Lanced

I wanted to take some time to digest the whole Lance Armstrong debacle.  I think it was around Tour de France win number five that I was pretty much convinced that Lance was doping.  I didn't care.  I watched and loved his kick ass riding.

You see, I come from the everybody dopes school of thought.  I had to adopt that posture a long, long time ago, given my love of track and field.  You see track athletes have been doping for better than 50 years.  It started with steroids and got more and more sophisticated as time went along.

Do I approve of doping?  Absolutely not, it's terrible.  But the system set up to catch the cheaters doesn't work.  It's never worked and it never will.  The cheaters will always be one step ahead of the testers.

Lance Armstrong was the greatest bike rider of his generation, one of the greatest ever, period. He was a doper who beat a bunch of other dopers. The mock outrage by the cycling federation is laughable. Stripping Armstrong of his titles is stupid. Give him an asterisk like Roger Maris.

Two things kill me about all of this.  First, why does anybody care?  NFL players have been roided to the teeth for 40 plus years.  Baseball players caught on about a decade later.  Given the popularity of the NFL it amazes me that journalists and fans alike continually turn a blind eye to use of performance enhancing drugs but get upset when track athletes or swimmers get caught.  Double standards anyone?

The second thing that kills me is the absolute loyalty of the Lance Armstrong apologists.  They point to all of the good deeds Lance has carried out in the name of cancer.  I say, ask Joe Paterno about 60 plus years of good deeds at Penn State.  One massive fuck up certainly did a lot for Paterno's legacy.  Armstrong has no legacy.  Plus, if you care to believe the mountain of articles that have come out in the wake of this scandal Lance is a major, blazing, asshole.  Karma's a bitch.

It's great that he beat cancer.  But don't show me your silly Livestrong bracelet.  A lot of great people who didn't dope have beaten cancer long before Lance came along and lost one of his balls.  And while we're at it, Kansas City's new soccer facility needs a new name.