Lance

Mr. Armstrong has made me so sad.  I remember listening to the JB and Sandy show when I was in high school, and they talked about this up and coming cyclist named Lance Armstrong that battled and defeated cancer.  He helped with their Bikes For Kids program even after he had begun winning the Tour and I just thought he was an all around inspirational story that continued to give back even after he had suffered.  I even read his book and stood by him all these years when my friends asked what I thought about him.  I always defended Lance. 

I heard a quote the other day and went and found it:

“Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling, and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling,” [International Cycling Union President Pat] McQuaid, a former competitive cyclist himself, said at a news conference in Geneva. “This is a landmark day for cycling.”

That is super heavy.  I can't even imagine someone saying that in regards to anything I have ever done.  Jane Hatter deserves to be forgotten in blogging.  Well, I could see that, but it's not quite the same, eh?  Think about that for a second, think about what you do best, and have done all your life, and someone publicly comes out and shames you to the whole world.  He has got to feel super awful now.

And he should!  There are stories that are coming out that he told his teammates that they either follow his doping program or they are off the team.  Scott and I discussed this the other day and now that we have a son it makes me think about how much time, money and sacrifice parents and families put into their child's sports/dreams/activities.  The teammates were put in a position to either get on board with something so heinous to lie to everyone they know and the whole world watching or leave (yes there are other teams, but come on!)

Further, today they announced that no one, I repeat NO ONE will sit in the TDF history books as having won those years!  So either they said it's best to just let it lie, OR there was not another team they could give it to that didn't do performance enhancing crap!!!  I'm sure there were people in there not doped up, but can every team say that they didn't have a cheater in there?  Maybe my perception of that is wrong, but that's what it seems like.  Or, would the second place finishers just not want to win by default?  That wouldn't be so great to me either, I guess.


Article with quote about Lance being forgotten

Article discussing the idea of just allowing athletes to dope (boo)