Lance Armstrong’s Ugly Detour From Road to Redemption

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Lance Armstrong once told me that it would take maybe six months to a year for him to rebuild his reputation after he admitted lying to the world about his drug use.

He said his plan was to keep a low profile and quietly earn back public trust, partly by apologizing to the people he had stepped on or, in some cases, tried to destroy.

Armstrong, who in 2012 was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, seemed proud of his blueprint to restore his image. He said it would show that he was a good person who had been forced to dope because everyone else was doing it.

The plan might have worked — if he had bothered to follow it.

How do I know he is not following it? A court filing on Monday in Dallas revealed $10 million worth of proof.

In the filing, the Dallas-based insurance company SCA Promotions, which gave Armstrong millions of dollars in bonuses for several of his Tour victories, asked a Texas state judge to force him to pay SCA $10 million. The company wants the judge to confirm an arbitration panel’s decision, made on Feb. 4 but announced on Monday, that Armstrong must pay the $10 million because he lied under oath in a previous arbitration involving SCA.

“Perjury must never be profitable,” the panel said, explaining that the case had presented “an unparalleled pageant of international perjury, fraud and conspiracy” on Armstrong’s part.

The panel added that “it is almost certainly the most devious sustained deception ever perpetrated in world sporting history” and that “deception demands real, meaningful sanctions.”

I’d say $10 million is pretty real and meaningful, especially for Armstrong, whose wallet is getting lighter and lighter with each lawsuit he loses because of his decade-plus of doping and lying. And the payouts may keep coming.

“This is just a very good start to getting SCA full compensation,” said Jeff Tillotson, the lawyer for SCA. “Oh, no, we’re not finished with Mr. Armstrong yet.”

SCA is confident that the Texas court will rule that Armstrong must pay the $10 million. But it has also sued Armstrong in Texas civil court to see whether it can get an additional $5 million to $10 million back from him.

No matter how big the paycheck for SCA, this looks to be a sweet ending to a story that began in 2004, when Armstrong took his first swipe at the company. That was the year he sued SCA to get a $5 million bonus that SCA had withheld after its founder, Bob Hamman, read accusations of Armstrong’s doping. Armstrong and his management company, Tailwind Sports, were ruthless in their response. Tailwind placed a full-page ad in Sports Business Journal questioning SCA’s credibility, and SCA said it had lost customers because of it.

It was a battle that started ugly and, for years, stayed ugly.

By 2004, Hamman — a 12-time world bridge champion — had already paid Armstrong a $1.5 million bonus for his 2002 Tour victory and a $3 million bonus for winning the 2003 Tour.

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But before SCA forked over $5 million for Armstrong’s 2004 title, Hamman wanted proof that he was clean. So Armstrong sued. During arbitration, he testified that he would never dope. The case ended in 2006, with arbitrators awarding $7.5 million to Armstrong. It didn’t matter whether he had doped — SCA still had to pay the $5 million bonus, plus $2.5 million in fees, because Armstrong remained the official Tour winner and had a right to the money.

Hamman wouldn’t let it go. He made another push at getting his money back in 2013 after Armstrong was stripped of his Tour titles and subsequently admitted to doping. Hamman brought the case back to arbitrators, asking them to reconsider their decision because Armstrong had committed perjury when he lied to them about his doping in the first lawsuit.

Was it then that the new and improved Armstrong, the softer one who admits his wrongs, stepped forward to say, My bad? Did he apologize to Hamman and give back SCA’s millions?

No, it was typical Armstrong. He said: Too bad. A settlement (in 2006) is a settlement.

How’s that for contrition? Armstrong was so sorry about lying and taking millions of SCA’s bonus dollars that he kept the cash he had won because he doped — and then forced SCA to sue him to get that money back.

It all shows that Armstrong might have started out on a road to redemption two years ago, but that he took an early exit.

Truth is still not part of his daily vocabulary. This month, Armstrong received two traffic tickets in Aspen, Colo., on charges that he hit two parked cars and left the scene of an accident. But that was only after his girlfriend, Anna Hansen, had gotten those tickets. She initially told the police that she was driving on the night of the hit-and-run because Armstrong had been drinking, but she later admitted that she had lied because she didn’t want his name in the news.

So Armstrong’s great blueprint of winning back the public — tell the truth and reveal your goodness — wasn’t so great after all. After two years, has it faded so much that he can no longer make out the words? He continues to lie, and even had his girlfriend lie for him. And he is still fighting some of those people he tried to crush, like Hamman.

Last month, Armstrong told the BBC that he would dope again if he were back in his early career and his competitors were doing it, too.

That’s not the mark of a changed man. That’s the mark of a man who lacks self-perception. He remains so stubborn, so unwilling to admit failure, but no wonder. Those are two of the qualities that led him to be a champion.

Now his competition is more daunting. He could lose more than $100 million in a federal whistle-blower case in which the United States Postal Service contends that Armstrong defrauded it when it was sponsoring Armstrong’s team and demanded in its contract that Armstrong not dope. Armstrong could have settled that case many times, but he has refused because he still thinks he can win it.

The same way he thought he could beat SCA?

Tillotson, SCA’s lawyer, said Armstrong had offered money to SCA several times to settle the case, but nowhere near the $14.5 million-plus that Hamman had dished out in the matter over the years. That’s why Hamman is not backing down.

In going up against Hamman, who is 76, white-haired and stocky, Armstrong underestimated his competition. Hamman is, after all, perhaps one of the greatest bridge players ever. How did a champion like that celebrate winning $10 million from Armstrong?

“I didn’t do anything, really,” he said. “I just planned my next move.”

Hamman is someone who has carefully followed a blueprint of his own, without wavering from it, and has found success and happiness because of it.

Armstrong should follow suit.