A Black Day for Cycling

Sir Lance-a-Lot Lost was stripped today of his seven Tour de France titles. Such is a black day for a great sport. Thankfully, the European Cycling Commission (UCI) decided against awarding anybody the title for those seven years, since most of the riders in second place had also been accused or highly suspected of doping. Sir LanceLot is not the first knight fallen from the Round Table, and probably is not the last. The black day is not for Lance, though I’m sure he will experience massive depression over this news. It is for a sport that has placed inhuman demands on people, not only in the Tour, but so many other bicycle races that have been contrived, including the RAAM (ride across America). Riders will continue to devise techniques of enhancing their performance in an artificial fashion. Cheating will then rise to new levels.
The evidence against Armstrong is overwhelming. I won’t belabor recalling the evidence since the USADA has done that quite well, well enough to convince the UCI that he was worthy of being stripped of his titles. There are good arguments against taking away the titles. After all, Lance was a formidable athlete. One can detail the brilliant strategies that Lance often used to win those titles. Yet, to not act decisively will forever color the sport as doping-permissive, and where it is so pervasive, such radical actions are necessary and should be lauded.
Lance appears to the public as their type of hero, winning in the face of the worst adversity (cancer), pushing on through honest determination to succeed and conquer. His friends feel otherwise, that is, what few friends he still has. When one looks at the entire life of Lance, there never was a time when Lance and his public persona were even close to matching. Lance was always a “win at all cost” person, somebody who would run over his own mother to win a race. His arrogance and ruthless striving had no morals and no bounds. Is this what we want to see in an American bicycle hero? I don’t think so. It is unfortunate that most of life in American culture is now with the Armstrong persona. There is no aspect of life that is not affected by the American-Armstrongian win-all mentality.

As far as we can tell, Einstein did not dope. Nor did he win the Tour-de-France. Such were the better years of cycling, when the sport could be enjoyed, and when exercise and entertainment could be mixed together into one grand activity. The bicycle is one of the more fascinating intentions of the 19th century, and it is not surprising that the airplane was invented in a bicycle shop. There is no other device that better promotes fitness, efficiently harnesses energy for movement, is mechanically simple and inexpensive, doesn’t pollute, is orthopedically gentle on the body, can be ridden at all ages, and has a plethora of uses outside of exercise and leisure activities. Like all good things, they can also be abused and used for evil intentions. That is the curse we live under, that we cannot be happy with the goodness of life, but must always pervert it or destroy its good intentions. There is one race worth running and is spoken of by an anonymous preacher man, saying “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2. Drugs and performance enhancement medications are unnecessary in the race that we confront, and the prize far greater than a silly little Tour-de-France title.