It's Not the Tour de USA

Congratulations USADA.  You've finally hooked your white whale.  After striking out miserably against Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, you did it.  You got the big fish.  You got your "victory."  You "took down" Lance Armstrong.  Except, did you really?

The USADA is taking Armstrong's decision not to fight their charges against him as an admission of guilt.  It's too bad this isn't the U.S. judicial system, where people are actually innocent until proven guilty.  That's why the federal case against Armstrong that was based on almost the exact same "evidence" the USADA has (which includes a lot of hearsay) was dropped after two years. 

Armstrong's actual reason for not taking on the USADA seems simple enough.  He's been fighting doping allegations for 15 years.  He's tired of it.  He doesn't want to continue the same fight for another two-plus years when it's not going to make any difference.  The court of public opinion, for the most part, has decided he's guilty of something.  Never mind the fact that he never failed a test in his entire cycling career.  That's not going to change.  There are also a number of people who will continue to be on Armstrong's side.  That's not going to change, either.

There are a number of things about this situation that bother me.  None moreso than the USADA's announcement that they'll strip Armstrong of his seven consecutive Tour de France titles.  Let me get this straight, the UNITED STATES Anti-Doping Agency is going to "take away" his Tour de FRANCE titles.  Somebody should let them know that they have no jurisdiction over the race and thus absolutely no authority to do that.  I hate it that the best example I can think of to prove my point is golf, but that's like the people who run the course at Pebble Beach "stripping" Tiger Woods of his Masters titles.  I think there would be some people at Augusta National who had something to say about that.  Just like I bet there are probably some people at the International Cycling Union and the Amaury Sport Organization (the people who actually run the Tour de France) who have an opinion on the USADA's "decision."  They might agree with it and strip him of his titles.  But it's their decision, not the USADA's.  (Do they want all of his ESPYs and his 2002 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, too?)

Furthermore, would removing Armstrong's name from the record books actually prove anything?  People will still remember him making those grueling climbs through the Alps and Pyrenees each July.  They'll still remember those victory rides down the Champs Elysees and "The Star-Spangled Banner" playing as he put on the yellow jersey one last time.  Does anybody know who finished second to Armstrong in any of those years?  Exactly.  (Jan Ullrich, who actually has failed a drug test, stands to gain four Tour de France victories.  There's some sort of twisted irony in that.)

This is like when the NCAA tries to rewrite history by vacating wins.  So, since Memphis was never there, Kansas beat nobody in the 2008 championship game?  And does that also mean 112 teams now didn't lose to Penn State?  But I digress.

I'm also not exactly sure what the USADA was trying to prove here.  They handed a lifetime ban to a guy who hasn't competed in two years.  Wow, that'll show him!  Who next?  Joe Paterno?  They also went after somebody for something he may or may not have done 15 years ago.  Does it really matter anymore?  Most people don't even care whether or not he did anything.  Of all the Armstrong articles I've read in the past two days, the best was by ESPN.com's Jim Caple.  His conclusion summed up the whole situation perfectly:

We must test. But we also must draw a line somewhere.  And going after athletes for something they might have done seven to 13 years ago clearly crosses that line.  Stripping Armstrong of his titles does far more harm than good.  USADA should have let this one go.  The agency exists to police sports, not destroy them.

Rather than investing so much money and effort chasing an athlete from the previous decade, perhaps we should be more focused on catching the current cheats.

The most disgusting part of the Lance Armstrong-USADA saga is that they went after him for no good reason.  It was 100 percent a witch hunt.  Even the judge that threw out Armstrong's countersuit against the USADA said so, questioning the organization's timing and motives.  Maybe they were simply out to make a name for themselves.  Mission accomplished.  People have actually heard of the USADA now.

Think what you want about Lance Armstrong and his cycling career, but his legacy is, and always will be, about so much more than cycling anyway.  It's about his courageous battle with, and ultimately overcoming, cancer.  It's about the hope he's given to hundreds of thousands of other cancer patients.  It's about his Livestrong Foundation.  It's about the $500 million he's raised for cancer research.  Lance Armstrong still is, and will remain, a hero to thousands.  He knows that. 

Maybe that's why he gave up a fight he was never going to "win" anyway.  Like he said, he's tired of fighting it.  And maybe that will finally bring Lance Armstrong some peace.  Regardless of what you think about him, you have to agree that, at the very least, Lance Armstrong deserves that.

P.S.-Did it ever occur to anyone that one of these positive tests the USADA has among its "evidence" might be from a drug that he was given as a part of his cancer treatment?