Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong wasn’t just a great athlete, he was an inspirational figure in the 2000s.

The American beat testicular cancer, raised millions of dollars for charity, won seven Tour de France titles and was an outspoken opponent of performance-enhancing drugs.

He was also cheating himself.

If you were the ringleader of a gigantic doping program, you’d probably want to go under the radar.

Not Armstrong.

Instead, he took a cameo role in the 2004 comedy Dodgeball, in which he provided the emotional catalyst that got Vince Vaughn’s character back on to the court.

It was an absolutely shameless moment of hubris and deceit.

Great film, though.

OJ Simpson

You don’t need to have watched any of the recent deluge of OJ Simpson programmes to know about this one.

‘Juice’ was an American icon – one of the best players in the NFL and a crossover star who acted in several films, including the Naked Gun trilogy.

Now, though, he’s almost universally detested or ridiculed and held up as an example of the justice system’s biggest failure.

Whether he killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman or not (*coughs*), the trial – not his NFL career – made Simpson one of the most famous men in America.

He’s now serving a 33-year sentence in jail for armed robbery, but is due for parole in October.

Tiger Woods

A DUI is never good.

It pales in comparison to the events of Tiger Woods’ past, though.

The American’s latest offence is a product of the massive scandal that wrecked his image, and with it his golf game.

Woods was once in a league with just Roger Federer as an athlete who completely dominated his sport and played it ‘the right way’ – a marketer’s dream.

And then it all came tumbling down in 2009, with an SUV crash, a string of revelations from porn stars, models and club hostesses and reports of over 120 affairs.

Tiger’s ‘transgressions’ cost him his marriage, a huge amount of money and his chance of winning as many majors as Jack Nicklaus. He hasn’t won one since.

What a waste.

Oscar Pistorius

Regarded as an inspiration to all athletes at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it was incomprehensible when Oscar Pistorius was arrested for killing Reeva Steenkamp less than a year later.

At the time, it seemed impossible to fathom that this wasn’t some kind of accident.

As it turned out, it wasn’t.

Nevertheless, seeing Pistorius weeping in the courtroom, no longer looking like a world-class athlete, was a haunting image of just how far a great sportsman can fall.

Michael Vick

If there’s one easy way to get the world to turn against you, it’s by hurting dogs.

And so Michael Vick learned in 2007 when he was sent to jail for two years for running a dogfighting ring.

The former Atlanta Falcons star quarterback did the time for his reprehensible crime and returned to the NFL in 2009, despite huge amounts of opposition from canine-loving fans.

But he redeemed himself, adopting a role as an experienced back-up for a handful of teams and becoming an animal rights activist off the field.

With all forgiven, he is currently in talks to sign a one-day contract and retire as a Falcon.

Nice to see that an old dog can learn new tricks.