ideal character to star in Shawshank Redemption II about a man who crawls through a river of PED's and comes out clean on the other side.
That was the kind of tangent my mind was wondering off onto as the interview continued to drift away from what it looked like it might have been in the opening ten minutes the night before.
Then however we got to the most poignant moment of the entire interview with the tugging on the heart strings as Lance talked about the whole doping saga with regards to his son Luke. Lance said the moment it truly hit home and perhaps the moment he realised he had to come clean now was when he heard his son defending him. Defending his dad without ever having asking him if he did it. Luke had put complete trust in his father. Lance sat his son down and told him that the allegations were true and to no longer defend him. It was here that Lance began to stumble as he tried to fight back the urge to break down in tears. It was also the only moment in the whole two and a half hours that I genuinely felt sorry for the man. Yes, he brought the whole thing on himself but you could tell that he had never considered the impact it might one day have upon his kids. You can fault him for that, but you can also feel for him, and in particular, for the boy.
It was the most sincere Lance had been over both days, but it was also a subject I'm not sure we really needed to hear right now. Sure it snapped me back into focus with the interview but I was looking for the kind of tell all, down to the nitty-gritty interview that Tyler Hamilton had given 60 Minutes in May 2011 and it wasn't looking good for getting it. I was looking for Oprah to press him more on the involvement of the UCI as well as on those he tried to destroy for standing in his way. I wanted her to really push him to admit that Betsy Andreu was right about what happened in the hospital room all those years ago despite him saying that it was a question he wouldn't answer. He said he wasn't out to name names and Oprah just accepted that. Not once did she or he mention the name Johan Bruyneel which I think was a glaring omission.
Perhaps however this was never the platform for that. Perhaps that will come out in legal testimony in the weeks and months to come, or in future interviews when Lance feels he is ready to really start spilling the dirt. But we thought we might get it these two nights and it was disappointing that we never quite did. The juiciest it got was when Oprah asked him whether the accusation by Travis Tygart of the UCI was true that Lance's camp had offered a payment of over $150,000 as if to try buy them off. Lance flat out denied this, though Oprah never really pressed him on whether he believed someone from within his camp may have done it behind his back.
The whole thing came to a close very quickly. I wasn't sure if the second show was sixty minutes or ninety and as the hour approached I was gearing up for another thirty to come, sure that there was more to be asked. But then Oprah thanked Lance for trusting her with the interview as though he was the one in charge, and after reminding him that the truth would set him free, the show came to an end. I guess they ran out of tape?
I feared Oprah might go down the redemption line before this thing was over, and she did. For the sake of self humour, I almost wanted Oprah to thank Lance for his time and on the verge of signing off have Lance interrupt and say: "Oh, and one more thing..." right as it cut to credits.
At the end of the day, all this is good to help complete the history books just that little bit more, and you can bet your ass there is more to come. Maybe from Lance, but definitely from those who scrutinize him ... he left far too many questions unanswered -- especially from the first night -- and his admission that the UCI never did cover anything up and that he was clean in 2009 and 2010 is far from convincing many in the cycling world. While that will all seep out in good time, I must admit that I am looking forward to some modern day cycling again, and the Tour Down Under followed by the Spring Classics can't come soon enough. Not to mention the better weather here so I can do more cycling of my own.
Lance was left looking like a man with a lot of thinking still to do and he has admitted that he is in therapy to try and get to the bottom of it all. He admitted as much himself that he has no idea what his future holds. He desperately wants to compete again, if even in marathons or triathlons, but doubts whether that will even be possible. Right now, some personal reflection should be his first mission. That, and a tell all book.
It leaves us with one last thing to ponder as we head to bed ready to get on with our lives ... What will Lance find first: A publishing agency, or God?
