CHEAT TO WIN: LANCE ARMSTRONG

 

IS LANCE ARMSTRONG STILL A HERO OR ZERO?

 Whatever it takes to win…

What do you think?  Lance Armstrong has just given up on his fight against allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs and other illegal methods to compete in pro cycling.  He claims this is not an admission of guilt, but it’s difficult to look at this as anything but a liar getting tired of lying.  He claims that he wants to spend more time with his family, but any cyclist who has achieved what he has in his life would never give in, no matter what.  If it is done without cheating, Armstrong never would have given up.  Even the thought of giving up if he’s innocent would go against everything he ever tells anyone who suffers from cancer.  Armstrong has been a champion for cancer sufferers since he was diagnosed.  If he had the tenacious personality of a true champion cyclist, you don’t give in.  Especially if you have done everything legal and morally, ethically sound.  I am in the camp of people who believe Lance Armstrong is a fraud and a cheater.  He is now in the list with; Barry  Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, José Canseco, Roger Clemens in baseball and Ben Johnson of track and field and every other player of sports that used illegal or banned substances to gain an advantage over other athletes that are clean.  It’s a slap in the face to every man that ever rode a bicycle in the Tour de France or any other cycling event.  Those who choose to do nothing but eat right, practice and training until they are absolutely broken to the brink, you are the real heroes of sports.  Forget the records and forget the milestones of players who did it with an illegal advantage.  Many people are still standing tough with Armstrong because of his work with cancer.  Armstrong never took an interest in cancer until he was a cancer sufferer.  Now, he has a cancer survivor and understands how delicate life is and how you can lose it at any moment.  Celebrities and pro sports athletes have come out in strong support of Armstrong because of what he has done for cancer sufferers and how he has held hands with survivors.  This is a man who cheated his own body and lied about it, and to this day even though he chooses not to fight allegations anymore, he still claims that he has never used any performance enhancing drugs or procedures to gain an advantage in his cycling career.  This is a complete and utter tragedy of the truth.  Armstrong claims that “every man has his limits and he has reached his.” And yet he still lies  about is career long use  of drugs to gain an advantage.  I’m not saying that he hasn’t done anything with his life, that would be absurd and untrue, but he also has used his false success to gain access to influential people that gave him the power to touch all these people and he only started doing it after he experienced a look at his mortality because of cancer.  Many people are going to say that it doesn’t erase the fact that many people have benefited from his foundation, but I say that it has affected them.  Millions of children and other fans believed that Armstrong was a hero who beat all odds on his bicycle and with his body.  It’s all fake and has all been acquired through deception and cheating.  He stood on the Tour de France platform seven times and knew  all along that it was done illegally and cheating.  How could he stand on that platform smiling as if he were the conqueror of man, when really the real heroes finished behind him, with clean blood and healthy bodies.  The men that  had to sit back and watch Armstrong placed the trophy must feel like vomiting right now.  Every morning, every day and every evening those men worked as hard as they could without cheating to become the best they could possibly be without using artificial means of gaining an advantage over the competition.  If you look at it, Lance Armstrong took shortcuts long the tour while everyone else traversed the entire course as the rules pertain.  He might as well have cut across every stretch of road and every corner and mountain to gain an advantage over everyone else who did it the way it was designed.  They went all the way and Armstrong cut corners and stood hoisting a trophy with this wife and children standing proud beside the great cyclist Lance Armstrong.  He will probably never come clean and he will probably always have faithful live strong people in his corner, but it’s all a charade, it’s a masquerade and he is a wizard behind the curtain, sticking needles into his body, swallowing pills and performing illegal transfusions while everyone thinks he just worked hard and earned it.  The banking firm of Smith Barney had a great quote several years ago on television; they said “Smith Barney makes money the old-fashioned way, they earn it.”  Well, if the old-fashioned way is earning it, I want nothing to do with the newfangled way of not earning it, but cheating and fooling almost everyone.  The saddest part is not that he was caught or that he deceived so many people who trusted in him and believed in him as an American athletic hero.  It’s the fact that all along HE knew what he was doing and that he had to carry this all this we and it must be a very heavy weight to carry and for so long.

So, Lance Armstrong has raised probably millions of dollars for cancer research under his product catch phrase “Livestrong”.  Does it even matter to anyone but all of this privilege and opportunity came from a man who lied and cheated his way to the top?  Do you believe Bernie Madoff is an okay guy because he gave a certain percentage of his fortune to charity before he got busted for his world-famous “Ponzi scheme” leaving thousands of people penniless because they trusted him.  He left a lot of people who work hard to get the money they had for retirement and to live out their lives after working for the nest egg they had, thinking all the time that they were making wise investments with hard earned money until they found out that Madoff scammed everyone so he could become filthy rich and pampered his family with the opulence that billions of dollars can provide.  Now, Madoff has a dead son over it, whom committed suicide four the sins of his father.  No one in his family now can walk the streets without cameras and reporters in their faces, following them wherever they go and making it practically impossible for them to go on in life after their father, husband or boss swindled money from innocent people who thought they were being cared for by a legitimate investment counselor.  Lance Armstrong is the same kind of man, only his lies and cheating robbed many people from believing that hard work can bring you the kind of things that Lance Armstrong received.  It is possible, but it’s only possible for those who do it the right way and don’t cut corners to deceive the world.  Someday, I hope all Pro sports have comprehensive, random drug testing of all illegal substances that create an advantage to an athlete, in a sense… Creating a disadvantage for those who choose to follow the rules and laws.  Now, I think the name Armstrong will always remind me of a cheater and a swindler of hearts.  Armstrong won many hearts by his work ethic and his tenacious, never give up and never give in attitude about challenging yourself to the absolute limit of your ability.  His work with cancer sufferers is tainted to me now.  I think it should be tainted to anyone who believed in him because of his accomplishments.  All of his accomplishments are phony, counterfeit and stolen because he didn’t go all the way.  I don’t know what his new catchphrase is going to be, but I vote for; I cut corners to be a hero.  Now I’m a zero.  Don’t cheat your body and don’t cheat the people who see you perhaps as a mentor or inspiration.  It’s just not fair… Life is rarely all that fair, but people can be fair.  It’s a choice… If anybody knows life just isn’t always fair, it would be me.  I broke my neck at age 15, severing my spinal cord leaving me paralyzed from my neck down and forever dependent on the machine to breathe.  It doesn’t matter how many people I talk to about being strong and fighting the constant feeling of giving up if I am a fraud about the rest of my life.  Lance has been stripped of all of his international cycling that the Tour de France, but he should also lose the acclaimed of being male athlete of the year and Sports Illustrated man of the year.  He is a fraud and doesn’t deserve the accolades or the trophies bestowed on him for superior athletic achievement.  It was done with a black cloud over it all the time… It was all an illusion.

In closing, I am sorry for anyone who has suffered from any variety of cancer.  Whether or not you are a sufferer or if you have beaten cancer, it’s important to have heroes who are worthy.  Inspiration is hard to come by for many people, but how can any of these people who put all their belief and trust in Lance ever believe in another so-called champion for the cause? … The air must have been depleted from their sails as they learn that Armstrong is really just a phony who stood as an American hero, while cutting corners and robbing the second man across the tape as a Tour de France champion who didn't cheat… They did it all the way… And didn’t cut corners… Armstrong because of his goodness really continue to believe in any person for inspiration?  Armstrong has robbed as many people as he has helped, maybe more, because his lies and cheating will echo for decades if not longer.  When someone suffers, yet finds inspiration in another, it's even more devastating to find out it was all a fantasy and makes it even more difficult to find another source of inspiration.  I believe we all need to be inspired, particularly when we are down and suffering from something. I don't know how long the distrust will last, It seems like sports fans often have short memories, for some reason. All of baseball player needs to do is hit grand slam and the fans cheer.  A quarterback just needs to throw a few touchdowns, and the fans cheer.  The basketball player needs to hit it last minute three-pointer and the hockey player needs to hit a couple of slapshot scores and all is forgiven.  Lance Armstrong will not have this option to make his fans forget.  He has been given a lifetime ban from international cycling and all of his seven Tour de France trophies will be collected back from him.  I wish Armstrong better in his future and I hope he continues to champion the cause for a cure for cancer.  At least he would be using his ill-gotten gain for good, rather than evil, though every time he walks back to his mansion and Maserati, they were collected under false pretenses.  Sad story for a lot of people who believed in this man and his cause.  Just sad…

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Written by Brad Hobbs