Lance steps down at Livestrong

I'm of two minds about this whole Lance Armstrong business.

First of all, it's pretty obvious, based on 1000+ pages of testimony, etc., that he was doping during his reign as the greatest cyclist ever.  And that, of course, is wrong.  So wrong, in fact, that Nike (that paragon of virtue; that shoe and clothing monstrosity built on a single profound premise:  that poor kids would rather spend $200 bucks on a pair of Nikes than, say, food) has canceled its contract with Lance.

On the other hand, anybody who didn't think Lance was doping was living in Pollyanna land.  If you combine a) his hyper-aggressive type-A personality, b) his almost superhuman feats against competitors who were doping, and c) the fact that everybody -- EVERYBODY -- at the top end of cycling during that period of time was using PEDs of one form or another.  Well, you do the math.  It was fun to sort-of hope he was clean, but honestly, people.  Grow up.

All that said, doping was a fundamental aspect of competitive biking in those days.  Way more so than, say, drug use in baseball (which involved a split community of users and non-users).  It was the norm, not the exception.  So I don't like to judge to quickly.

I'm sure I would have shot up, given the givens.

It takes a big man to say that.
Yes it does.