At this moment I've got a poster on my door. It shows Lance Armstrong on a golden bike, on the Champs Elysees with the line "it takes two to win six". A shimano poster. I'm not sure about letting it hang there as a reminder of something that could have been a perfect story but that a perfect story is highly unlikely, so there's no need or use in striving for it, or to just take it down, tear it up and throw it away. I do know I will still be wearing my LiveStrong bracelet. But now only one at a time.
On the off chance there's one out there that didn't... Good for you, you won the Tour de France and most likely a lot of other races! Ask Lance to send out some shirts, he's still got some hanging around. He's now dedicating his life to telling everyone he's sorry and making it up to people. You've been a victim of his defiance and cheating. You earned those shirts!
On the more likely possibility that actually all professional cyclists that competed in the Tour de France doped... Well... I'd say Lance was still the best, wasn't he? And ... again... on the off chance that Lance indeed didn't dope on the tours he did after his come back, and came in 3rd, he might actually have been able to win without the dope, several times in the period he won his 7 tours. Right? Says enough about the culture in cycling I'd say. So yeah... He's a great sportsman, but definitely just a tiny bit twisted. His life long ban from professional sports strikes me as a bit extreme. He's not got a very likable character if you see how he treated people. Definitely he deserves to get punished. But given the fact we "know" that "everyone" doped, how is it he's so different? He lied but so did almost everybody else. Everybody else until they got caught themselves. The difference is he survived cancer and continued to be successful, he won and became a world wide icon. Now he still is a world wide icon, but in a very different light. Let's hope he can give us back something of what he took.
Did he bribe the UCI? Maybe. I don't know. Right now, it doesn't really matter any more. I don't trust professional cyclists anymore. Not at this moment. I actually don't really trust any professional sports anymore. At this moment. I do hope cycling survives all this sh*t, because it's a great sport. But at this moment, I think people riding for fun, cycling the roads with a group, having little competitions, riding to raise money, are way more real. Tougher, harder, cooler and more interesting. Let's get our bikes out and ride. Enjoy the feel, enjoy the moment that we are in fact living.
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