Lance Armstrong: Surrender Your Medal!

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has finally emerged from a thirteen-year comatose state and has demanded that Lance Armstrong voluntarily surrender his misbegotten 2000 Olympic individual time trial bronze medal to the USOC based upon his confession of using performance-enhancing substances; sans a due process arbitration hearing.  I am absolutely convinced this new humiliation of Lance Armstrong will absolutely prove to neophyte aspirants to Olympic success that glory achieved by doping is not worth the risk of detection, apprehension, and punishment.

Of course, this opinion as to the effectiveness of punishment thirteen years after the fact when it is very probable that every medalist in Olympic cycling during the steroid era used performance-enhancing drugs is highly dubious. Olympic cyclists who were never detected let alone punished for performance-enhancing drug use does not act as a deterrent for neophyte Olympic aspirants to refrain from doping. The probability of being caught and punished continues to be astronomically small during the Olympic games, in spite of advancements in dope testing.  Retrograde admissions of performance-enhancing drug use from a retired athlete, and demands for punishment for this admission from sanctioning bodies, deter nobody currently engaged in nefarious doping behavior.  Will the USOC insist that athletes who currently dope will be apprehended years from now in some dragnet, then humiliated with exposure for past crimes, then forced to return Olympic medals and refund prize money?

One of my former heroes, Jan Ullrich won an Olympic gold medal.  Herr Jan Ullrich was not only linked to Operation Puerto: but he also tested positive for amphetamines after taking the drug ecstasy during a rave.  Herr Jan Ullrich was Lance Armstrong's main rival for seven consecutive Tours de France and there is a minuscule chance Jan Ullrich rode clean during any Tour de France. Nevertheless, there is no clamor among the outraged International Olympic Committee (IOC) to investigate Herr Jan Ullrich for possible doping during the 2000 Olympic games where Jan Ullrich won gold and silver medals; or any suggestion that Jan Ullrich admit to doping; or that his teammate's exact revenge in sworn affidavits pointing out all of the doping violations Jan Ullrich engaged in.  Nor did the IOC demand that Rudy Pevenage be banned for life for his alleged involvement in cheating.  Nor did the UCI demand that Herr Jan Ullrich and Team Telekom be made into an international scandal and example of doping subterfuge.

Only in America do we drag our past heroes through the sewage exacting revenge; no other country in the world would ever consider doing something so despicable.  Yet who is the better model for our youth, Mr. Lance Armstrong or Herr Jan Ullrich?  Lance Armstrong is punished for his crimes and deprived of everything, while Jan Ullrich lives in luxurious surroundings fearing nothing, even though both men probably committed the same doping offense at the same time.  It is obviously better to embrace the notion that the ends justify the means; but not to do so for an extended period of time, since the distribution of punishment is arbitrarily applied.

It is also revolting to note that the very people who enforce rules are rooted in bribery and corruption; the very people who demand retribution from doping athletes.  Examine the corruption that occurred during the Salt Lake City Olympic Games from members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC); men who accepted cash bribes, special academic scholarships for their children, and services from local prostitutes.  Graft seems acceptable tokens for the Olympic games, and the city that provides the greatest largess wins the prize.  Revolting conduct that only serves to demean international athletic competition.  But so what?  Cycling has people who are not above accepting cash to provide favors to selected individuals.  Hypocrites who paint our sport with a tawdry brush.  Sadly, the majority of these enforcement people are impossible to eradicate from our sport.  They become entrenched with nothing to fear from outside Independent oversight, no matter how apparent their filth.

Lance Armstrong probably spit upon his Olympic bronze medal before he surrendered it to the United States Olympic Committee (USOC).  "One reptile devours another," as Ivan Karamazov stated to his brother Alyosha Karamazov.  The feeblest criminal will be excoriated in disgrace, while those doing the flaying will be extolled as virtuous people who deserve to be emulated by our youth.  Liars!  All of the miscreants should be swept out with a broom!