TCTI: Too Crazy Too Ignore
 Dave Ross
AP: 0e0da5fb-0448-4f20-bfd4-fb007844fff4
This Monday, Jan. 14, 2013 photo provided by Harpo Studios Inc., shows talk-show host Oprah Winfrey interviewing cyclist Lance Armstrong during taping for the show "Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive" in Austin, Texas. The two-part episode of "Oprah's Next Chapter" will air nationally Thursday and Friday, Jan. 17-18, 2013. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc., George Burns)

A limited confession?

BY Dave Ross  on January 16, 2013 @ 6:38 am (Updated: 8:39 am - 1/16/13 )

"I can only say I was satisfied by the answers."

That's how Oprah describes her Lance Armstrong interview - which a source now describes to CBS as "at least a limited confession."

Whatever that means. An interview about a guy who lied… had better live up to its own hype.

"Oprah gets the truth after a decade of denial," say promotional ads running ahead of the interview.

Whatever he confesses to, Armstrong's defenders will say it was either take the needle or get out of the sport - so he had no choice. But there were some who took the other road.

Said Scott Mercier, "This is a huge message for clean athletes, and clean athletics - that it does matter."

Mercier made the US Postal Service team in 1997, but when he saw the drugs laid out before him, he said no way, and abandoned his dream.

I asked him if he felt cheated, "The cost for me is, I never got to race another Olympic games. I never did the Tour de France. I prematurely ended my career. But I also still have my integrity, and I can look my children in the eye and say it matters," said Mercier.

Mercier says the reason Armstrong gave in was simple - the money. He's reported to be worth $100 million.

CBS News is reporting that he's offered to pay back $5 million of the $31 million he was paid to compete on the U.S. Postal Service team but was turned down - $5 million for a government that's short by a trillion? Get real. Technically, the government could go after him for treble damages, and that could end up being most of his fortune.

Which has Scott Mercier counting his blessings, "My wife said to me about four months ago, 'Honey, aren't you glad you're not coming down and sitting down our son and daughter and telling them that you're a lying fraud?"

Instead he lives, like most of us, out of the spotlight, but pretty happy. "I'm a financial adviser in western Colorado and I own a couple or Carl's Jr. restaurants."

Maybe one day, if Lance needs an honest financial adviser, they could sit down over the new jalapeno turkey burger.

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
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Comments (4)


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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Thanks for this post, Dave.
    January 16, 2013 6:25 am
    All things considered, this disclosure is far more important to Americans than any disclosure by Jodie Foster. ... After all, Ms. Foster did not bilk the USPS out of $millions.

    As for anything else in the news this past week - or coming up today - ???????

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  • HockeyMom wrote...
    Oh, Lance....
    January 16, 2013 7:14 am
    You're apologies and psuedo confessions mean nothing to me. Cheating would have been something you can overcome. I think the fact that you went to such lengths to ruin, threaten, and slander other people is what makes so many disgusted by you.
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  • Pete in Seattle wrote...
    Ex Post Facto
    January 16, 2013 8:51 am
    One of the real questions is what did Lance do and what were the rules **AT THE TIME**. I can remember hearing reports of "doping" but since drugs were not being introduced it was technically not against the rules. In Baseball, Mark McGuire was open about what he was taking, and it was not against the rules at that time. In all sports in the 50's and 60's premier athletes got regular rubdowns. In most cases the creams and lotions probably contained low levels of steroids; many OTC creams contain "cortico-steroids. What has happened in many sports is that substances are banned which are rather common; and to go one step further substances which might conceal presence of other substances are also banned. But it is folly to try to go back in time and try to apply today's standards to yesterday, since an overwhelming majority of athletes would probably flunk if tested.
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  • William Lawn wrote...
    LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!
    January 16, 2013 12:03 pm
    FLOUNDER!

    That is all.

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