WASHINGTON (WUSA) -- If Lance Armstrong was America's greatest cyclist, then Greg Lemond was a strong number two. He won three Tours de France back in the late 1980s .and used his name to build a successful bike frame business.

His mistake was saying this about Armstrong: "If Lance's story is true, it's the greatest comeback in the history of sport, if it's not, it's the greatest fraud."

A furious Armstrong responded by using his then-vast influence in the sport to help wreck Lemond's company. Just one of several wicked acts of vengeance wrought by Armstrong when anyone challenged his miracle comeback story.

In the Oprah interview, Armstrong claimed to understand why some will never forgive him. But does he? Because I gotta seriously wonder if anyone capable of being so malevolent and cruel to people who had been friends knows much at all about the feelings of others. Bad judgement we can all understand. Giving in to lust or fear? Happens to the best of us.

But what Lance Armstrong did takes a special kind of mean. And barring signs of a different sort of miracle comeback, how do you forgive that?

Read or Share this story: