GlassMan27:
zagraniczniak: how far down the leaderboard will they have to go before they find someone who was not cheating?
Exactly. I would confidently bet any amount of money that the ratio of cheaters to 'clean' riders during Lance's run was at minimum 10:1. Everyone else was doing the same thing, and Lance was better on what was (and remains to be) regretably a level playing field. This is rampant in all high-level sports. The athletes and their trainers are always one step ahead of the system.
zagraniczniak: If somebody won tournaments by, for example, using a device to artificially ding the ball, how could they possibly enjoy such a bogus achievement?
But, what if everyone was using the autodinger? The winner would be the player who was best at judging wind, distance and break.... the best cheater.
This is why I say that I don't really give a rat's ass that Lance doped. Is it cheating? Yes. Is it wrong? Yes. But it doesn't give me the feelings that I have about Bonds and McGwire and the like. It makes me very very angry that Hank Aaron and Roger Maris no longer hold the records they rightly should due to cheating. I care a lot about the matter, and the sport with which it is associated. But Cycling isn't a passion of mine, and I don't really care that Lance won 7 TdFs. And even with the doping, for someone who had a 40% chance to live with testicular, lung, and brain cancer to attain the heights he attained is still remarkable.
I don't agree that is was a level playing field. I believe there were riders that didn't dope. I am not sure whether I believe that Greg Lemond raced clean. He didn't win a single stage the year he won the Tour, and really got out after that, perhaps realizing that he'd never be able to win another without doping. But I think all the top competitors did, and Lance's doping simply put him on a level with them. Maybe a slightly better level, since he and his associates seemed to be very very good at it.
But Lance Armstrong is a despicable, fetid piece of fecal excrement because of the way he treated people. Not just lying to them, but he trampled anyone that got in his way, many times backing up to retrample them over and over. From the Lemonds to Floyd Landis (also a doper) and Tyler Hamilton (ditto) and the Andreus', he destroyed people who threatened to expose him. He sued people he knew were telling the truth because he knew they couldn't afford to fight him after he had already ruined their reputations and potential income.
I hope he can find redemption somehow, because I believe there are very few things in life that one can NOT earn forgiveness for. But don't expect it from me.