The Lance Armstrong saga: Druggie or victim of harassment?

Lance Armstrong has decided to give up his medals and earnings, we all know that, right? He could be a doping athlete, or he could be an innocent guy sick and tired of the charges against him. The truth? We shall never know. But what I do know, or rather, I feel, that it is morally incorrect to harass an athlete, an inspirational one at that, especially since it doesn’t involve any profit, not yours, not other athletes. The 7 gold medals that Lance Armstrong possesses are not going to be transferred to the chap who came second, his prize winnings, that were going to be donated to his personal charity later if not soon are now going to be who’s property? The anti doping agencies, unless I’m mistaken. And what are they going to do? Pick up some other athlete with an inspirational story and a fat wallet and defame him, humiliate him, and make him walk back on the ‘rags to riches’ path for their own purposes.

Allow me to quote the USADA’s CEO, Travis Tygart. On hearing of Lance’s withdrawal from the case, he said “It is a sad day for all of us who love sport and our athletic heroes. This is a heartbreaking example of how the win-at-all costs culture of sport, if left unchecked, will overtake fair, safe and honest competition, but for clean athletes, it is a reassuring reminder that there is hope for future generations to compete on a level playing field without the use of performance-enhancing drugs,”. It indeed is a sad day Mr. Tygart, for a hero and an inspirational sports person is now one without a single medal. Please do illuminate our minds and tell us how banning a retired athlete, disgracing him, taking his medals and storing them in a Swiss bank vault, and taking away money intended for charity will “reassure” athletes in the future? It is senseless, and completely immoral to strip him of all his honors, if I may say so myself.

What is the need for an Anti- Doping agency anyway? What is doping in the first place? Taking banned substances, right? Now what is a banned substance? Some drug that could enhance your performance in a sport, right? Well healthy food can do that too, right? Eat french fries for a week to know what I mean to say. So therefore, healthy food should be banned too, correct? And what about protein supplements? Energy Drinks? Don’t they do the same? So technically they should be banned too. Didn’t I just demolish all anti- drug arguments? You might say that it makes the starting line uneven. So is the current line even? Are economic conditions same? Are social conditions same? Are nutritional conditions same? Are physical structures same? Then why the huge hue and cry about drugs? Coming back to the first question among many in this paragraph, why not legalize doping? That way, everyone can take all the banned substances they can without having a cardiac arrest, and the ground is all square once again.

The entire drama is a sad affair of egoistic, power-hungry and money-grabbing people with ones who are victimized into roles of public villains for their own talent…..don’t you feel so too?