I guess I'm obliged to say that I am in no way a Lance fan nor have any allegiance to the Livestrong army before I start out.
If at all possible, can we take off the I hate Lance colored glasses and speculate on what happens if he does get banned? I know that can be tough, but I think there is much more to the Lance Armstrong USADA case than is being discussed. Namely, what happens 6 months, 1 year, 5 years down the road?
First off, what does the sport gain from Lance receiving a ban? Does the sport take a step towards becoming cleaner or do we all just get the smug satisfaction that we were right the whole time and feel vindicated for Lance getting his just desserts for cheating and lying to us?
Secondly, what does it do to the sport of cycling and those associates of Lance not charged? Does Radioshack, a company with zero European stores, pull sponsorship money out of a sport where even the most successful team from a year ago had to disband? Does Bontrager Livestrong fold leaving fewer chances for developing young riders? And what about people like Levi and George? If it comes out that they doped for all those years how does that affect them? To use George, since that is a very popular rumor, do people come down on him as they have come down on Lance over the years if it comes out or he admits to doping? Does BMC cancel their contract with his clothing company? Does his development team fold?
Third and final, what about Lance's influence outside the sport? Even though some would argue this isn't important, I feel it is really being overlooked. Although some magazine articles would have you think otherwise, Livestrong does help many people. And, even though I definitely don't agree with his rhetoric concerning cancer, Lance is a very big inspiration to multitudes of people who frankly couldn't care less about cycling. But does a conviction hurt this?
I realize that is a lot, but to be honest I don't have a ton of people I know that I can volley cycling related questions off of. Also, I know that showing any sort of sympathy towards Lance is not the most popular thing to do. I feel we gravitate towards sport because in a world that is infinitely grey, sport is supposed to be black and white. The best man wins, and if you do something wrong, you are punished for it. But is sport really black and white? And in a case like this where the athlete is an icon outside of his sport, does this make it more grey? As hard as it is to do, I think it is important to remove ourselves from our emotions toward Lance and analyze the situation as objectively as possible.
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