Yes, he has done great things starting up the foundation which ultimately benefited from his ill gotten fame -but he didn’t do what he did for the foundation. He did it for personal glory. He heat other athletes who chose not to dope, he smashed other talented athletes and made them despair so much they gave up competitive cycling. If you didn’t cheat -you couldn’t compete. So, what’s right?

Myself…I would never take drugs that could potentially cause harm to my body or give me a false advantage. As Tyler says in his (bloody good read)book “the truth will set you free” and the lying and living with so much deceit gave him depression and an inability to enjoy any of the adulation, medals & fame. How does Lance live with himself? I read and see all those Nike adds he did and they’re so hypocritical in hindsight.

There are clean elite athletes, I still believe in that, and that our sport will be better for the truth coming out and punishment for cheats being meted out. You’re only cheating yourself if you take PED’s.

Of course, now that Lance has declined to challenge it in arbitration and the UCI has declined to challenge it in court, we will never have he chance of seeing it pass the acid test of cross-examination, but that has been *their choice* not USADA’s. It is a clever strategy by Armstrong for allowing the true believers to justify in their minds the maintenance a degree of doubt.

Scapegoat? Possibly. There are serious questions over the possibly collusive conduct of both Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid that need to be answered. It is interesting to see McQuaid taking cues from Armstrong’s playbook in selecting a jurisdiction that allows him to use the comparatively vast means of the UCI to sue journalist Paul Kimmage in his personal capacity, rather than going after the better-resourced publisher. This uses his limited ability to properly fund a defence to their advantage and maximises the financial damage they can inflict on him.

If they were serious about eliminating the scourge of doping from cycling’s next generation, they would be engaging with him, not trying to silence him. Therefore my confidence that we will see institutional change from the UCI is zero.

I’m looking forward to the results of the joint Swiss and Italian investigation into Dr Michele Ferrari’s money-laundering activities becoming public. Watch this space.

I don’t think it is fair to say “Every one else was doing it so it is ok”. Doping affects people differently so it didn’t create a level playing field.

Even when someone does something postive such as Livestrong, is this justification that it is ok to cheat? The good news is that the charity is being seperated from the doping. But lets also consider an individual who had fantastic cycling and career changes but made an ethical decision not to dope and essentially were cut out – they lose, that’s not very fair either.

Lance has been a charismatic and influencial character, and has used this well for the success of the charity but also in how he portrays himself and defends himself – the general consensus is that the accusations are true ‘beyound reasonable doubt’ and this is view is shared but most.

I feel sorry for Lance and this whole witch hunt. In many people’s minds, Lance is now immortalised as a martyr.

It’s a good thing that the UCI can’t take away that experience of winning the TDF, supposed drug cheat or not. Talk about cracking a walnut with a sledge hammer!