Why Won't Lance Armstrong Go Away?

After years of speculation, denials and cover-ups it can no longer be denied that Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times with the help of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). The USADA pursued Armstrong with particular vigour and did not stop until they had enough indisputable evidence to bring the man down. At the height of Armstrong's fame, doping was endemic throughout the peloton and many of his cohorts were also using PEDs, not that this serves as an excuse, but it does raise the question of why anti-doping authorities have come down so harshly on him in particular.

Of course, he only had himself to blame in that he thought he was invincible and convinced everyone else that he'd come back from cancer and won the Tour de France without any chemical assistance. He became the all-American hero who managed to triumph over adversity. His arrogance was unparalleled. Even when he was caught, it wasn't the authorities he co-operated with. Instead he turned to Oprah and 'opened up,' obviously hoping that the damage to his reputation and image would somehow be limited. He's a very good actor, though, and has demonstrated in the past the lengths he will go to in order to protect himself.

It's hard to feel sympathy for someone who has ruined people's reputations and destroyed individuals in an attempt to keep his doping a secret from the public. It even looks as though the UCI may have been complicit in protecting Armstrong from being found out, with Armstrong's camp even donating money to the anti-doping cause - ostensibly. Oh, the irony! All of this was happening in the 1990s and yet it took until 2012/2013 for the general public to learn that they had been scammed. Most cycling fans are cynical enough to have expected it, but for the casual cycling observer, his blatant deception was shocking.

Prior to Armstrong's admission, many of his fans had been ardent that it was a conspiracy; that he was indeed innocent, even though former team-mates had given evidence against him. However, once the words came out of his very own mouth, it could no longer be denied that he had cheated his way to victory and built up a reputation based on lies. To his credit, he did contribute towards charitable causes, but he even had to resign from the Livestrong Foundation, which he had established, following his doping revelations. He's no longer part of the cycling fraternity and yet there continues to be numerous articles about him popping up on cycling websites.

Cycling appears to have moved on from the bad years of doping and entered a near era of transparency, and yet Lance Armstrong still occupies space in cycling forums. Surely it's time to move on, isn't it? However, Armstrong hasn't lost his abilty or desire to be noticed. His latest ruse is to go around apologising to all the people whose lives he wrecked with accusations, probably in an attempt to rebuild his image, rather than out of any genuine sense of remorse. So, until those with influence in the cycling world stop giving Lance Armstrong the attention he desperately craves, he will continue to drag the sport down.