So it's assumed that Lance Armstrong has admitted to Oprah that he used performance enhancing drugs. I would assume that by now, most people are convinced that he did dope and made millions by doing so. Personally, I'm a huge Lance fan. I have read every book, watched every Tour, and bought lots of yellow wristbands. For the longest time, I believed he was clean. It's common knowledge that Lance was talented even when he was racing as a teenager. His work ethic is like no other and his only goal on the bike was the punish all those trying to beat him. Lance was by far the best at what he did. He raced a bike and quite often he won on the bike. Honestly, it really sucked to finally admit to myself that Lance doped. I wanted to believe in his story and I wanted to believe that hard work really did paid off. Ya know what..... I still do.
Lance's cancer was so far advanced that he had less than a 50% chance to survive. Lance kicked the crap out of cancer and brought that attitude with him on the bike. Doping or not, nobody trained like Lance. He was one of the first riders to ever preride all of the climbs in the Tour De France. He knew every corner and he knew every little uphill and downhill. He knew the courses better than anyone. Don't get me wrong, Lance cheated and now everyone knows it. Ya know what though.......everyone did. Lance just didn't get caught. 90% of the peleton (if not more) was using performance enhancing drugs. Sad as it may be, the playing field was level. A few years ago there was a question asked to Olympians, if you could take a performance enhancing drug even if it was a health risk, but you were guaranteed not to be caught, would you take it. 100% of them said yes. 100%!!!!!! They are competitors and they will do whatever it takes to be the best.
I realize there is a huge question of integrity there, but I'm just saying. This is people's livelihood your talking about. This is the way they make their living. You win or you go home. You win or you find a new job. You win or you go broke. We as spectators should understand better than anyone. We're the ones sitting on our butts, watching the TV and yelling at it when our team is losing. Oh they suck! or Oh you can do better than that!!
We as spectators are the worst when it comes to judging the athletes we so dearly respect. We love them until they lose. Then we move on to another prodigy. Put any 40 year old human up against Lance Armstrong on a bike and Lance will come out on top. The guy is talented, there's no way around it.
It sucks that he cheated and now he's finally paying the price. It sucks that the Livestrong organization is suffering because of it. I don't think any one organization has directly helped so many cancer patients and their families more than Livestrong. It's an outstanding group of people working their tails off every day to make a difference in the lives of so many suffering from a such a powerful disease.
I'm not saying cheating is ok when everyone is doing it. I'm just saying that Lance didn't win because he was the only one doping. When the entire field is doping, the playing field, no matter how wrong it may be, is level.
We are a forgiving people. Lance will continue to race and Livestrong I hope will continue to grow and touch the lives of so many more people. As a cyclist and a fan, I too will forgive. I will still believe in hard work and I will still have faith in the system. The system that allows for so many of us to screw up, fall hard on our faces, then get back up to ride another day. The system of human nature that says, dang dude you really screwed up, but allows you to get back in the game. A system that forgives, because so many of us want to believe in our heroes. We want to believe because we want to see that little bit of hero within ourselves.
So ya, for me, it's a no brainer to forgive. I think that often times these situations will make the guilty party an even better person. I think Lance will be humbled more than he has ever imagined. I can only hope though that the humbleness will bring out more good. I do believe it will.
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