Having been excommunicated from the world of professional cycling, Lance Armstrong – one of the most infamous dopers in sports history – has taken on a new career in reality television.
The Texan is appearing in the show ‘Stars on Mars’ – Fox’s latest foray into the vast landscape of competition based “reality” that features a baffling array of other public figures.
A tedious insult to actual astronauts, the show has players wearing video game-like suits and simulating colonising Mars with the South Australia outback providing the set for the outdoor scenes.
The production has raised some hackles in Australia. According to local news reports, the SA Film Corporation said it was unaware that the disgraced cyclist was on the cast of the show being filmed in Coober Pedy.
The production received financial support as part of Australia’s Location Incentive, meaning Armstrong is again, this time indirectly, benefitting from Australian citizens’ tax dollars.
Armstrong was given $1 million US (at the time 1.5 million AUD) by the South Australian government to compete in the Tour Down Under in 2009 – after he came out of retirement – a fact that only emerged a decade later when the contract’s non-disclosure clause expired.
The treasurer of South Australia, Rob Lucas, published information about the deal as part of his campaign in 2019, sparking outrage that taxpayer funds were used to line the pockets of a rider already the subject of numerous allegations of cheating with performance-enhancing drugs.
Armstrong, after having his long history of doping exposed in an extensive investigation by USADA in 2012, went on to confess to doping on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2013.
He was also the subject of a federal lawsuit under the False Claims Act in the United States, settling the potentially $100 million case in 2018 by agreeing to pay the government $5 million.
The show is hosted by 92-year-old Star Trek star William Shatner and also includes actors Ariel Winter – who mistook Armstrong for deceased astronaut Neil Armstrong in the opening episode – Tallulah Willis, comedian Natasha Leggero, Porsha Williams, MMA fighter Ronda Rousey, figure skater Adam Rippon and former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch. Christopher Mintz-Plasse was eliminated in the first episode which aired this week.
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