Stealing the Divine Spark

Right out of the Hall of Fame, the only thing he never earned was disgrace — disgrace that is now complete and final. A seven-time winner of the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong fell at the end of an epic test that for several years has opposed the American justice system and the private organization of professional cycling, which held onto its champion as if he were the spoils of conquest.

“To dope the racer is as criminal, as sacrilegious as trying to imitate God; it is stealing from God the privilege of the spark,” wrote Roland Barthes, author of the book, “Mythologies.” Barthes used to be fascinated by the epic of the “Big Loop” and “its impure fables.” Everybody knew. As if the ideology of exceeding your own limits and being a universal role model had been held up only to mask the devil, the disorder, the ambiguity and the tragedy of a superhuman sport caught in the infernal and infinite search for sporting achievement. Whether by watching television or gathering on the Tour de France route, the spectator knows too well that it is such a search that he also primarily came to see, far from the beautiful stories told to children.

Of this myth, Armstrong was the perfect herald, instigator and craftsman, as well as the cynical and meticulous engineer. But this major series of hypocrisy and complicity will take a long time to unravel, when, for example, it is known that EPO was initially developed in an Italian public university. The day marking the fall of Armstrong will remain in the history of sports as one of the great victories of public authorities against drug use. But until now, this history has been written without the main characters involved: athletes. Who in their ranks will break the silence? Will they one day be able to recover the ownership of their history?