Why Me, Lance?

There he is, on the telly staring right back at me as I lay panned out on the couch watching the news for about the fourth time that day. Lance is sitting in a news conference looking sombre and serious as ever talking about Jim Stynes and fighting cancer. I feel a tinge of guilt but I keep watching. The soccer is coming up and watching Lance with all his determination might even motivate me to do something later (it didn't, unless you call watching back to back episodes of "Dexter" something).

Lance doesn't look too happy but then it cuts to a clip of him being asked about Paul Kimmage and I can see why. I know I would be annoyed if people followed me all over the world asking me if I was taking performance-debilitating drugs ("PDD's").

Lance is big box office. For the cycling press, he's their ticket to the news pages. He is American, outspoken, he's won the Tour de France, what, a million times and he's even beaten cancer. Before Lance came along, most Tour de France winners didn't speak a word of the Queen's.

Lance has never been found guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs ("PED's" not to be confused with PDD's above). If Lance was tried in a Kangaroo court, he would probably be convicted because it looks like he takes PED's, he walks like he takes PED's and he quacks like he takes PED's.

There are countless testimonies from ex-teammates, spurned business partners, officials, you name it, all lining up to confirm that Lance openly talked about using drugs, that he carried around syringes and unprescribed packets of drugs. There are positive A-samples (but no B samples). Circumstantially it doesn't look good.

Other Tour winners of Lance's generation, Jan Ulrich, Floyd Landis and now Alberto Condator have all been suspended for the use of PED's (although in Condator's case, he claims it was cough medicine- not terribly original, which means it could possibly be true or maybe the greasy Spaniard is just trying to outwit us). Armstrong's former mechanic Mike Anderson says that Lance simply said that "everyone does it".

Michelle Smith taught us simple Irish folk that if it looks too good to be true then it probably is. So if Lance is knee deep in PED's, then why hasn't he been caught and if he's not, then why won't the stories go away?

The press love him for one thing. He brings millions into the sport in sponsorship. Livelihoods depend on the Lance Armstrong phenomenon. Even now, in the twilight of his career, he's given a heroes welcome in Australia. The drugs question is asked, Lance has no comment and the hero-worship can continue unabated. He is celebrated in newspapers and magazines, while thousands of riders turn out to support him on a charity cycle.

As the English speaking press go, it really only seems to be my compatriots David Walsh and Kimmage who are up on their high horse about Lance.

The testers can't catch everyone. If they did, there would be no one left. It's possible to avoid being tested. One thing that struck me while reading 'It's Not About The Bike' was how Lance would prepare for the Tour by avoiding competition and people, just training in seclusion in the mountains somewhere a la Smith.

It's always been the case that the PED industry being relatively sparsely populated, the testers and dealers are often the same people or at least, design is more lucrative than enforcement helping the athletes keep one step ahead of the testers.

Could it be that no one (Walsh and Kimmage aside) really cares about the integrity of sport or whether Lance did or didn't take anything?

It sure as shit looks like it based on the reception he has received in Australia from the press and public alike. It's one thing to cheat or break the rules (if everyone else is doing it, then can it really be called cheating?) but it's another to lie about it. Again, not totally Lance's fault. If he doesn't lie, he will be called a cheat and hung out to dry by the very same people who fall at his feet today.

Yet if all the cyclists were on PED's, then it's not really cheating is it? It's not like he took a dive in the penalty box or messed with a competitor's breaks. He was just trying to level the playing field. The problem is if you abhor cheating, then you shouldn't play along. You should quit like Paul Kimmage did (though whether he would have quit if he'd been a contender is another story).

Lance didn't. He saw that the sport was dirty and he jumped into the mud. Cycling is a great sport because it is visually so spectacular and it will always have an audience. Where there is a market, there will always be those looking to exploit it. It's human nature. In a sense it's not the riders fault, it just the nature of the game.

The career of a sportsman is short, there are no second chances. People like Lance Armstrong don't have time to be crusaders for cycling. He is an athlete with a burning desire to win, not a martyr. Why don't you just do what you do best Lance and win races? Let other people deal with morality and regulations. That's what Lance did, hell it's what we'd all do if we had the talent and commitment to the sport like he did. Cancer he can fight for the rest of his days.

It's just when you see so many other people complicit in protecting him, parading him as a champion of humanity, it makes me think that if those same otherwise good people can turn a blind eye to cheating as obvious as Lance Armstrong's, what other lies are we capable of embracing?

On the other hand, there is always Jim Stynes.