Motivation Quote by Greg LeMond

“Even good people are obliged to deceive” has the blunt, road-worn realism of someone who’s spent a career in a sport where purity is a marketing slogan and survival is a skill. Coming from Greg LeMond, it lands less like a philosophical shrug and more like a confession about systems that punish transparency. The sting is in “obliged”: deception isn’t framed as a personal failing, but as a job requirement. In other words, the environment manufactures dishonesty, then pretends to be shocked by it.

LeMond’s era in cycling was defined by murky incentives: teams, sponsors, and governing bodies all benefited from clean narratives while quietly tolerating gray zones. The quote compresses that hypocrisy into a single moral paradox. “Good people” signals he’s not excusing villains; he’s talking about teammates, rivals, even himself - people who might act honorably in ordinary life but learn that disclosure costs you selection, contracts, leverage, safety. Deception becomes less about malice and more about risk management: hiding injuries, downplaying internal conflict, protecting team tactics, keeping sponsors calm, navigating politics. In elite sport, honesty is rarely rewarded in real time.

The line also flips the usual doping-era storyline. Instead of “bad apples,” it points to a barrel problem: institutions that demand performance and loyalty while treating truth as disloyalty. It’s a grimly effective sentence because it refuses comfort. If “good” can coexist with “deceive,” then morality isn’t a fixed identity - it’s something negotiated under pressure, with consequences measured in seconds and paychecks.