Originally Posted by Picchio Special

Incidentally, if Lance was convicted of - or admitted to - doping, I would be one of the first people to say it doesn't detract from his cycling legacy in the least and that he still earned every one of his Tour titles. He came back from cancer to crush the rest of the top cyclists in the world in the context of a cycling system that largely sanctioned doping. Every guy that could conceivably have beaten Lance was more than likely doped, too. So I am anything but a Lance hater. It's the hypocrisy and mean-spirited attempts to humiliate his detractors and ruin their reputations that I find unsavory and disappointing. I am happy to consider Lance an amazing, inspiring athlete who's life and accomplishments - like those of many complex people, consist of both light and shadow. It's the silly cultural need to create saints and demons that is so unnecessarily polarizing and does not allow for the complexity of human motives and behavior.