Lance Armstrong...
Wow.
He's going to be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles today because he has stopped contesting performance enhancing drug allegations. He claims that he's just tired of fighting the false charge. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency both regard the refusal to continue the fight as an admission of guilt.
So did he do it or not?
I honestly could not care less about cycling as a sport. I prefer to call it bicycling because I don't want people to confuse it with the more obscure, but far more exciting, sports of unicycling and tricycling. Lance Armstrong though extends beyond just the bicycling world. Beating cancer while competing at your sport's highest level will do that. Instant National Hero and what not. But... if you cheat, what then? Does cancer give you the right to cheat in order to actually level the playing field?
No, of course not. While he has not come out and admitted guilt, it's hard to not think of this the way the USADA and WADA do. It's hard not to see this as an admission of guilt. These allegations have been following him around for at least as long as I've known who he was. In the court of public opinion it's hard to not side with the where-there's-smoke-there's-fire argument. At the same time, he's innocent until proven guilty, and if he doesn't challenge the charges, is he really proven guilty?
When I was a kid I was told that cheaters never win. I guess this is just a case of that axiom needing a little bit of time to catch up to someone formerly regarded as one of life's winners.
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