With a sad sigh of relief....

"Live strong" Lance Armstrong

I chose this quote today because Lance Armstrong has been in the news so much the last few days. Unless you've been living in a cave, you know he voluntarily gave up his fight to prove himself innocent of the alleged doping charges. He says it was time...enough was enough...he was simply exhausted from the lengthy battle. This painful decision not only included a lifetime ban of the sport of cycling but also stripped him of all seven yellow jerseys won from the Tour De France races.

There's been a lot of speculation about whether or not he was guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs or not and bowing out so suddenly has only increased the speculation. In the end, only Lance himself knows for sure and his choices are something he'll have to live with. It seems the idea of having one athlete in any sport who is a phenomenal player without the assistance of a needle is almost unheard of.

For myself, I can't imagine fighting this battle for so long and then giving up in the end but I have no idea how tiring it must have been for him. Several of his corporate sponsors are sticking by him so monetarily he'll be fine. I guess the bigger question is how will the act of being stripped of his titles affect him emotionally, especially if he truly is innocent?

Lance Armstrong has been a role model for thousands of people for many years, first as a cycling champion and then as a cancer survivor. To see a champion voluntarily handover his hard won trophies is almost to difficult to watch. And to think he's losing these titles even though he's supposedly passed every drug test he's ever taken makes it feel like a witch hunt. It's all clouded in so much mystery.

I suppose we'll never know the truth, never know if he fought for so long to cover up the lies or to defend the truth. But we can take his words, "Live Strong", and remember to live life to the fullest. Whether or not he cheated his way onto the winner's podium doesn't matter to us. Maybe cancer was his karmic revenge for lying or maybe surviving it was his karmic reward for telling the truth. In the end, it's his story to live. All we can do is try to learn from his choices, from the fevered pitch of his accusers, from his ultimate decision to end it all. He decided in the end to put his life and the lives of his family before the yellow jerseys. When you look at it from that angle, it seems like he made the best choice.