Enough Is Enough: Lance Armstrong Throws In His Jersey

Entertainment
Photo Credit: Daniel Norton

You have to have been living under a rock for the last couple of decades to not know something about Lance Armstrong.

He’s the cyclist and endurance athlete extraordinaire, cancer survivor, founder of Livestrong Foundation, creator of those little yellow Livestrong bracelets (which, incidently have made over 325 million for the Livestrong Foundation), and the seven-time winner of the Tour de France.

Oh wait—now we can scratch that last one. As of last week, the USADA announced that it will be stripping Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France victories. (Query: If the title is taken away, does it still mean you didn’t kick the butt of the French countryside, the elements, and every other cyclist who competed in each of those seven Tours?) On August 24, 2012 the USADA issued a statement indicating that Armstrong was banned for life from all of its competitive cycling events and that he would be stripped of all titles (including the Tour de France titles) from August 1, 1998 through the present. Oh, and he has to give back the millions of dollars in prize money.

Who is the USADA and how can they do this?

The United States Anti-Doping Agency is a nonprofit agency that governs anti-doping programs in competitive sports, including cycling. It does the testing (in and out of competition), results management and adjudication of all things anti-doping. In June of 2012, after years of investigating Armstrong for doping, the USADA officially filed charges against him. The problem, from Armstrong’s perspective, was that he believed the USADA’s arbitration process was unfair and stacked against him. The U.S. Federal government had looked into pursuing criminal charges against Armstrong for years and in February of 2012 it dropped its pursuit of criminal charges, apparently because they did not have enough evidence to convict Armstrong. So how could the USADA proceed? In July of 2012, Armstrong filed suit in federal district court to ask that the USADA charges be thrown out, claiming the USADA lacks jurisdiction and that its process violated his due process rights.

On August 24, 2012, just days after the federal district court dismissed Armstrong’s lawsuit, saying that the USADA’s charges and process could proceed, Armstrong threw in his jersey. The cyclist who could conquer the mountains of France with barely a spike in his heart rate and who fought back from stage three testicular cancer that had spread to his brain, lungs and abdomen, was now giving up a decade plus long war that had been waged against him by the USADA and others accusing him of doping violations.

The masses are sharply and bitterly divided over whether Armstrong is a cheater, liar, and doper, or the unjustly accused victim of a witch hunt by the USADA. One need only look at the posts from individuals on Armstrong’s Facebook page to see just how bitterly divided people are over whether Armstrong was doping or not. Says one Facebook user: “F you doper. Keep your drugs and cheater’s mentality out of ultra endurance sports.” Says another Facebook user:  “You will always be a cycling legend and an inspiration to cancer sufferers through Livestrong, and will always be a champion in my eyes.”

Why did Lance Armstrong give up?

So why did Armstrong—one of the world’s strongest and fittest men who has endured many a physical, emotional, and mental challenge in his lifetime—just give up? Was it because he really was doping and had run out of delay tactics and excuses, and knew the USADA’s arbitration process would expose him as the doper, liar, and cheater that many claim he is? Or was it because he truly couldn’t get a fair shake from the “witch hunt” that Armstrong and many cyclists say that the USADA had started against him in order to single him out and make an example of him? Or maybe it’s because as a cancer survivor with five active children, he realized that his emotional energy was better spent on things that truly matter?

Endurance athletes, Facebook fans, and bloggers can speculate about why Armstrong threw in his jersey. And we will never truly know why he gave up the fight or whether the doping allegations are true. But Armstrong himself knows. And, as Armstrong himself  once said about his agnostic faith, “At the end of the day, if there was indeed some body or presence there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I lived a true life…”  (from Lance Armstrong’s book, It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life).

Enough is Enough. Let’s let Armstrong move forward.

The opinions expressed here represent my own and not necessarily those of Avvo.com.