LANCE ARMSTRONG

Lance Armstrong has always been box office gold, both before his 2012 doping downfall and since. In the before years, a standout is the film produced by his then-sponsor, Nike, Road to Paris, a fly-on-the-wall 100-minute film that follows Armstrong and his team through the season as they prepare for a third tilt at the yellow jersey. The word ‘prepare’ has illicit undertones in retrospect: there’s plenty here of Armstrong suffering alone in training in the cold, wet European mountains, but precisely zero relating to the true meaning of ‘prepare’ in this era of the sport, which was the copious use of blood booster EPO.

Straddling the eras is Alex Gibney’s The Armstrong Lie (2013). Initially perceived and shot as The Road Back – Armstrong on the comeback trail in 2009, bidding for an eighth yellow jersey – the film was shelved following the Texan’s doping outing and eventually reimagined as The Armstrong Lie, an exploration of the titular character’s deceit, of both the public and Gibney as a filmmaker. Post-downfall, the best show in town is Marina Zenovich’s two-parter, Lance, from 2020, which is still available on BBC iPlayer at time of writing.

Zenovich lays bare in full the whole sorry saga of Armstrong’s career, and speaks with Armstrong at home in depth. While clearly more open than in the past, the viewer might still detect a stage-managed veneer from the 2020 Armstrong, with Zenovich prodding him with enough subtlety to allow the mask, every now and then, to slip.

Road to Paris is available on Youtube, The Armstrong Lie is on Sky Documentaries and Lance is on BBC iPlayer