We now have a more detailed explanation as to why did Lance Armstrong cancel his Dublin appearance.
The One Zero conference lost its main speaker at the eleventh hour this week, as Lance Armstrong shocked the world by proving he wasn't as good as his word.
The fact that Armstrong is a mendacious coward is, of course, one of the reasons behind the late withdrawal. Another reason sprung up in the aftermath of the withdrawal, however, entitled #BlameGilroy. It was started by the Off the Ball team, and figured that Lance had ducked out of the Dublin experience following his deeply uncomfortable radio interview with Ger Gilroy on Off the Ball earlier this month.
While this began as a gag, one of the conference organisers, Richard Barett, appeared to take this seriously, as he said on Newstalk on Thursday evening. Here's a snippet of the transcript:
RB: We've been transparent from the start. Some of the our partners have not been. And if we want to get into it about soundbites then we can get into it...
GG: Go for it. [re the soundbites].
RB: Ger, we set up an interview for you that was supposed to be 15 minutes. It was 40 minutes.
GG: It was 30 minutes.
It now emerges that the understanding of what the Newstalk interview was to be seems to have been taken differently by both parties. Newstalk, naturally, were not going to pass up the opportunity to grill Lance, but poor Lance was expecting a much easier ride, per Ewan MacKenna, writing today in the Times online.
MacKenna was the man set to interview Armstrong on stage in Dublin, and told Gilroy on Newstalk after the cancellation that Lance had been ringing his home, trying to buddy up ahead of the conference.
One of these phone calls revealed Armstrong's deep dissatisfaction at the Gilroy interview:
Last week on Newstalk when he went on air with presenter Ger Gilroy he wasn’t prepared. Those close to him say he was expecting a cushy call full of pap to shift tickets but he walked into some obvious but proper journalism. A couple of days later he called me and was uneasy.
“What did you make of it,” he asked.
“You weren’t ready,” I said.
“Nah, that guy fucked me in the ass, it felt like an assault.”
He sought assurances the same wouldn’t happen with us, saying his lawyers didn’t see the point if there was to be a repeat, but the only assurance he got was it would be tough but fair and there’d be no preview in terms of questions and direction. Uneasily he said that was fine and left it at that. But clearly the sell hadn’t been made.
Overall, it's a brilliant piece by MacKenna. Have a read of it here.
