Still My Hero

Gotta weigh in again on the Lance Armstrong thing. Makes me sick to see one of my heroes fall from grace. I hear Lance is doing a tell-all interview with Oprah. Regardless of the outcome - he's still a hero to me. Nobody can take away his accomplishments, regardless of the tactics he used. Doping is widespread in the cycling world - always has been. I'm not excusing the cheating aspect of it all, but seriously - if virtually all the riders have been doing it for years - how can you really call it cheating? How far back should they go to strip riders of medals? You can't really re-write record books. How many humans do you know who can do what the Tour de France competitors do - they SHOULD  be taking some kind of drugs! Take NASCAR for instance - how often do you see crew chiefs get busted for some sort of restrictor plate or similar equipment violation? Do they go back and erase the win record of the driver when that happens? How is doping, which simply means using chemical or mechanical means to get more oxygen into the blood, any different than finding a way to get more oxygen into a combustion engine? I'm betting all the NASCAR crews cheat - they just get better at eluding the checks and balances put in place to catch them - they play the odds. Isn't that what Lance really did? And on the subject of heroes - JFK played around, won an election with his dad's money, yet he saved the world. And we all know he's not the first President to "cheat". Alan Shepard was medically disqualified to go into space - but he sought out a surgeon to fix him, then bullied his way back into flight status - and eventually walked on the moon. How many NFL players do you suppose are jacked up on pain killers just to be able to walk on the field? How is that different from steroids? And speaking of the dreaded "Juicers" - aren't they paying the ultimate price anyway? Are we really going to look back and try to erase from our memory how we felt when those records were broken? Do we REALLY know jut how many records were broken (or set) unfairly? Do we really WANT to know? I find it annoying that the only ones who really suffer in these instances are those of us that are made to feel we aren't allowed to cheer for our heroes anymore - because someone with self-imposed authority has decided that's the way it should be. Lance - you are still my hero. I will wear my Live Strong gear proudly. I don't think you cheated anyone but the system. Ride on my friend.