363 - 369 Perspectives

Lance Armstrong: Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?

As I sit at home reading the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, I come across a page discussing Lance Armstrong and his giant doping scandal. The paper first attacks Lance Armstrong legacy as an athlete with the usual and undeniable “doper” label, with the article highlighting the fact that everyone he knew helped with the cover up. Then the paper writes about the defense, of Lance righteously explaining that “everyone was doing it (doping)” a defense that is valid only if the reader chooses to believe it valid. Lance Armstrong is a very interesting individual, as he is a champion, a liar, an inspiration, a cancer survivor and truly an overall mystery. He is an athlete from a sport that no one truly follows, but everyone talks about him as if everyone they have covered his whole career. When a discussion begins about Lance Armstrong, the conversation always seems to be missing one important fact, like no matter what angle you take on the situation; you never fully understand any of his problems. This raises the question, who is Lance Armstrong, a disgraced athlete who has been stripped of all of his titles, or an inspirational philanthropist who should be praised for his charity work?

“This is my body, and I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it, study it, tweak it; listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I am on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”


(Robert, Lance Armstrong: a career in 39 quotes)

            I remember having the argument with my father and brother right after Lance Armstrong was stripped of his titles, I would shout “he is just tired of being always accusing him of cheating,” and my brother would argue back “he is a cheater who was caught and should never be looked upon as a hero.” The interesting part about our disagreement however, is after we were done bickering, we really did not seem to care anymore, and would agree to disagree and go along our daily business. Sports and the sports world is something of an interesting topic. While we sit their discussing, watching or analyzing sports, nothing else matters, but once the sports activity comes to an end, we snap back into the realization that there is a whole other world we live within. There are people who go to their regular jobs, students who go to school, families celebrating holidays, people recovering in hospitals and wars going on around the world. We realize that sport is just another aspect of our lives, and its importance really only matters when we are in that moment. It is this type of thinking that makes Lance Armstrong’s case so intriguing.

“Through my illness I learned rejection. I was written off.

That was the moment I thought, ‘Okay, game on. No prisoners. Everybody's going down.’”


(Robert, Lance Armstrong: a career in 39 quotes)

            The interesting thing about Lance Armstrong is we could consider him one of the most popular athletes in today’s generation; even though most people have never actually witnessed him ever compete. Besides the die hard fans who get up before the sunrise to watch a race across the world, in America the Tour de France is nothing more then a channel that is accidentally flipped to by our sports enthusiasts, watched for a few minutes until the viewer realizes it is truly just a whole bunch of people riding their bicycles for an extremely long time. Lance Armstrong is one of the most famous athletes to ever compete in the realm of sports no one cares about, so what is it that made him such a household name? Seven championship titles is a lot for any athlete, but I believe that it is not his titles that won him the limelight in society, but instead it was his sensational comeback story.

"I hope it sends out a fantastic message to all survivors around the world. We can return to what we were before – and even better.”


(Robert, Lance Armstrong: a career in 39 quotes)

            Lance Armstrong was not just an athlete, but he was a survivor, a hero who came back from near death and offered hope not just to other cancer patients, but all sick individuals fighting one of the toughest battles a human can go through. It was his yellow bracelets that raised money for cancer research, it was his motivation to beat the disease that caught the hearts of the people and it was his life struggle that cemented his sports legacy. He is not famous for being a spectacular athlete in a sport that no one cares about, he is famous for being a spectacular human who used the highs and lows of his life for the greater good. He did not have to use the triumphs of his sports career to further himself as a charitable philanthropist, but he used it as stepping stone, and never looked back.

“If you consider my situation: a guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence, why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That's crazy. I would never do that. No. No way.”


(Robert, Lance Armstrong: a career in 39 quotes)

In the sports world, Lance Armstrong is a man who is being charged by cycling fans who want to see him punished for his crimes to sport. In the real world he is a man defended by people who understand he cheated, but believe in the feeling that he is a man that needs to be guarded, a man who is bigger then sport and an inspiration to society. Lance Armstrong is an individual who seems to no longer care about his racing statistics but appears to be entity who is consumed by simply being a human trying to help other humans in need. Sports columnist Roberty Lipstye wrote it was the thought of Lance Armstrong that helped him conquer his chemotherapy, “In July 1999, after Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France for the first time, I had run out and bought my first good bike. I chanted LanceArmstrong, LanceArmstrong to help me push up hills. I felt a kinship… A few years later, when mine recurred, I chanted LanceArmstrong, LanceArmstrong to push me through chemotherapy.” (Lipsyte, Keep Rooting For Lance Armstrong) When you leave the sports world, and you re-enter the real world, you realize that the triumphs of sport cannot compete with the triumphs of life.

“I need to run for one office, the presidency of the

Cancer Fighters’ Union of the World.”


(Robert, Lance Armstrong: a career in 39 quotes)

Which is where we come to our conclusion, that Lance Armstrong is a disgraced athlete, who lost all of his titles, the respect of his opponents and his legacy, but Lance Armstrong is also an inspirational human being, who took the highs of his championships and the lows of his cancer and put them together to create something that changed the world for the better. It is hard to know what Lance Armstrong’s legacy will be remembered as, but I believe in a few years his stripped titles will be forgotten about, but his work in philanthropy will live on for much longer. The sports world is just a piece of fabric woven into the society we live in, a part of the day or week that many people look forward to, but at the end of the day, no matter who wins or who loses, our own lives go on. In our lives however, when sickness hits a friend or a loved one, life stops, and all that matters are the few people we can turn to to give us strength, we turn to people who are making differences in the everyday lives of the greater good. Let them take his titles, because his legacy will live on forever.

Bibliography

Cossins, Peter. “ Lance Armstrong: a career in 39 quotes.” Cycling News: The World Centre of Cycling. 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.

Lipsyte, Robert. “Keep Rooting for Lance Armstrong.” The New Republic. 17 Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.