^ Ironic, isn’t it?
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I never really followed cycling. I just find no interest in it. I appreciate the athletes who train and make it part of their living. It’s not an easy sport. So when Lance Armstrong won all those Tour de France tournaments, I didn’t really care.
Even when he came back from cancer, I felt happy for him but never cared for what he did.
One thing I did appreciate about him was the Livestrong foundation he created and all the money that it raised for research and awareness.
Unfortunately, the image of that could all come falling down this week.
Lance Armstrong will admit to his doping ways in cycling.
On Monday, Lance Armstrong did an emotional interview with Oprah and it will air on a network that nobody has on Thursday. In that interview, he will admit to doping and all the wrongdoings he done in his professional career.
Since I don’t follow cycling, this news doesn’t really affect me. I never invested any time into it, so this won’t be a time for me to start.
However, this news did bring me back to the Livestrong foundation. Because of all the success that Armstrong had cycling through his doping, all the money and awareness has been great for cancer research.
But with this news of Armstrong’s cheating, do we say no to the foundation?
This kind of reminds me of baseball in a way. We outcast the steroid users yet without them, the boom in baseball wouldn’t have happened in the late 1990s.
I’m not saying this is the same, but there’s a similarity to it. Without Armstrong’s success through his doping, so much attention wouldn’t have come to cycling. So much more great things to his foundation wouldn’t have happened.
I’m not saying that Armstrong’s cheating should be ignored. He should be punished for it (and he has). It’s a shame that something good was fueled by cheating. But if we can take the good that has come out of this entire ordeal and continue to help cancer research, whether it is through Livestrong or through other ways, then I think we’ll be OK.
After all, that’s more important than one guy cheating in his sport. There’s a bigger picture and I hope that even though Armstrong admits his wrongdoings, we can all see that.
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One note I want to make is that I don’t like cheaters in any sport. No matter what the situation is, cheating should not be an option. I will look at Armstrong differently because he cheated.
I wish this had never happened but since it has, I do hope that we can move on from it and let this be a lesson to all other athletes.
But at the end of the day... 