For what it's worth I think this video below was perhaps one of the more "useful" things to come out of the recent Lance/Oprah PR spectacle.

credit: www.thepoke.co.uk

But seriously...what are the lessons from this story? I suppose there are many depending on your point of view. This was (is) one incredibly complex tale.

If it seems to good to be true it probably is?...Honesty is the best policy?....Do on to others as you would have others do onto you?...As you make your bed, so you must lie in it? 

So I guess one could say we learned nothing other than a solid moral compass is probably all one needs to avoid finding ones self in such a total mess. 

I predict it is still early days to write the final chapter of this saga. In fact I do hope that Lance's various enablers, whose actions direct or indirect fanned the fire of this deception, are somehow held to task for their part in this fiasco. I just do not buy into athlete confessions whereby the individual falls on the sword alone. No way - there are always doctors, managers, handlers and at the minimum a supplier involved. Let them have their share in the pain of the downfall too. Myth makers feel some shame.

Sport has always been a very important part of my life. However I have increasingly drawn a distinction between the 'sport' that I love and practice(d) and the 'entertainment industry sport' that sadly gets the most disproportionate attention.

I still love watching top athletes perform at the limits of human potential, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and all that. However I am incredibly picky with those athletes who I choose to admire for what they do on and off the sports field.

The big money professional sports industry as a whole seems to be continually lurching from one greed fueled scandal to the next. For the fans it's let down after let down. I wonder when will it end, if it will end, or will the public ever one day just say - "forgeddaboudit, no time to care, I'm just out for my run (walk,ski, ride, skate...)".

I find myself increasingly leaning this way.

I have always made time for sport in my life because I enjoy it, it makes me feel good, and it helps me to meet good people who enjoy many of the same things I do. The same values sport held for me as an amateur, served me well as a pro,and will serve me well now for the rest of my life.

At the end of last week it was quite painful to watch on the TV this sorry product of a mega ambitious, talented, narcissistic athlete - poorly guided by a corrupt system, unscrupulous managers, handlers, coaches, and doctors.

It's, as always, a disappointment to see the power of sport abused so badly by a few most in the publics eye. 

Not that I'll loose any sleep over any of this, comments logged, and I'm off to meet friends for a nice blast around the xc ski trails...exercising the true value of sport in my life ;-)