Did Lance Dope? Wait, would I even care?

Yesterday, news broke that the United States Anti-Doping Agency would investigate Lance Armstrong for the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

This is the same man who has produced clean urine for as long as he has been on Earth.  He has successfully fought off every attacker, accuser, and the hordes of anti-doping agencies across Europe, particularly France (gee, I wonder why that is), who have fought tooth and nail to prove his accomplishments are tainted.

My guess is he didn’t simply get lucky every time he peed in one of those cups.

But Lance’s story is so incredible that it would actually be more of a surprise if he didn’t dope at any point during his career. That is what makes his seven career Tour victories that much more impressive.

He did it cleanly.

He is no Alberto Cantador.  Floyd Landis.  Or the hundreds of other cyclists who have tried to circumvent the rules and use PED’s.

He took his success and his story and transformed it into the Livestrong Foundation and has since raised millions of dollars in an effort to find a cure for cancer.

And that, in my mind, would exonerate him in the event that he did cheat.  Look past the fact that the entire sport of cycling is dirtier than the underside of a street sweeper.  Ignore the fact that it would completely ruin the “he fought cancer, beat it, and then pissed on its grave” storyline of winning seven straight Tour de Frances.  Hell, ignore the schedenfreude that many of you would feel watching the self-centered sycophant athlete in him fail.

Once you have looked that far in the distance, you will see that this man took his success and actually did something significant with it.  He decided to keep fighting against the disease that nearly took his life.  How many athletes have an opportunity to give back so immensely and instead choose to blow their money on Siberian tigers and an 85-man entourage (see: Tyson, Mike and Walker, Antoine)?

This one didn’t.  This narcissistic, self-serving, backstabbing athlete chose to use his fame for positive.  It doesn’t matter that as an athlete and a spouse, Armstrong is a deplorable individual.  He is helping people who are desperate for a cure.

And that’s why it makes no difference to me if he cheated or not.

People will scream bloody murder for a few weeks if it turns out Lance was actually doping.  But my suggestion is this: shrug it off and skip the whole grieving stage.  Because whether he used all the PED’s in the world to win those Tour de Frances doesn’t matter to me.  And it shouldn’t matter to you either.

At the end of the day it is still a sport and it is the victims’ lives.  Ask yourself what’s more important: that he cheated or that he is still trying to give more days to those who really need it?