Is it snowing in Hell?

Well.

Tomorrow we finally hear something I thought I'd never ever hear. Or at least I think we will. Right this very moment only Oprah and her crew and probably a few dozen others REALLY know what Lance had to say during her 2-1/2 hour interview. She supposedly asked nearly all of her pre-written 112 questions. That is a lot of questions. I have to assume they won't all be soft-ball lobs. There must be some serious hard-ball zingers in there.

As of this moment I could still pretend to believe that he never doped...that he was persecuted, it was all a fix, and he was the only one not doping and he was the scapegoat. Because he hasn't confessed yet. It's like when Floyd was contesting his innocence, and I totally believed it. I MET him for crying out loud....granted, it was a very short meet. I drove about 120 miles one evening to be at a bookstore down in Thousand Oaks where he was doing a talk/book-signing. I even brought my "Free Floyd" T-shirt I had bought for him to sign, along with a copy of his book "Totally Positive". I turn around and there, in the upper left corner of my office bookcase is his autographed book, and the T-shirt still in a zip-lock bag in mint condition. I'm not sure what to do with them. I remember how devastated I was when he confessed...after that long drawn out arbitration down in Pepperdine. How I was following along on Trust But Verify day by day, minute by minute...sucked into the black-hole of his defense.

Quite honestly, I STILL think they proved at least a reasonable doubt (about the specific charge of his use of Testesterone). They proved the lab (LNDD) was about as sad in professionalism as a high school chemistry class. The girl who processed his sample did run after run on her machine, NOT saving each run as a different file name as required (claiming she didn't know that)...only saving the ONE run after the machine had been taken out of automatic mode and the points manipulated, showing the desired results: guilty. Or when the Dr. (can't remember his name) who wrote the procedures for running the machine testified that the results of that test were worthless. And how after everything that came out, that the CAS not only didn't buy it, but they INCREASED his sentence and penalty. That he still claims he did NOT use T during that Tour, well...I'm not sure what to believe. He was lying about doping. He apparently was telling the truth (at least some of it, there is still a lot that we are taking on faith IMO)about others who were doping. So...how do you know when a liar is telling the truth? I think that question is the very crux of the matter currently at hand.

What all will Lance have to say? Will there be earth-shattering revelations? Will he implicate people in high places? Will it go all the way to the Oval Office? (ok, that one is just kidding...been watching too many movies). Actually by Oval Office I really mean the top of the UCI. Jeff brought up a really good point over at Rants, and I posted a comment on the subject....that Lance, however big and powerful he was in cycling, was still a "low hanging fruit" in the doping tree. He was a user.

I know his USADA lifetime ban included things like trafficking, distribution, etc etc...making it sound like he and he alone not only manufactured the drugs, but transported them across states and country borders, went out in the dark alleys with huge briefcases of cold hard taxpayer cash to make clandestine drug deals throughout his career, then all by himself went around like the tooth fairy distributing all this dope to the "chosen ones" who were also doping. He then instructed them in it's use, and in some cases actually held a gun to their heads FORCING them to dope if they were hesitant. Yes...that's what the reasoned decision pretty much said in a nutshell.

But let's face it...Lance was a star. He has (had) people. LOTS of people. I just don't believe that he was doing all these things. But somebody was (well, except for the gun to the head...as far as we know anyway). Lots of somebody's. There is no way Lance was anywhere near all this dope....didn't they raid the team bus back in the Festina affair? I vaguely recall they did...and hotel rooms. So...SOMEBODY was transporting all this dope and the syringes, and alcohol swabs, etc. SOMEBODY was making the actual transaction, however it happened. I don't believe it was thru the mail, but you never know...THAT would be pretty risky. And the team traveled a lot. So there must have been sources all over the place, all over the world. And then all the evidence had to be disposed off, so that it would NEVER see the light of day. There were many people watching closely, and the fact that they never got caught tells me they were good. Because over all those years, that's a lot of medical waste disposed of covertly all over the world.

So. What will this confession hold? Will he name names? Give total details of the wheres/whens/whys/hows? Was Johan actually EVER involved? DID he even know what was going on? I can't fathom he'd throw Johan under the bus, but then I've certainly been wrong before. But I must say that it would totally blow my mind if he does. If Lance comes out and says "of course Johan knew" or anything even remotely like that. At this moment I don't believe that will happen. I think even if Johan did know, Lance will protect him. And I'm willing to back that up with cold hard cash. Yep. I've got a shiny new quarter here that says so. Any takers? (and I do mean "a", as in singular....I'm not taking like 7000 25-cent bets here). That's how confident I am. I'm willing to part with two-bits.

As I sit here, I can't help but feeling like the world as I know it will be different by tomorrow night. But I also can't help but wonder if he didn't get a copy of those 112 questions ahead of time. I DO believe that he went over and over and over his 'confession' with lots of smart people on his payroll, and there will be limits to what he confesses to. Specifically, I don't believe he'll confess to anything that could result in prison time. But that's where this gets into a sticky-wicket. This thing has been out of his control since the beginning. And I don't see that changing. There are LOTS of people and organizations that are lining up waiting to take a legal bite out of him....some getting their money and more back that they paid in lawsuits that he won.

One thing is pretty much certain though: the people who want to see him drawn and quartered won't be satisfied. They've been clamoring for a confession for years, and now that he is it won't satisfy them. I don't think there is anything he could say that would. The haters will still hate, possibly even MORE because this will show they were right. And it will be coming from HIS Mouth now...not a stack of papers, or 2nd or 3rd party testimony. There will then be people who will see the human side of him..the man who made mistakes. Forgiving people. And somewhere in the middle of all those people will be those who either don't care, or truly have no idea what to think.

I will be watching though....turns out we DO have OWN (I can only assume that stands for Oprah Winfrey Network) on our Dish subscription (Jeannie found it, I had no idea...she has already set up the DVR to record the Thurs evening broadcast..9pm Eastern time, 6pm Pacific. Supposedly OWN will also web-cast the show for those who don't get that network.

Where do I sit in the crowd of people? I think I'm still somewhere in the middle...an independent voter. I agree with points from both sides, and disagree with points from both sides (very much like my political beliefs). Yep...I'm a middle-of-the-road-er. My vote is not for sale, but it is as of yet undecided. I don't believe he is the devil. I still believe that what he did is one of the greatest athletic achievements ever...winning SEVEN TDF's in a row...never crashed out, no horrific days, and never tested positive for a doping test in all those years (maybe/maybe-not...we might find out about that too). Just watching these last few Tours, it's a genuine miracle that he was always in the right place at the right time for 7 consecutive years...avoiding the carnage. The fact that he was doped...well, from everything I've heard and read, so was most of the other top contenders (which is most likely why they were top contenders). So yes...he was still the best in a tainted field. I still believe his name should be there for those wins, and if an asterisk is by them (along with MANY OTHER years winners) then so be it. I watched those races and I know who won. He was the best in a very flawed period of time. But that doesn't change it IMO.

But he has well and truly fallen from grace, about as far as a man can fall. And for Lance Armstong, that was a LONG ways. Farther than any athlete in history. Which also gives me something else to ponder. As to why he never confessed. For one thing, he is human (we think). He had more to lose than any athlete in history, and ANY confession would have resulted in pretty much the same thing he has now: stripped of all his wins, dropped by all his sponsors....about the ONLY thing that MIGHT be different is he might still have a shot at triathlon before he's old and gray. But otherwise, there truly was zero upside for him to confess. That is the part the haters don't get (or don't care). But put yourself into his shoes for just a moment...do you have ANYTHING hidden in your closet? Any little dark secrets you plan on taking to the grave? If so, why haven't you confessed it already? Told the truth and taken your beating? Maybe it's because you don't want it known? I'll buy that...welcome to the human race. Anybody who doesn't have any skeletons in their closet, well...you just haven't tried hard enough. Live a little.

In some ways, I'm actually looking forward to getting this out in the open. It's been a slow motion train-wreck for some time now...and I hope that maybe when it's over I can quit wringing my hands and feeling horrible. Like a cancer will have been removed. I sure hope so anyway. I am concerned about how this will affect LIVESTRONG....and yes, I'm still going to be fundraising for them (I'll be joining the 2013 Team Fatty Davis team probably by the weekend). No matter what happens tomorrow and Friday, I don't see my support for LS changing. 

And so....in just 20 hours or so from now this cold front we've had here on the West Coast will have moved down into Hell...because I've always assumed Hell would freeze over before Lance ever confesses to doping.

I hope the devil has mittens.