[eBAUMANN]

I started paying attention to cycling right before Lance came back to ride with Astana. I was never personally invested in him as a story/hero/etc during the height of his career which I think it was keeps me from feeling overly passionate about him in one way or another.

Yes, he is an arrogant uber-competive asshole that stomped on a lot of people on his way to the top...so are many other pro athletes who achieve the fame he did.

But think about this - it all started when he was 15, his mentality/approach to life and other people. Once that snowball started rolling it was just one thing after another, lies in service of previous lies, compounded by the pressure/money/etc that comes with fame/success. Not trying to excuse his behavior but its quite easy to see how and why things unfolded the way they did.

Was he a victim? No. He just played the game of doping better than everyone else and as a result fell further when it all came tumbling down. There are many others who cheated just as much as he did and yet they are not cast in nearly the same light because he was successful AND an asshole.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind when judging the actions of any cyclist of this era is what would you have done in their shoes? You dedicate your entire life to a dream of racing professionally, and when the opportunity finally, FINALLY comes knocking, it has a contract in one hand and a blood bag in the other. Its easy to sit there in your chair and say you would have never done this and that and that cheating is wrong but if everyone is doing the same thing...and the playing field is leveled in that sense, is it still "cheating?" Thats a really tough decision for ANYONE to make...let alone some young kid.