Lance Armstrong is No Champion

“There will always be someone to champion the cause
of the obviously guilty.”

So why continue harping on Lance Armstrong?  Because the term “cheating” doesn’t even come close to defining the damage he has done and continues to do.  He is a thief.  And the fact that he stole the yellow jersey seven times in France is only a small part of the theft.  The actual winner of those races was the first person to cross the finish line who had not tried to “level the field.”  And who were those people?  Nobody knows.  Nobody knows because Lance Armstrong not only stole the spotlight, he also stole their identities.  He took their place on the podium, their accolades, their endorsements, and the money that follows.

He spit in the face of cycling—the sport he claimed to love—with an elaborate, conspiratorial, and systematic self-elevation scheme that heavily tipped the scales in his favor while rigorously repeating his mantra of "deny, deny, deny."

Everything Lance Armstrong does is meticulously calculated to benefit Lance Armstrong.  He struck a deal for a self-serving interview with a TV personality that was more an attempt to commute his life-long ban from competitive sports and elicit some modicum of sympathy rather than come clean.  His performance was coached, choreographed, and practiced to mitigate his guilt, yet he was unable to produce a single tear or show real remorse.  Let’s be clear.  Admissions are not confessions.  And partial admissions to a talk show host cannot substitute for truthfully answering questions from the governing body of the cycling world that has so much to ask.

And to those battling cancer who trusted and found inspiration until the alarm bell was too loud to explain or ignore, he has stolen a piece of their souls with the realization that they should have chosen a better hero.