Falling from Stardom

Hypocrisy. Lies. Cheating. Disguise. Drugs. These are words that people never want to have associated with any form of lifestyle, and for the purpose of this blog and this blog alone, any form of sport either. However through recent happenings in the sporting world, such words are thrown around like confetti at a wedding. Lance Armstrong, Oscar Pistorius, OJ Simpson to name but a few sportsmen who have had the red carpet treatment pulled from underneath them through one reason or another. We can all look at the newspapers over the course of the last few months and see journalists and ex-sports stars taking their frustration out on other sports stars when things start turning to pot in their field. Rory McIlroy the latest to get such treatment after walking off the Honda Classic golf tournament due to tooth pain. After this happened he began to get chastised by public and journalists alike for showing a lack of professionalism, however, if it was one of us waking up with toothache, not only would there be a probability we'd call a 'sickie' but not feel like working altogether. Hence, purely on the celebrity pedastool that McIlroy finds himself on, it is almost impossible to escape the limelight, no matter the enormity of the event.

On the topic of being unable to escape the limelight, Oscar Pistorius, the 6 Gold, 4 Silver and 1 Bronze Paralympic Games champion, came under close scrutiny from journalists and police alike when he was accused of shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria, South Africa, on the 14th February 2013. Immediately put on trial, he defended himself on the basis that he thought Reeva was an intruder and he had every intention of killing the intruder, not Reeva. Evidence for the defence and prosecution were placed in court over the following few days, with the initial status being that Oscar Pistorius would be placed on bail. Having become the 'poster boy' for the Paralympic Games, everything looked bright for the future of Oscar Pistorius. He had 5 modern homes all around the world, an Olympic legacy paved in gold for his contribution to raising the sport from the ashes, and a loving family. So where did it all go wrong? Is a celebrity status of such a nature of Pistorius's something too much for a person to cope with? I suppose we'll find out when the jury and court adjourns again later this year for a final sentence.

Continuing along the sporting fall from stardom, we come to the issue of OJ Simpson, his rise to fame through American Football and his ultimate demise into one of the first sporting figures of such notoriety to be involved with such a large scandal. Having become the first American Footballer to have passed the 2,000 rush yard mark in a season, his sporting career was turning into a great success, until he was tried on two counts of murder following the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in June 1994. Having been given a verdict of 'not guilty' from the court on October 3rd 1995, OJ Simpson followed this up subsequently by releasing a book entitled 'If I Did It: Confessions of the killer' in 2007. Copies flew off the shelves in the public's desire to find out the mentality behind OJ Simpson, not noticing the minuscule print of 'if' rather than the presumed title 'I Did It'. 

Tumbling from grace has been something that is quite frequently happening to sports stars. Furthermore to Oscar Pistorius and OJ Simpson, there was the massive trial of Lance Armstrong, the record seven time Tour De France winner from 1999 to 2005, regarding his use of doping. Being an individual who himself fought off cancer, and having set up 'Livestrong' (a foundation that helps to serve people affected by cancer and empowers them to take action to gain a a healthier body), to have such a large story come out that such a man had taken dope throughout his cycling career shocked the world. He ultimately got stripped of his seven Tour De France titles and his reputation turned to soot with all his sponsorship deals turning the other way too. His interview on Oprah Winfrey was to be the turning point of the whole story, a chance for Lance Armstrong to set the story straight. Although he admitted to taking dope to enhance his sporting capability, his overall body language showed he withheld information which he later publicly announced, ultimately dampening his ever decreasing and capitulating reputation. Fellow cyclists condemned his actions to the utmost of their ability and set about looking for an increased drug testing centre for people not only involved in cycling but other sports too. As Simon Barnes, the Sports commentator for the newspaper 'The Times', stated in his recent article 'When Hipocrisy becomes a lifestyle choice', 'Armsrong chose to live by a means of lying, bullying, cheating: as a system, a career.' - This, in my opinion is a grand summation of what Lance Armstrong's lifestyle path choices not only condemned him as a reputable sportsman for the rest of his career but also made his 'Livestrong' campaign strongly hypocritical.

In turn, I want to leave you with a couple of questions, does celebrity status bring with it a greater sense of needing to strive for bettering your career path no matter how you go about it, just so long as you don't get found out in the long run? Furthermore, does being a celebrity mean that whatever nonsensical or fatal action they undertake or accidentally participate in, they get a grossly over emphasised criticism from fellow celebrities and members of public? An extended court sentence for those put on a pedastool, and one from which they would never be able to get back on no matter how big their ladders were or how large the bridges were they try to re-build. Once your a celebrity who falls from fame with such large side effects as OJ Simpson, Oscar Pistorius or Lance Armstrong, to name a few, you will be forever trampled on like sawdust in a carpenter's workshop.

Jonathan Whitehead