For those people that know me well, it might surprise you that football was not the first sport I was interested in; instead at a very young age I became enraptured by the 1994 Tour De France.
This was at the time when Spaniard Miguel 'Big Mig' Indurain was dominating the event winning it five times in a row from 1991-1995. However, it wasn't really until the late 1990s that I got properly into cycling's premier event.
And the reason I started viewing again was down to one man- Lance Armstrong. Even though I was only eight when he won his first Tour I was still mesmerised by the story of Armstrong coming back from near death to win the world's greatest bike race. Hindsight proves that my young self was ridiculously naive but so was my father who had watched the race since the 70s. Armstrong's confession last year that he had doped was truly shocking and I felt let down along with millions of other cycling fans.
However, some of my initial anger at Armstrong's doping has now subsided. And I actually feel he is taking too much heat from the media, cycling fans and fellow riders. This isn't to say I don't condemn Armstrong's cheating. It was abhorrent and has ultimately left cycling in a position from which it will take a long time to recover from.
This week more revelations emerged from the 1998 Tour, which was the most shameful edition of the Tour De France in its 100 year history, so much so that it is referred to as the Tour De Doping. It has now been revealed that the winner of the yellow jersey that year Marco Pantani, the runner up Jan Ullrich and green jersey winner Erik Zabel all tested positive for the banned substance EPO.
Armstrong who didn't compete in the Tour that year because he was fighting cancer, but says he isn't surprised at this weeks revelations. And neither am I. But there has been barely a whimper in the media and that's where my defence of Armstrong comes in.
Due to Armstrong winning in 1999 few questions were asked about his performance apart from the wonderful David Walsh of The Sunday Times and the French media. Instead, the focus was on the miraculous recovery from cancer and him winning the world's toughest bike race. He became the face of cycling and with a celebrity girlfriend in the form of Sheryl Crow on his arm, Armstrong was a worldwide superstar. That's why his confession was such a big story and remains so.
But how many people in the general public could pick out Ullrich in a police-line up or Zabel for that matter? I'm willing to bet not many. However, why shouldn't their crimes be plastered over the back pages of the sports pages? Cycling can't recover from it's shameful past unless every rider who cheated is tackled over their past crimes (admittedly Pantani's crimes have now gone to the grave after he died in 2004).
And what of Eddy Merckx, widely regarded as the greatest cyclist of all time? He still gets an invite to the presentation ceremony every year at the Tour De France, yet he tested positive three times between 1969-1977 and he actually supported Armstrong when he was accused of drug use. Armstrong will be barred from the tour for life and rightly so, but the organisers are being super hyper-critical here.
I am a firm believer in banning drug cheats for life. It might sound harsh to some, but if athletes know they can come back in a few years after taking banned substances, then there is a high chance they can do so again. I cannot fathom how lightly Alberto Contador's comeback to the Tour De France this year has been taken after he is a known former drug user. Contador was heralded as one of the favourites and a top climber. Instead, questions should have been asked if Contador was clean again, especially in this post Armstrong era. Once again, I feel this is because outwith the cycling world, Contador isn't particularly well known unlike Armstrong who I'd argue is one of the five biggest sportsmen of the last twenty years.
As I mentioned, I got properly into cycling in the late 90s and I had numerous heroes at the time including Zabel, Ullrich, Mario Cippolini and Pantani. They have all proven to be drug users yet you would hardly know about them. It is the same in athletics and other sports (how many of you know this week Viktor Troicki, a Serbian tennis player has been banned for 18 months for failing to provide a blood sample). If this was Nadal or Murray, then it would be the talk of workplaces, homes and pubs across the world.
Armstrong did wrong and it is sad that Chris Froome's victory in the Tour De France last week cannot be celebrated without suspicion. Armstrong created a bullying culture that was disgraceful and put the highest pressure on teammates and the peloton to take drugs, which is hopefully a thing of the past.
But Merckx and Jacques Anquetil another five time Tour De France winner who died in 1987 continue to be celebrated despite them openly admitting to doping during their careers. Indeed, Anquetil like Armstrong said you couldn't win the Tour without taking drugs.
This might sound like I'm saying because everyone did it, Armstrong should have been allowed to get away with it. That couldn't be further from the truth. Instead I am asking for a bit of fairnness in the reporting of doping in cycling.
Right now, there is a blank list from 1999-2005 where Armstrong's wins used to be. I reckon they should be making some updates to other years very soon. It would be a welcome step in the right direction.
