Lance Armstrong may be American, but his inspiring, influential story spread worldwide. In Europe especially, the sport of cycling is very important with the Tour de France and the UCI World Championships — so, when Oprah interviewed Armstrong on OWN, people were paying close attention, to say the least.
I’ve been watching Armstrong’s once-revered career accomplishments unravel from across the pond with astonishment, and all of England watched with me. He made the front page of every major paper as he lost endorsements in October of last year, and even as he continued to deny any wrongdoings.
Then came the interview.
The general consensus over here: complete and utter outrage. No mercy.
A major U.K. newspaper, The Guardian, headlined: “Lance Armstrong’s Oprah confession was all about the f-word: flawed.” The article by William Fotheringham called one piece of the interview “nails on a chalkboard.”
He sarcastically joked: “For a guy whose world has been torn down in the last six months, he appeared remarkably unstressed. Whatever he’s on now, I’d like some too please.”
BBC’s sports editor, David Bond, said that if Armstrong has any chance at minimizing his lifetime ban from sport as judged by the anti-doping authorities, “he is going to have to be more forthcoming than this.”
I watched only a few minutes, and couldn’t help but agree with the strong articles I read as I sifted through the sites. However, I wondered if the response would be mirrored back home. I read through a few articles from the LA Times, the NY Times and CNN.
To my surprise — well, I guess it’s not too surprising — the majority of the writers I read sympathized with Armstrong or cut him a nice amount of slack.
While the U.K. articles said Oprah didn’t press hard enough, Lance Pugmire from the LA Times said, “Winfrey was tough on Armstrong throughout.”
Juliet Macur from the NY Times wrote that Armstrong “contradicted himself” and “masterfully skirted ‘the question,’” but she also wrote that he “might be able to dig himself out of his lifetime ban.”
CNN stayed pretty even-keeled, though the end of Greg Botelho and Ben Brumfield’s article wrapped up by paraphrasing Armstrong’s quote to Oprah in which he compared the unraveling of his career to his battle with cancer in that they are uncontrollable.
With the U.S. newspaper articles, it was a somewhat common trend to conclude on a high note. Meanwhile, the U.K. papers mostly finished with a dagger or by leaving the story open-ended.
These samples do not represent the complete ideals of the two nations. There are journalists and people in the U.S. who are highly critical of Armstrong, and there are journalists and people in the U.K. who are willing to give Armstrong the benefit of the doubt.
Overall, it was intriguing to read through the viewpoints from differing geographical regions, and it was also scary to begin thinking about how many other sports cover-ups remain under wraps.
