Lance and Sir Jim OBE! Who’d a thunk it?

Well, just about everyone, it seems (if the news is anything to go by). I didn’t know of course, but it looks like everyone they ever met knew, or thought they knew that Lance was a cheat and Jimmy Savile was a paedophile. To be fair, some tried to warn us of their misdeeds (see this video about Lance Armstrong's cheating from 2010,

and this on Jimmy Savile:   http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/culture/2012/10/when-louis-asked-jimmy-about-being-paedophile )

I had hoped Lance was innocent of doping, because it is very upsetting to see a great man brought low. It does not surprise me (and should not surprise anyone) to find that he is not the most likeable character. Great men don't have to be likeable; but is it the case that we have a right to expect them not to cheat (at least when it’s less than a matter of life and death), otherwise they are no longer great?

Anyone who has even cursorily followed professional cycling knows that there has always been doping. And there have always been more or less high profile scandals about it. We expect athletes to harm their bodies and change their metabolism to achieve feats of super-human endurance, strength, speed and skill. Then we expect them to stop short of taking drugs to do it. What's the difference between eating 4lbs of steak a day and exercising it into muscle (or whatever unnatural act is required to get the kind of bodies these guys have) and injecting yourself with steroids to enhance the process? I think I might be persuaded that there is no moral difference. If you are trying to find who is naturally fastest over 100 metres, is it not "cheating" to have practised at all?

For me, answer turns out to be simply that there are things allowed within the rules, and things that are not. The use of performance enhancing drugs is not the question here; its the promising to abide by a set of rules, and then not doing so. His fans have been lied to, and his sponsors and the organisers of the races he won have been lied to and defrauded. I’m sad that Lance has turned out to be a cheat, because I think in a clean sport he would have won anyway. But I can't be outraged - all the people involved were grown ups and should have known they were fishing in a murky pond.

Jimmy Savile looks like another kettle of fish. His public persona was as an odd man, but he appeared to be (relatively) harmless and, like Lance, raised millions for charity. He made no secret of liking young women (I can remember him saying as much on radio in his “Savile’s Travels” days).

When the news first started to surface that he had had sex with under-age girls, I thought perhaps this might be a case of 15 year old groupies; criminal, of course, because you're not allowed to have sex with people under the age of consent (16 in the UK), whether they agree to it or not, but essentially unfortunate and sad, not tragic. The whole concept of "under-age" is a bit problematical anyway. Even within Western Europe the so-called "age of consent" varies from 13 in Spain to 17 in Ireland.

Can a 13 year old really give informed consent? Perhaps. But I don't think that's the issue. The issue is that Savile lied, and used his celebrity to sexually exploit vulnerable people - whether they were 13 or 30 makes little real difference. I'm sure some of his "conquests" took it in their stride, but for many his actions were toxic to their personalities and mental health. He was in a position of trust, and he betrayed it and lied about it. He deserves our contempt and distaste.

In one sense, the two are not so far apart. They both betrayed the trust of people who had a reasonable expectation that they were trustworthy. They both lied to mislead people away from the truth. Lance lied and defrauded his sponsors and others of money, and betrayed his many admirers. Sir Jim lied and betrayed  many (often vulnerable) young people with his criminal behaviour, and betrayed his many admirers.

In another way they are far apart; Lance stole only money and glory; Savile stole lives.