From the NFL's deflated footballs to the bribery allegations besmirching Tokyo's Olympic bid, it can feel like the entire apparatus of professional sport has become hopelessly corrupt. But are the fans also complicit?
In a memorable scene during "The Program," a zippy account of the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong, sports writer David Walsh (Chris O'Dowd) asks his editor if journalists aren't allowed to question the American cyclist's remarkable story because "that would reveal the world to be a gray piece of s—-." You have to wonder sometimes.
The Armstrong myth — a cancer survivor who went on to win the Tour de France for seven consecutive years — was so inspirational that it seemed unassailable. Walsh went after him with such tenacity that he earned the nickname "Little Troll," yet he struggled to produce any charges that would stick. When The Sunday Times published excerpts from a book of his in 2004, alleging that Armstrong had taken performance-enhancing drugs, the cyclist successfully sued the newspaper for libel.