Lance Armstrong, the 7-time Tour de France winner who, it's been revealed, achieved his victories with the help of banned drugs, is only cheating himself, writes spoof cycling correspondent Moys Kenwood.
Armstrong used a cocktail of banned substances to enhance his performances during the world's greatest bike race which, some say, is the Pinnacle of Human Endurance (PHE).
In so doing, and, after first claiming a far more difficult Yellow Jersey in his race against Testicular Cancer (TC), he became a hero to many, including a young and impressionable Kenwood, who now says:
"If my Mum thought I was fiddling, she would tell me "You're only cheating yourself, Paul - nobody else." I've remembered this warning all of my pathetic life. Mum was right."
Like, if you look at someone else's exam paper in a test, you may get a higher score, but you know you cheated, and carry that terrible feeling around with you forever. Similarly, if the dimwitted girl on the checkout at Tesco gives you too much change, your immediate elation is soon overtaken by the grim black clouds of 'knowing-right-from-wrongness' by the time you reach the car park.
Kenwood believes that Armstrong's determination to succeed drove him beyond the limits of accepted fair play, into territory where he felt lonely, isolated and "wracked with guilt".
"He was wracked with guilt," says Kenwood, "and was only fooling himself. It's a lesson for all of us. We mustn't cheat. It's so much better to reach one's goals in life by pure hard work and determination, by fair means rather than foul, and by honesty rather than by trickery.
"That's what me Mum said, anyway!"
