Lance Armstrong is (still) a champion

an essay

Stripped--On Monday, Oct 22, International Cycling Union - UCI - stripped Lance Armstrong of his 7 Tour de France Titles. "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," said Pat McQuaid, the president said of the UCI. "This is a landmark day for cycling." (Image borrowed from this blog)

Lance Armstrong is the seven-times Tour de France winner!

Many of us witnessed that super-human feat, curtesy of detailed TV broadcasts. I remember rushing home to watch the highlights of some of the more intense stages. Sometimes Lance seemed so cocky, so untouchable that I cheered for anyone but him. Yet at the end, seeing him hoisting the trophy seemed right. He was the greatest. He made cycling sexy.

I remember a conversation I had with a colleague during his seventh triumphant le Tour. He asked if I thought Armstrong was doping. I said without hesitation that yes, I believed he was. Did it make his victories any less amazing? Not for me!

I believe everyone on that level was taking something. It was not only the race of strength, grit and stamina, it was also the behind-the-curtain chemistry contest. The team with the best dope-lab stood the best chance to win. And, since I think that everyone was doping, the field was level. Armstrong was simply the man with the best legs and the best chemist.

Time and time over, the names in the closest competition with Armstrong were banned for using forbidden substances. The most recently remembered one is the man who was supposed to take the winning torch from Armstrong - Alberto Contador. It only proves my reasoning right.

As an amateur marathon runner - admittedly non-competitive, but no stranger to exhaustion and grueling pain of an endurance sport - I could only try to imagine how much work goes into the making of an elite cyclist. It isn't enough to sit on the couch and inject something with capitalized letters into your vein to make you an instant champion. Especially not when the other guys are doing exactly the same thing. You still need to pedal thousands of miles, sweat and bleed to earn the crown.

At the end, unless Armstrong's alchemist discovered an extremely potent and unique formula to be injected into Lance's system, it must have been a combination of strength, experience, tactics and probably most of all determination that took him over the other, lesser cheats.

Now, when the man has retired, and the cleanup of the sport of cycling is under way, some smart bureaucrat decided to make him an example. Armstrong's grip on the sport he dominated for a good decade has lessened and the minions who doped along with him found the courage of the pack to break the vow of silence.

What did it all do to the sport of cycling? It forever tainted it in the eyes of many fans.

See, Armstrong was a hero! He won that race seven times! He was never caught doping. That doesn't mean he was clean, but it means he outsmarted everybody trying to get him. In that matching of grits and wits he won - seven times! Stripping him of the titles is ridiculous.

Today, he is being vilified in the media around the globe. The same reporters who praised him to heaven are kicking him in the groin, now that he'd been brought down. Hypocrites decided to destroy the legend in the name of the "fair play", while already a new cheat must be laughing behind their backs.

You will notice that I haven't mentioned Armstrong as a cancer survivor and his accomplishments for his cancer-fighting cause, which are also halted by the action of the righteous bunch. Even focusing on the sports and cheating aspect only, I can argue that the right is actually wrong this time.

In conclusion, stripping Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles, doesn't build the trust in the fairness of the sport of cycling. It's a pathetic effort to show that something is being done to clean the sport, but the cleaning should go forward in time, not backward.

To all of you who participate in this crucifixion of Armstrong, I congratulate your newfound, if hypocritical, sense of right. I may be just a sentimental fool, but I'd rather have a tainted hero than no hero at all.