Lance Armstrong, American Hero? I say yes, emphatically yes!
Lance Armstrong won an unprecedented 7 Tour De France titles and countless
other UCI cycling races, and it turns out, he did much of it while taking
performance enhancing substances. I will not say drugs here, because a lot of
what he has finally admitted to taking were not drugs.
In a sport where entire cycling teams drop out of
international races whenever the UCI announces they have come up with a new
drug test or are screening for a substance recently added to their “ban” list,
it is hard for me to fault anyone for trying to keep a competitive edge.
Everyone who is competitive in professional cycling dopes. The heroic cyclists
who unsuccessfully chased Lance through 7 Tour races to come in 2nd
3rd…15th, they were all doping. To believe otherwise is, I
think, naïve .
Lance is an American hero. He beat cancer and then came back
and beat everyone on his bike. All the while he gave perhaps millions of people
hope that they could fight their diseases with his work in the LiveStrong
foundation. Lets not forget that. Lance’s philanthropy is staggering when you
step back and look at what he has accomplished and provided.
So he lied. Ok. So did everyone else. Lance was persecuted
because he was better. Better at doping. Better at racing. Better at being a
cycling icon. Better at winning races while taking the same performance
enhancing substances as all the cyclists chasing him. And I think this too
makes Lance an American hero. He doped better, smarter and harder. I am
guessing he also trained harder and with more conviction too, because the
people he was racing were spending just as much time doping and training to
win. What Lance displayed was American ingenuity and conviction. He was simply
smarter, better and more driven than the rest of the field.
Add to all of this that UCI very likely covered up a failed
drug test by Armstrong in 2002 and the whole sport becomes complicit.
Lance Armstrong remains to me a true American Icon and Hero.
He won 7 Tour de France titles, is an Olympic medalist and spearheaded a
tremendous charitable organization. Stripping him of those titles and medals
does not change the fact that he was the first man across the finish line, and
that is something no person or organization can ever take from him. He fessed
up, now leave him alone to run his charity and ride his bike.
Lance, I salute you!
