There are no free rides out of paradise. As a disgraced sporting legend, Lance Armstrong, who for the most part came clean to Oprah Winfrey on American television this week, could be forgiven for thinking he has trespassed in the Garden of Eden, or perhaps gone sunbathing on the rock usually occupied by Prometheus.
In the runup to his "no holds barred" interview on the aptly named OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), Armstrong faced a daunting charge sheet. In many sporting minds, he (a) is widely perceived as a liar, a cheat, a bully and a fraud; (b) deserves to be eviscerated by the pitiless eagle of public opinion; and (c) must be banished to plow the bitter furrow of atonement before he can begin to achieve any kind of rehabilitation. When they contemplated their man's high noon with Winfrey, Team Armstrong must have been wondering, How on earth can Lance recover?
Armstrong's predicament may look like the sporting equivalent of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but it's not unique. Far from it. In France — or should we say Mordovia? — actor Gerard Depardieu is going through an equal crisis. The Republic's favorite son, the star of stage and screen, has become a national embarrassment for his tax-avoidance antics.