Eighty million reasons whyarmstrong deserves no sympathy

IT WAS the life story of Lance Armstrong that elevated him to a realm of heroism that mere sporting achievement couldn’t take you.

He was in a place that even the likes of Pele and Muhammad Ali couldn’t lay claim to.

That’s what becoming the most successful athlete in your chosen sport after cancer has spread through your whole body, into your lungs and your brain, does. No amount of goals or knock-outs can come close.

And it’s that courageous fight to stay alive — as well as the tens of millions raised for charity on the back of it — that is still the big “but” for many when the charge sheet is read out against him.

How can you vilify a man for being a sporting cheat when he’s inspired so many?

The fact that he had a testicle and two brain tumours removed, and endured three courses of chemotherapy doesn’t mitigate his misdemeanours however, it exacerbates them.

Just as in court when a serving police officer or teacher has his sentence increased because of a breach of trust, so too is Armstrong’s offending made worse rather than softened by his refusal to be finished off by cancer.

Because no sportsman can know more about words ending in “ide” and “atin”.

It is the fact that drug taking kept the seven-in-a-row Tour de France winner alive that makes his drug taking for sporting ends, and the web of deceit and bullying to facilitate it, all the more offensive and unforgiveable.

Eighty million of those yellow Livestrong armbands of his have been sold.

That’s 80 million people Armstrong has let down. Quite some breach of trust.

The likes of Bradley Wiggins, David Weir and Andy Murray gave us our long glorious sporting summer of sun.

Autumn is now upon us and so is the bucket of freezing cold water thrown by Armstrong.