Shane McConkey and the End of Extreme

"You step off the edge, and everything goes away," Shane McConkey told one of the last interviewers he ever met. "And you’re just 100 percent in the zone – you’re flying now. You’re a bird."

Human flight is one of the oldest human dreams, and also one of the deadliest. Skiing off cliffs with a parachute, and later a wingsuit, Shane McConkey came as close as you can to achieving that dream. But not close enough. My piece about his extraordinary life and death, in the July/August Men's Journal, is one of the saddest I've ever had to write. The devastated wife, their three-year-old daughter, the stunned friends who now have a Shane-size hole in their lives, all because he just couldn't quit while he was ahead. For whatever reason.

I tried to capture his personality and his vision in the piece, but this shot-perfect James Bond homage (from the Matchstick Productions film Seven Sunny Days) is how I choose to remember him:

Doping and Le Tour: It's What They Do

Terrific essay from SI's Alexander Wolff that explains the "culture clash" over doping in cycling, including this interesting passage (among many):

Armstrong has long broadcast on two frequencies -- one to the European peloton, another to cycling-innocent followers in the States. A perfect example took place several months ago, after an out-of-competition tester from France's state-run anti-doping lab doorstepped him on the Riviera, and Armstrong, just back from a training ride, disappeared for 20 minutes to take a shower. Europeans know that the one thing a cyclist may not do under any circumstances is leave a tester's sight before providing a sample. They can recount the sport's colorful history of doping-control subterfuge, from hastily swallowed diuretics and blood-thinners, to stand-in urine delivered through concealed rubber tubing. When this departure from protocol briefly looked like it might lead to his suspension, Armstrong tweeted indignantly, Was winning the Tour seven times that offensive?!? That in turn cued up reactions Stateside of the "Of course they wouldn't let him take a shower -- they don't believe in showers!" variety. Not that Armstrong necessarily had something to hide; given his relationship with the French, he may have simply been up for a game of chicken, to dare them to expel from their great race its biggest name. The point is, he took them on and won, again.

Jerkstrong: The Reviews

One of the, um, unique things about online journalism is that you get instant reader feedback. Instant, and in the case of my Lance Armstrong/Sarah Palin piece, voluminous. So now there are 118 comments in "The Fray" and counting, and probably 100 of them didn't really like the article, and accused me of various things, including having a "casual" knowledge of cycling. (FWIW, I've covered bike racing since 1998, and I've also raced road, mountain, and cyclocross.)

I also got called a "groupie" by someone who is, quite obviously, a groupie. But one of my favorites was also one of the first:

You want to write about bike riding? Follow the peleton up L'Alpe d'Huez. When you know how hard it is, then maybe you'll understand why Armstrong was nauseated at the thought of some sportwriter passing judgment on those guys who got caught doping.

Somehow, I don't think that was why he was "nauseated."

The reply was also great:

hahahahaha! classic dentist roadie response.

What's a "dentist roadie?" Who knows. I haven't ridden Alpe d'Huez, though; maybe I should. (Oh, wait -- it's not on this year's Tour.)

Anyway, Deadspin picked up the theme and added their own thoughts on "The Critic-Proofing of Lance Armstrong":

Armstrong's petulance is understandable, at least to a point: He's been held up as the face of doping in a sport that owes its very existence to doping. Its earliest practitioners were, as author John Hoberman has written, "continuing the work of of experimental physiologists interested in learning how much abuse animals or humans could take" and who, to weather the stress, spiked their coffee with cocaine and strychnine and took nitroglycerin to aid their breathing. If he has been persecuted, it has been for the sins of his own sport.

The result, however, is that he has curdled into the joyless, scowling Nixon-on-a-bike we see today, one who snarks at his critics from his Twitter account and who needsuseful idiots like Rick Reilly to lighten up his image. (Seriously, read Reilly's latest. He talks to Armstrong's bare ass.) This may render him largely insufferable to a segment of the public, but it makes him a perfect pitchman for a shoe company that sells a certain spirit of sporty resentment, and sells it hard. The Nike commercial is the latest step in Armstrong's personal evolution. He has critic-proofed himself. In his mind, he is beyond any questions of guilt and innocence now. He is the Messiah of the infirm.

Oh, and that Nike ad ("Driven") that started it all off? It's not running on Versus anymore. They must have agreed with this cycling insider (who emailed me privately):

As the man that has made some Lance ads for Nike in my time, that piece of shit that they're selling now is horrible. I couldn't believe it wasn't a BMSquib spot. Sad for everyone- especially the poor cancer people.

Yes, I Called Lance Armstrong a "Jerk"

I used to love Lance Armstrong; his stunning win in the 1999 Tour de France brought tears to my eyes. Seriously, if you missed it, go buy (or rent) the World Cycling Productions DVD of that race. He had this innocence about him, this deer-in-the-headlights look, like he never really expected it to happen. Instead of bodyguards, he had a six-foot-plus, rugby-playing American investment banker dude who was pressed into service to keep the photogs away.

What a long time ago that was. As I learned more and watched more and heard more, over the years—much of it off the record—he grew less appealing. There was (and is) still a lot to admire about the guy, but it comes with a harsh dose of bitterness, vengefulness, resentment, and plain anger that can be tough to take. Nice guys don't win, I get that. But there seems to be an awful lot of energy spent settling petty scores (like poaching young phenom Taylor Phinney from Jonathan Vaughters' Garmin team), and creating melodramatic fights with his perceived "enemies," when he could be using his popularity and his time to advance the public good.

Then I saw this Nike ad:

Which prompted me to write this piece in Slate. A nibble:

It's jarring, dramatic, and memorable—and not in a good way. While it's curious that a multinational company chooses to sell athletic wear in this fashion, the ad is even more interesting for what it tells us about Armstrong's psyche. On its surface, it reinforces the idea that Lance is standing behind the victims of a disease that nearly claimed his life. That is indisputable. It also, however, pushes the idea that Armstrong is some kind of savior. HisShepard Fairey-designed bikes are emblazoned with two numbers. The first, 1,274, is the number of days between his last race and his comeback. The second, 27.2, represents the number of people, in millions, who died from the disease during that time. Is Armstrong suggesting that there's some kind of causal link between him not riding his bike and people dying from cancer?

The ad also implies, disturbingly, that the cyclist's "critics"—and that includes everyone whothinks he's arrogant—are equivalent to cancer. It is apparently not enough for him to ride his bike and lead a positive campaign. He can't help but go after his detractors at the same time. And you thought Sarah Palin was divisive.

Pee No Evil

"EPO is the problem," a frustrated Jim Courier told Newsweek back in 1999. “I have pretty strong suspicions that guys are using it on the tour. I see guys who are out there week in and week out without taking rests. EPO can help you when it's the fifth set and you've been playing for four-and-a-half hours.”

Anyone who's watching Wimbledon has to suspect that he was right: The players pound away at each other, trading 100-mph volleys for hours on end. In fact, it would be difficult to come up with a sport that would reward more different kinds of performance-enhancing drugs: steroids for power and recovery, stimulants for quickness and mental clarity, and EPO for base endurance, to keep you on top of the game in the fifth set. And the rewards for winning a major championship are huge--seven figures and up, counting endorsements. There are powerful incentives to cheat.

Yet as I explain in this Slate piece, the International Tennis Federation's drug testing program is a joke. Venus Williams and Rafael Nadal have both whined a lot this year--interestingly--about how much they're tested, but really, they're quite lucky. Major players can expect to be tested fewer than a half-dozen times each season--and almost never outside competition, which is when most doping takes place.

Even worse, there are almost no tests for EPO, despite a growing consensus that the blood-booster is ubiquitous across all sports, from cycling to NFL football, even to race-car driving. In fact, there may actually be less EPO use in cycling than in tennis, because of cycling's nonstop drug-testing program (which borders on invasive, but that's another conversation). I really hope that isn't the case, but the evidence and logic point that way. The door has been left open.

Yet when I put the question to tennis's anti-doping authorities, they suggested that Courier was somehow lying, ten years ago. And they insisted that EPO is not a problem -- because they've had no positive tests. It's hard to find something when you're not really looking for it.

Read the full article here.

UPDATE: For more info, and some pretty interesting muscle pics of players, check out http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspot.com/