Lance Armstrong Stereotypes Involved In The World Of Cheating Sports

In the world of cheating sports there are many different views of what's right, wrong and just out right unexceptable. Sports are very competitive by nature so many athletes choose to use whatever means necessary to be better than the next guy. Some think that it's just the nature of the game, but others think that it's a disgrace to the world of sports. Lance Armstrong is a great example of this, he used performance enhancing drugs to quickly make him the best pro-cycler in the world. He has won numerous medals and awards, outside of cycling he is a more than respectable person, he has personally funded numerous cancer studies, donated to charities and bettered the lives of many in the world. After all of this that he has done, should
we forgive him for using steroids or should his ban from professional cycling still stand. Lance had been hiding his use of drugs for many years, keeping it out of the eyes of the public, in late 2012 he came clean about his enhancements.
The world was stunned when he came clean, “His admission that for years he took a suite of supposedly performance-enhancing drugs”(Daily Mail). No one saw it coming, hence why the world was in shock, after almost a full 48 hours, Lance was stripped of his 7 Tour De France medals. Was this the right thing to do? Even with the performance enhancing drugs, completing the race was no easy task. Many believe that the medals should be returned. After years of research “prolonged campaign of abuse was pointless”(Daily Mail), scientists realized that the main drug lance was taking (epo) has no long term advantages. This raises the thinking that what he was using gave him no physical advantage at all. Others say that it doesn't matter, he was willing to use drugs to win and that's all that matter, he's a cheater. In life cheating or taking the easy way out may be quicker and require less work but it's rarely the right thing to
do. After many years of training and tackling many races, Lance had finally shown his true self, a cheater.
For years he hid his habits from his family, friends, and fans. He never had any intention in stopping or telling anyone until his teammate took it public. His teammate and friend helped bring out the problem, “The same day he denies allegations of doping made by former team-mate Floyd Landis”(Timeline News). This goes to show that he is not a genuine person if he's willing to take cheating that far. He lied for many years and it wasn't just a one time occurance, he was asked repeatedly time and time again. He has proven to everyone that he cannot be trusted, and because he did that, he should never be allowed to race again. Not until “In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong admits to using banned performance-enhancing drugs(Timeline News). Finally after many years, Lance was put between a rock and a hard place when being interviewed on the popular tv show, Oprah Winfrey. He then proceeded to tell the truth for the first time in his life, everyone knew what he was going to say before he did. Nevertheless it was still needed for him to say it outright to the public. It just shouldn't have taken this long to
do. Armstrong was in the wrong the whole time, the facts are that he wasn't good enough to win so he used gear to make his dream come true. It's not how life works, you cannot break the laws and rules to get something you want and then expect for everything to work out. “Armstrong said he was never afraid of getting caught and attributed his actions to a "ruthless desire to win."(NPR). He admitted that all he cared about was winning, yes winning is a big part but it needs to be achieved honestly, not through cheating. Now in the eyes of the public he will never be trusted, he will always be the guy who used steroids and lied about it. In reality if he would have come clean about his use when he was asked and tested for the first time then maybe he wouldn't be banned from competing. “We wouldn't be sitting here," he says, if he hadn't come back to the sport”(NPR). Even Lance knows that he shouldn't have come back to competing while using performance enhancing drugs. This goes to show that athletes will do anything to make money and win. He was the biggest name in the biking world and he decided to throw it all away over a drug….that turned out to have no advantage at all. This is why he was banned and will continue to be. Overall Lance has given the biking community and the world many reasons to keep his ban from competing in place. From cheating to lying, he has broken many rules that were set in place for a reason. He knew the consequences of his action and yet he still did it. There's no reason that he should get a second chance, he should have quit while he was ahead. Only when he was caught red handed did he truly own up to the magnitude of what he had done. He should not only be continued to be banned from competitive biking but be shunned by the community for what he did.