The English announcer made his bed with Lance Armstrong. He deserved to be tossed because of it.
Like many, Phil Liggett was the authoritative voice I heard when I first tuned in to televised European bike racing. Even then, he was a cheerleader, bringing up and dismissing possibilities of doping as being impossible. All the same, he had polish, excellent turns of phrase, an ok voice, and seemed to know bike racing history and the riders well. What he never seemed to master, was how to pronounce the names of riders and names of places, a trait that seemed to get worse as he aged, in addition to getting more and more riders names wrong, and losing track of the action as he talked about it.. When Liggett jumped on the Lance train, he was already starting to lose a step; for complete noobs, he probably seemed like a great resource, but by the second Tour with him, people could start to spot the mistakes. Liggett had fans, but the detractors were growing and increasingly annoyed.
His bear hug of Armstrong as the truth dribbled and then poured out, was exactly what he, and his broadcast partner Paul Sherwen, should not have done. But any savvy person should have known not to assert things they can’t prove. His passionate denials of Armstrong’s perfidy and the truth that came out demanded that he own his monumental judgement error, but Liggett was steadfast in denial, and those in charge seemed to ignore the fact that he not only was a few steps behind where he had been ten years earlier, but that he undermined his remaining credibility with such nonsense.
Digging A Hole
Here’s what Liggett told Cyclingnews in 2012: “He (Armstrong) told me in a private situation, when I wasn’t working as a journalist. I was sat in the bedroom some years ago, and I asked him point blank, ‘look Lance, the way I talked you up on television, I would have to back off and resign if you one day went positive’. And he looked at me and he said, ‘man I’ve seen death in the face and I don’t take drugs.’ And that’s all he said. I have no reason to disbelieve him.”
The occasion was the closing of the Los Angeles US Attorney’s office investigation into Armstrong’s possibility of doping. Liggett called the investigation, a “waste of money.”
Of course, the USADA Reasoned Decision detailing all the evidence of Armstrong’s doping came out in October 2012. When that was published, Liggett went into full defense mode, telling Cyclingnews,
“If he’s been taking drugs then of course it’s right [to sanction] but they still lack the absolute proof as far as I’m aware. I still am a supporter of Armstrong. Whatever way we look at it Lance has been good for the sport. No one can condone, if it’s finally proved, that he’s ridden his whole career on drugs. I had an email from an eminent scientist from the US yesterday. An SMS actually. It said if Lance Armstrong had taken the drugs outlined by USADA he’d have been dead ten years ago. He’s an eminent scientist and a very intelligent man. I don’t know his name; the SMS came from a secondary person.”
Liggett claimed back then he didn’t read the Reasoned Decision then. Which is hard to believe, as it had very specific bearing on not only his job, but his claims over the years.
He didn’t resign.
Armstrong himself admitted to a career of doping to Oprah four months later. Less than a year after Liggett promised he’d resign.
He didn’t resign.
Now that he looks like he’s on what should be his retirement Tour, his 54th from the commentary box, he’s getting a lot of love. And getting a chance to recast his Armstrong defense. Yet again.
When the news first came out in 2013, Liggett was blaming jealousy for the admission. He told the Australian publication Adelaide Now, “Why did his best mates all of a sudden go against him? I think Lance was keeping the biggest slice of the cake and living the lifestyle of an ‘A’ class celebrity,” He was in Australia to do commentary on the nation’s Tour Down Under, and as the Australian government had paid Armstrong to attend in recent years, Liggett had been asked of Lance should pay back up the money.
Digging Deeper
In 2016, he claimed he wanted “absolute proof,” before saying a word against Armstrong, and feels we never got it. Guess he doesn’t count the four positive drug tests at the 1999 Tour, one of which came out during that Tour. Those test results were made public in 2006, and the news of it was largely white-washed. But Liggett goes hard in defending himself. “On the other hand, I feel hurt and cheated that we made him look better than he should’ve and turned him into a star. To be fair, it wasn’t just Lance. Pretty much all the top names were doing it, some of whom were never caught. I can’t totally decry Lance. He raised US$600 million [$925 million] to fight cancer. I’d MC his gigs around the world.”
The shift is fascinating. He’d become the aggrieved party, not the person who was working for Armstrong, defending Armstrong and should have known better. Lance’s transgressions are kind of ok to Liggett because Lance raised money to fight cancer, even though the charity Armstrong started, Livestrong, initially was more of a way to leverage Armstrong’s celebrity for greater profit and influence than do good, evolved into a shield against doping allegations, and the money raised was more for survivor support than cancer research.
By 2021, Liggett’s defense had evolved yet again. He told the Sydney Morning Herald, “Lance was probably the most gifted cyclist of his time. Drugs, as I always say, don’t turn a donkey into a thoroughbred.” While that line has been used as a doper defense for probably 40 years or more, it is particularly empty when that was literally occurring in the 1990s, when the pro peloton was unevenly embracing EPO. Italian Rodolfo Massi went from being the Lanterne Rouge at the 1990 Tour de France to winning stages in Grand Tours and wearing the King of the Mountains Jersey at the 1998 Tour de France.
Retirement Tour
Now that Liggett’s on his 54th Tour, NBC decided to fete him with a long, loving interview that’s on Peacock and YouTube. It’s telling that they devote, almost certainly with Liggett’s approval, spend so much time on what could have been argued was old news. He’s now claiming he’s the victim, that his (ridiculous) defenses of and advocacy for Armstrong put Liggett on the front page of the Sunday papers in the UK in 2013, he was so hurt he was nearly in tears, and Lance never apologized or reached out.
The tears, while Liggett won’t admit it, were justly earned. Besides the varied defenses he’d tried to cover up and distract from his culpability, Liggett has yet to own at least one huge conflict of interest he had. He was partners with his co-commentator Sherwen, Armstrong, and others in a literal Ugandan gold mine. That, not including at the flacking and opening act stuff he did for Armstrong in relation to Livestrong and other things, is something that in many journalistic endeavors, would be crossing a pretty big red line. It’s probably not the only reason he, along with Sherwen, had become obsequious fanboys during their on-air chatter once Lance had established himself as the star of the cycling world, something they worked toward and burnished—something Liggett is finally owning, but only to cast himself as a wronged party, a victim. Their slavish devotion to Armstrong was to the level of they’d be talking about breakfast during a stage and one would say ‘you know who makes a great breakfast? That Lance Armstrong.’ The fluffing was not only embarrassing; it was bad work, and bad for the sport, and the race.
Cheerleading Doesn’t Mean Drinking Kool-Aid
Yes, being in the commentary box for sport often means being a cheerleader. It’s unfair to expect announcers to see an extra-terrestrial performance and call it out as such in the moment—it can’t be proven until later. But when the cheerleaders veer into Kool-Aid cult ruminations and ridiculous defenses, everyone suffers. Liggett likes to call himself a journalist, but a more accurate description, one I’ve found in British publications, is “presenter.” His journalistic integrity, if there ever was any, disappeared long ago. Truth-telling is one of the ways people maintain credibility, and a semi-aware presenter should have known from the start that force feeding bullshit to listeners is not a smart strategy for long-term viability.
As the years have gone on, Liggett has lost more. Much more. He’s had a long and successful career, has been hugely influential in the world of televised bike racing. It’s a pity he chose to make Armstrong the centerpiece of it. While he’s treated as a well-meaning old man, the vibes should never have been enough to save his job, let alone giving him a microphone for the next 13 years. Now that Sherwen replacement Bob Roll is more of a minder to keep Liggett on track and translate some of his words for the rest of us, it’s past time.
Let him go.