Armstrong excuse a train wreck Bench now adding to pressure

LANCE ARMSTRONG’S argument that his cheating – though obviously now deeply regrettable – was just part of the history of his sport certainly marks an interesting turn in the cyclist’s new campaign for redemption. But it needs challenging.

In his first interview since the Oprah confess-a-thon, Armstrong pictured himself as a member of a generation that was ‘‘no different to any other’’. He went on to explain that ‘‘ very tough motherf...ers have competed [in the Tour de France] for a century and all looked for advantages, from hopping on trains 100 years ago to EPO now.’’

In other words, we should place Armstrong’s seemingly unique case within the continuum of cheating that constitutes the story of cycling, or certainly the story of the Tour. We can slam him for it, in other words, but he was just, in his own way, doing what cyclists have always done.

The reference to trainhopping, by the way, alludes to the legendary Maurice Garin, stripped of his Tour de France title in 1904. Defen- ding his victory in the inaugural race of 1903, the French rider apparently let the train take the strain for a while.

Credit the Tour de France and its governing bodies at least with moving on in this area.

But are the rider using EPO and the rider using the rail network fundamentally, as Armstrong seems to be claiming, on the same page? Perhaps philosophically, yes. One slips into a side room with a sachet of doctored plasma; the other slips into a station and asks for a oneway ticket to Angouleme, or a Saver Return if that works out cheaper. But both are cheating, in the end. On the other hand, there are some distinctions between Armstrong and Garin, aren’t there? And some important distinctions – ones that should cause us to hesitate before smilingly hanging this pair alongside each other in the rogues gallery.

For example, Garin was never accused of being the beneficiary of ‘‘beyond a doubt the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen’’. He just got on a train.

Also Garin, so far as we know, didn’t spend the next 15 years adamantly, flatly and emphatically denying that he had taken the train. Nor, when people accused him of taking a train, did he threaten legal action against those people and ruin their livelihoods.

And Garin did not publish a book, entitled It’s Not About The Train in which he stuck tenaciously to the theory of his own competitive purity, movingly sourcing his beliefs in the experience of combating a life- threatening illness, and that book did not go on to be a global bestseller. In fact, it seems he retired to spend the rest of his life innocently running a service station in Lens.

So, in the name of historical perspective, it’s probably a good idea that we keep all of this clear in our minds. Armstrong is very much his own special kind of ‘‘motherf...er’’ – a one-off. History owes him that much at least. THE CHALLENGES keep coming for the table-topping New Zealand Breakers.

Despite recording their 10th win in a row with a 98-81 thumping of the Perth Wildcats on Friday night, the pace-setters can little afford to take their eye off the ball.

Only it’s not just the seven other teams they need to look out for now, it’s themselves.

The league leaders put on a masterful three quarters to dismiss the only team that remained unconquered this year, their slow start the only blemish on an otherwise resoundingly successful night.

But besides grabbing back some dignity after two 20-point hidings from the Wildcats earlier in the season, the win proved the internal battle for game time is as hot as ever.

The home side’s bench scored almost half of the Breakers’ tally at a sold- out Vector Arena, outscoring the Perth bench 45-30.

It’s a fact now well accepted within the Breakers camp that nobody’s position is safe and the players are relishing the challenge.

‘‘ The bench performance [ on Friday] was massive and that’s why I have no doubt that we’ll take out this championship,’’ said Daryl Corletto, who had eight- points including two momentumswinging threes in the second quarter.

‘‘We play deep, we can start anyone and there would be no dropoff in the way we play. I think it showed last night when we went to the bench we kind of lifted a bit but when Perth went to the bench they dropped off.’’

Head coach Andrej Lemanis must now find ways to balance a roster with 10 capable starters.

‘‘ Everybody can come in and contribute. It’s not really even a case of maintaining the flow; sometimes they can change the flow and add to it. The beauty of this group is nobody drops their heads when that happens.’’

The Breakers now hold a two game buffer over the secondplaced Wildcats but the series split may be a stretch too far, with the Kiwi outfit needing a 30-point win in Perth to make up the points differential.

With that, the equation for home playoff security is simple.

‘‘We just need to keep winning. We’ve got that buffer, every game is tough but the ball’s in our court,’’ said Corletto.