What other people could learn from Lance Armstrong

I'm not going to dissect the interview that Lance Armstrong did with Oprah and beat him up any more. People who know me will tell you that I'm not a fan of Lance Armstrong. I had a real issue with the way he bullied and attacked former friends to protect his lies. After hearing he was going to come clean I thought we would give the usual BS confession that many athletes have given, but instead we got something much different. Before anyone goes pouncing on my next few statements I want to clarify that I realize he did not admit to everything and may have told a few more lies in his interview with Oprah. Yet, I have to say that his confession was a breathe of fresh air based on the admissions of many other famous athletes. He candor was incredible. He called himself a bully and freely admitted that he would not have won the 7 tours without cheating. He also went into an amazing amount of depth. How does that differ from someone like Jason Gaimbi? Gaimbi never came out and spoke candidly about his use of steroids or directly admitted what he did. All he did was apologize which everyone viewed as an admission of guilt. How does it differ from Arod? His interview with Peter Gammons was done in a far more controlled manner, Gammons was the wrong guy, and it was less in depth. More so than Gaimbi he was honest about a few things, but he didn't get into major details and he blamed other people. He also told more lies and denied things that seemed obvious to anyone that had tracked his progress during his career. Arod stroke me as a person doing damage control that didn't want to end up in Armstrong's situation. (Can't say I blame him for that) Barry Bonds was so adamant that he didn't use and what he did use he wasn't aware of until after the fact. Roger Clemens never was proven to have used performance enhancers, but I just have a hard time believing that Andy Petite did and he didn't. Petite never came clean to everyone and at this point why would he. He's been given a pass. Clemens irks me because he, like Armstrong, has been so adamant of his innocence despite there being clear indications that he did use them. So what can we learn. The information age is changing sports. As an athlete it's hard to keep a secret. Your friends can betray you for their 15 minutes of fame. Keeping things under wraps like this is next to impossible. Everyone is questioned when they suddenly have a noticeable physical change. Whether that be direct or indirectly. Athletes are under the finest microscope the media and social media. It's hard to keep secrets these days. The media will not only put pressure on the athletes, but anyone they have a relationship with to break the story. Admitting to something before it blows up to be a bigger thing is probably the right course of action. If Lance had admitted to things early on he could have taken his 6 month suspension and loss of titles and moved on. Now he's lost everything. I think people would have understood that the culture of the sport would have not been so hard on him. Don't get me wrong he probably would have had to give back titles, but the ramifications wouldn't have been as bad as they will be now. He really took defending himself to a new level. I think about the company that came out and said they want their 12.5 million back, which they are entitled too, and cringe. Finally, we are winning the battle on PED's. Science and testing have improved and it's getting harder and harder to break the rules. Mike Greenberg made the comment this week that we were losing the battle and maybe there should be some changes to allow certain things. I couldn't disagree more. I'll make my points on that in a later BLOG. Let's just say for now Athletes are going to find it hard to get away with using under the changing rules.