We all know about the damning report from the USADA regarding Lance Armstrong and his sophisticated schemes of trickery and about his foot soldiers who testified against him. Its release has polarised the sporting world in a way not seen since Tiger Woods crashed his SUV against a tree in 2009.
But what now on Armstrong's "achievements" & his "legacy"?
Well we have to really look at the whole point of USADA's investigation. And I mean that in a rhetoric sense.
Let's have a look back at professional road cycling since 1995.
Everyone knows that cycling from the mid 1990s to as recent as this year has long been dogged by its association with drugs - it's a bit like the stain from that spag bol months ago that just wouldn't come off your white shirt. Yes, cycling has made great strides to stamp out the drug taking culture in its sport - the recent bans of Alberto Contador and Frank Schleck have been examples - but given the brutal nature of the sport as well as the money involved, it is still very much evident.
However, it has to be said that cycling has gone a long way since the height of the doping culture, i.e. the time Armstrong and his contemporaries were competing the Grand Tours and classics of Europe. The very top of it was the 1998 Festina affair when banned performance-enhancing substances were found in which destroyed the Tour de France that year.
That Tour de France was won by the late Italian cyclist, Marco Pantani, whose career was eternally beset by drugs allegations; ironically a drug overdose would claim Pantani's life in 2004. The year before, German Jan Ullrich took home the yellow jersey after Paris - a cyclist who did test positive in 2005 and was subsequently banned from the sport. The winner the year before, Bjarne Riis, another cyclist to admit using banned substances to win the old tour.
So for now, the last really clean winner of the Tour de France at this stage was Spanish 5-times winner, Miguel Indurain, the Tour's most successful cyclist until Lance Armstrong won his 7 titles.
Now, let's look at the list of Armstrong's contemporaries besides his 11 US Postal Service team-mates who have admitted taking banned substances and testified against him - we've covered Pantani, Ullrich, Riis.
Michael Rasmussen? The great climber, banned July 2007 to 2009 for lying about his whereabouts after missing drugs tests.
David Millar? Banned for 2 years from 2004 after admitting to using performance enhancing drugs.
Stephen Roche? Strongly linked with drug usage but never prosecuted due to the statute of limitations
Alex Zuelle, Alexandre Vinokourov, Alberto Contador, Frank Schleck, Floyd Landis, and there's probably a few no-names who have been banned by the UCI along the way.
In light of the evidence provided by USADA, it is irrefutable now to call Lance Armstrong a drugs cheat and in a perfect world, he should no longer be entitled to call himself a 7-times Tour de France winner. But really, as Tour de France boss Christian Preudhomme has said regarding this saga, who would you give the titles to?
The fact of the matter is Armstrong was really just the flag-bearer of a very bad generation and perhaps the witch-hunt should not be aimed solely at him but the entire sport in the 1990s - which in a way it has been. Really, they should just erase the history of the Tour de France between 1995 to 2006 and put a big footnote on it - but that of course will never happen.
So the question is: do I still consider Armstrong a hero? For his efforts to raise awareness of testicular cancer and develop a new generation of cyclists and people who believe they can do it in spite of adversity, yes. For his success on the cycling, I'd say yes - he was really trying to succeed in an era where his contemporaries were cheating to succeed. Let's just leave it at that and stop the witch-hunt.
And to those who say he was lying, I dare you to ask him to pull down his boxers and say the same once you spot that he is short of a testicle.
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