Yes, I know, the US elections are approaching. Yes, I heard about the third debate and the ‘horses and bayonets’ storm in a tweetcup. But let’s stick our heads in the sand for a moment – indulge in a case of ‘Romnesia’, if you will – because frankly I am tired of the whole shabang.

Let us turn instead to that fallen hero in shining Lycra, Lance Armstrong. Oh Lance. Oh dear. You were untouchable, invincible – the man who won seven Tours, beat cancer and most of all persuaded Vince Vaughan to rejoin his team for the end of Dodgeball. Your name sounded a bit like ‘Lancelot’. You were kind of cute.

But the doping allegations, when they came, came faster than even you. A thousand pages describing your misdeeds? A million dollars paid to a doctor named Ferrari? If anyone had told us any of this a few months ago we’d have laughed in their faces.
“Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling,” declared Pat McQuaid, President of the International Cycling Union, as he announced that the defeated hero would have to return his Tour de France prize money. “He deserves to be forgotten.” To be forgotten, erased from the pages of history, is a terrible fate.

The very public fall of a great individual is always intriguing to watch. This year, I’ve been studying the tragedy paper and the key thing about tragedy is that there always needs to be a witness, someone to see the fall (and usually to make improbably metrical pronouncements about it immediately afterwards). Nothing is tragic if it is not seen, pitied, feared and remembered afterwards. Armstrong has lived in the public eye for decades now. He was no less than a king of his sport. He overcame cancer – and let us not forget that, even with the drugs, defeating such an illness and going on to win the Tour again and again is a remarkable achievement.

Forgetting someone in this age of information is no mean feat, but the press is good at focusing its laser-intense spotlight onto whichever individual is flavour of the month and eroding them away with words and tweets and reports. Of course these individuals mostly deserve what they have coming. But it is their consignment to oblivion, more than the losing of titles or reputation, which causes me to shudder most.

Fame is usually a correlative of greatness (though not always: think of every reality show, ever), and thus when greatness collapses, fame does as well. For those accustomed to the limelight, the silence that comes after the fall is the last insult of all. That lesser-known dispenser of wisdom, Timon from ‘The Lion King’, tells Simba: “When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world”. As Simba learns, this is no answer at all. For Armstrong, neck-deep in the mire of disgrace, there can be no return to the throne.