Lance Armstrong Chases Redemption

The former cyclist wants you to forget about the doping and focus on his podcast.

- Max Chafkin

The theme of last year’s Global Volatility Summit in New York was a carnival. Attendees at the annual conference, put on by the hedge fund Capstone Investment Advisors, were treated to talks and panels on quantitative investing and the impact of the trade war. There were diversions such as the “VIX Rollercoaster,” “the Wheel of Tax Misfortune,” and “Policy Skee Ball.” Also, Lance Armstrong showed up. “That last conversation was amazing,” the 47-year-old former cyclist said as he settled into a chair on the stage at Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers, referring to a six-person panel discussion on tail hedge strategies. “I understood everything.”

Self-deprecating humor doesn’t come easily to Armstrong. Perpetually stone-faced and quick to anger, he was known during his professional cycling career as a heroic survivor of late-stage testicular cancer who went on to win the Tour de France, cycling’s biggest event, a record seven times. He was also, of course, a cheater—the leader of a team that, according to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, “ran the most sophisticated, professionalized, and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.” Armstrong disputes that his doping was unprecedented—it was part of a larger culture of doping in cycling, he’s long argued—but not that he cheated nor that he crossed ethical lines in his attempts to silence critics.