Everybody does it so i had to do it! This is the adolescent version of Washington's favorite: "Everybody is responsible so nobody is responsible!" There lies Lance's main explanation. If he was the only one not doing it, he probably would have lost and we also would have lost the glorious decade of Lance Armstrong excitement thru his ascent to superstardom. The world would have been all the sadder so would the millions of cancer victims he helped. Some would say his penance was his own cancer.If all of the Tour de France competitors equally did not dope themselves Lance would have probably won just the same but maybe not 7 consecutive times and without as much panache and brouhaha.
Lance belongs in a club of superheroes such as Hercules, Achilles, Superman, Samson and Popeye. But each of these legends had his "dope" : Hercules was Zeus's son; Achilles was dipped in the River Styx except for his heel; Popeye had his spinach, Samson his hair and Superman his Kryptonite. Were they all cheaters?
On another note, Viagra is a performance enhancing drug, not as bioidentical as what Lance uses. Are the millions of men using it cheaters? I know what you think: I did not mean that kind of cheating!
I have treated in my younger days many a famed musician's hand or dancer's foot. Short of the calluses and other pressure-adaptation changes, I did not notice their fingers or toes to be anatomically different from non artists. They just utilize so much more fully their same God given appendages. They push them to perform to the very limit of their capabilities and beyond, thus transcending their function. Paganini had Marfan Syndrome (a genetic connective tissue disorder) that enabled him to perform such stretches and rapid alternations on the violin he became a legend on the instrument. It was said that during a concert a string broke and he continued like nothing happened. Is he a cheater?.
Lances abused essentially natural products, not opiates or hallucinogens, pushed his body beyond its limits and gave us a lot of joy and a birdseye view of what to expect from the cyclists of the future. He set the standards for them like athletes who break an Olympic record thus setting human performance level a little faster, further or higher.
The tragedy is that now Lance is shark meat. All his sponsors are suing him even though they got more than their money's worth. Lawyers are of course cheering with large grins and applause on the sidelines. They are trying to figure out how much of that cancer foundation money they can siphon for their pockets
"First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye". Matthew 7:5
