Lance Armstrong is the Latest--and Greatest--in a Long Line of Cycling Cheaters

In Lance Armstrong: Hero or Charlatan? I asked the question, "Is Lance Armstrong such a great and highly dedicated athlete that he can be clean and yet still beat younger athletes who are dirty--or is Lance Armstrong one of the greatest frauds in sports history, loudly proclaiming his innocence merely because he has found a way to beat the system?" The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has answered that question in the harshest conceivable manner, banning Armstrong for life and stripping him of all victories, titles and prize money he won since 1999, laying the groundwork for the revocation of his seven Tour de France titles and his 2000 Olympic bronze medal (those honors will not formally be taken away until the International Cycling Union and International Olympic Committee review the paperwork from USADA).

USADA took these actions against Armstrong based partially on two samples of his blood drawn in 2009 and 2010 that indicate he used banned substances but based mainly on the sworn testimony of at least 10 former teammates and/or associates who state that Armstrong not only used testosterone, the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO), corticosteroids and masking agents but that he also conspired to traffic in those banned substances with the purpose of distributing them to other cyclists.

Many sports have been tainted to some degree by performance-enhancing drug (PED) cheaters--including Major League Baseball, the National Football League and various Olympic events ranging from track and field to swimming to weightlifting--but cycling may be the dirtiest of them all: more than a third of the top 10 finishers in the Tour de France since 1998 have been linked to PED cheating and one third of the teams originally entered in the 1998 Tour de France either were expelled for doping or withdrew rather than face expulsion. The Tour de France is actually the Tour de Fake or the Tour de Pharmaceuticals. The high rate of heart attack deaths among young, seemingly healthy cyclists provides circumstantial--though compelling--evidence that cyclists are using artificial means to push their bodies beyond healthy, normal limits. Lance Armstrong is merely the latest--albeit by far the most accomplished--cyclist whose name is forever tainted by a cheating scandal.

You can read for yourself the accounts of three of the witnesses against Armstrong. Journalist David Walsh offers this summary of the Armstrong case and why Armstrong has given up without a fight: "It is not good for him because he has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and has been given a lifetime ban. He has lost every victory he has had since 1998, but the alternative was even worse--to have a tribunal in which the evidence from 10 former team-mates who all say they saw him doping would have been aired in graphic detail."

Armstrong had the opportunity to challenge this testimony and to attempt to refute any other evidence that USADA has gathered but instead Armstrong chose to defiantly smear USADA's investigative process while also declining to fight to prove his innocence. Armstrong has done--and continues to do--noble philanthropic work relating to cancer and he is justifiably praised for this work but as an athlete he is now every bit as disgraced as Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez and every other member of the Rogues Gallery of PED Cheaters.

Lance Armstrong: Hero or Charlatan?

Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France a record seven times in a row (1999-2005), has returned to the grueling endurance race at age 37 and is a serious contender to post his eighth Tour victory. Armstrong survived a bout with cancer in 1996 and he announced his current comeback by declaring on his website, "After talking with my children, my family and my closest friends, I have decided to return to professional cycling in order to raise awareness of the global cancer burden." While Armstrong is certainly at least partially motivated by a champion's desire to once again be the best in the world at what he does--much like George Foreman and Michael Jordan were when they came back--there is no denying that he could do a tremendous amount of good for millions of people if his efforts lead to more funding for cancer treatment research

The Tour has been tainted for decades because of the large number of competitors who use performance-enhancing drugs; many of the sport's champions have either tested positive for drugs and/or confessed to using them. Armstrong's name has been at the forefront of PED speculation for many years but he steadfastly denies all such allegations and has never been caught redhanded. However, when you watch him outrace competitors who are much younger--many of whom probably are cheating--you inevitably ask yourself, "Is Lance Armstrong such a great and highly dedicated athlete that he can be clean and yet still beat younger athletes who are dirty--or is Lance Armstrong one of the greatest frauds in sports history, loudly proclaiming his innocence merely because he has found a way to beat the system?"

It is so sad that we have to wonder about this and if Armstrong is truly clean then I feel bad for even speculating about his character--but Marion Jones declared in bold print in her autobiography that she never used PEDs only to later tearfully admit to being a lying, cheating criminal. I would love to believe that an honest, forthright American hero is beating a bunch of liars and cheaters at what they consider to be "their" sport--but to believe that is to believe that Armstrong is superhuman, that he can outperform human beings are artificially enhanced. Forgive me if I have my doubts.