Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Lance Armstrong has certainly hogged the headlines this past week, although he is far from the only high-profile sportsman to have made the news for his part in lying or cheating.
Across the Atlantic there is another scarcely believable story involving an American football linebacker, Manti Te’o, who shot to national consciousness when his grandmother and leukaemia-suffering girlfriend both died on the same day.
His legend continued to grow as he put aside the personal tragedies to star on the pitch and led his Notre Dame college team, the Fighting Irish, to an unbeaten season.
He then went on to finish second for the Heisman Trophy, an award given to the best college football player, itself a guarantee for a multi-million dollar contract with a top NFL team.
However, it now transpires that this girlfriend never existed. Was it simply a hoax or a cunning attempt to gain sympathy and raise his profile (and related income) nationally? You decide!
As the story was initially told he had met his girlfriend when his team was playing on the Stanford College campus. They ‘exchanged glances, phone numbers and subsequently became involved in a three-year relationship’.
It was even claimed that she flew to Hawaii several times to visit his family. And then, in September, she tragically died. And, on December 6, he received a phone call from his dead girlfriend’s number, although it took him another 20 days to report this to his college.
However, as Te’o now tells it, he had never met her and was involved instead in an internet relationship and now claims to be ‘the victim of a sick joke and constant lies’ and is ‘trapped in a situation that is painful and humiliating’.
From a personal perspective I fail to see how he could be on the receiving end of a deception of this magnitude and there are too many inconsistencies in his stories. He has spun a variety of different lies and the time is well past for him to come clean about the true version of events. Perhaps this will come after he has received his NFL contract which may now miss out on a few expected zeros?
I hope he does.
As with Armstrong’s apology it carries little credence coming after he has been found out.
I was a strong believer in Armstrong and was prepared to continue giving him the benefit of the doubt, particularly given his work for cancer sufferers. This cannot be taken away from him. Through his book It’s Not About The Bike he gave thousands hope and the drive to beat the disease.
Yet Armstrong has only admitted to cheating and drug-testing at times in his career that now fall within a statute of limitations, meaning he cannot be prosecuted legally, other than through possible loopholes.
However, his ‘apology’ seemed to fall short in my opinion. Has it been driven by a greater desire to again set a tone that is in his best interests – a strategy to allow for a better future having been caught? This is shameful.
