Not the Devil: The Argument for Armstrong

     The sky seems to be falling on the life and legacy of one Lance Armstrong. Over the past year or so, Armstrong's fall from grace has been well documented. People have simply made up their minds about Lance in many different ways.
     The consensus is that he is a liar and a cheat; that he has no business calling himself an athlete, or he should just crawl back to the hole he came from. Some don't even want to refer to him as an Athlete anymore.
     During this whole doping ordeal, apparently we were deceived by Armstrong. He went out publicly on shows such as Larry King and assured us all that he wasn't doping, when in fact he probably was all along. Again, we were all deceived. That being said, let's get rid of all this talk about Lance Armstrong owes us all an apology. He let us, the fans, down, but he hasn't harmed any fans.
     As far as I'm concerned, Lance Armstrong, only needs to apologize to those people that he tried to publicly destroy in court and in other ways, because they were telling the truth about him. Obviously these aren't actions to be proud of, but they are only condemning to a certain extent.
     However, last time I checked, there are usually at least two sides to every story, and this Armstrong case is no different. The Athlete side maybe put to bed now, but the image and legacy of Armstrong's life is still very much in the balance.
     Did Lance Armstrong dope? Well, yes apparently he did with his admission to Oprah. However, There is more to this story than a simple cheater. So let's now take a look at the real life scenarios that might change the views of those who are just so quick to judge and make their minds up.
     Let us take a look now at the good he did for the world, since that seems to be overlooked. As a Cancer survivor, Lance's journey from the death bed to his run of dominance in the cycling world was inspirational. In fact, it was so important that he was able to make a fortune off of endorsements. However, the big picture here is that his success and publicity around the world helped him start his Livestrong Campaign and Foundation for Cancer Research.
     Armstrong has raised around $475 Million dollars for Cancer Research as part of this campaign. Sure he benefited financially, making millions of dollars for himself in the process, but again that isn't part of the bigger picture.
     $475 Million is a lot of green for Cancer research, and the argument can be viably made that this amount of money directly contributed to the saving of countless lives since its inception in 1997.
     Another thing that can be considered is that this staggering amount of money may not be possible without the success that Armstrong enjoyed in his 7 year run of dominance in the Tour de France, along with his positive publicity from his winning fight with cancer. So this brings up another question that I think needs to at least be addressed.
     Did the pressure to win for his charity and the fight against cancer, lead Lance Armstrong to pursue the performance-enhancing route in order to have success? I do believe this is a legitimate question. The pressure to win is always a contributing factor to the use of PEDs, but with the success of Livestrong Foundation in his corner, could that have made it about more than simply winning a race?
     I do not know the answer to this question, however, I can't simply sweep this under the rug of simple excuses.
     One more thing to consider is Lance Armstrong did in fact cheat, but he cheated in what is widely considered as the "Dirtiest" sport in terms of the doping issue. So one thing everyone should ask is does the "everybody's doing it," angle justify Armstrong's doping? In this case, I actually think it does.
     Lance was stripped of his Tour titles, so who are you going to give them to? The Runners up? How bout third place? Fourth?
     The fact of the matter is that anyone who would take accept these titles after not winning them outright is probably guilty of the same charges against Armstrong, and anyone who raced clean would probably have too much integrity to want anything to do with being handed a championship that they didn't win.
     Lance Armstrong the athlete, let us as fans down, but to me, what he has done for humanity and the world in his fight against cancer out ways his deception on the bike to the extent that he should still have some positive light on his unfairly, suddenly hollowed image.
     It is time for those so called "experts" that so know everything about everything, to stand up and actually do some research. You just might learn something, and maybe you can at least find the good in what is an already unfortunate enough situation.