{"id":35087,"date":"2012-10-14T02:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T02:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/smh_matt_collins-_lance_armstrong_is_a_product_of_his_times\/"},"modified":"2012-10-14T02:00:19","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T02:00:19","slug":"smh_matt_collins-_lance_armstrong_is_a_product_of_his_times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=35087","title":{"rendered":"(SMH) Matt Collins&#8211; Lance Armstrong is a product of his times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is no excusing Armstrong&#8217;s behaviour. He shouldn&#8217;t have taken the drugs and he shouldn&#8217;t have compelled others to do the same. But the latest revelations do show how a beautiful sport had been corrupted and how anyone seeking to succeed could have been drawn into such behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>But there are still reasons to admire this obviously deeply flawed man. Armstrong has done wonderful things &#8211; on and off the bike &#8211; and given me memories that I still savour.<\/p>\n<p>On drugs or not, he was capable of magnificent and daring feats. On stage nine of the 2003 Tour de France, Armstrong swerved to avoid a fellow rider, Joseba Beloki, who had crashed badly on a descent. The American was forced to ride across a steep paddock, jump a drainage ditch and rejoin the race on the road below. It was dramatic, bold and impressive.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/opinion\/society-and-culture\/armstrong-can-still-prove-himself-a-champion-20121013-27jmm.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no excusing Armstrong&#8217;s behaviour. He shouldn&#8217;t have taken the drugs and he shouldn&#8217;t have compelled others to do the same. But the latest revelations do show how a beautiful sport had been corrupted and how anyone seeking to<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=35087\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,50,204,99,168,128,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-international-news-commentary","category-australia-nz","category-drugsdrug-addiction","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-sports","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}