Perhaps a ruthless Lance is the weapon we need

Armstrong’s influence on cycling was majestical and being a cancer survivor with an intense force of personality, he had a magical hold over cycling and driving both counterparts and competitors to do distasteful things, just as a despot contrives to offend a population.

Many have stood beyond the present controversy arguing that it was Armstrong’s inspiration that saw them survive the trials of cancer. Armstrong was, a still is, for many the beacon that lead them through difficult times.

That however, does not give any legitimacy does nor give any sense of correctness to what Armstrong and his co-conspirators contrived as they demolished the field in successive Tours de France.

Watching Armstrong guide his team, it was described frequently by commentators as the “Blue Train” when he and fellow team-mates raced under the sponsorship of the U.S Postal Service, through the Tour de France and other similar events, was inspirational for despite his indiscretions, he demanded discipline and dedication; needed traits if humanity is to endure the difficulties ahead as civilisation wrestles with a burgeoning population and the depletion of finite resources and a changing climate.

The inevitable question arises as to whether or not Armstrong should have been stripped of his seven tour titles (he was) for with some in the events also proven drug users making the field, in a sense, level. However, it was not level as many; history has shown, competed without the aid of drugs.

That of course, introduces a further question – should those not using drugs have been elevated up the finishing order?

The controlling body of world cycling, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), appears eager to take cycling into a new drug-free era removing Armstrong from the record books and leaving the first place position for the tours, which he “won” from 1999 through to 2005, blank.

Armstrong orchestrated his seven-year deception through a mixture of discipline and a somewhat despotic approach to those around him – a mixture of ideals that might be essential if civilization is to endure the changes which will descend upon the world people exhaust the available finite resources and struggle to understand how they will tolerate a life made intolerably different and difficult by a changing climate.

Maybe Armstrong brought himself and world cycling into decided disrepute, but possibly as that drug-fuelled dilemma was unfolding, those of us watching closely were learning something about how we address the tumult that is tomorrow.