Lance Armstrong
may only be making headlines at the moment for the variety of ways in
which he disappointed his friends, teammates, fans and thousands of
others who were inspired by his life story over the past 15 years.
But though it's lonely out on that confessional ledge across from Oprah Winfrey,
the good Armstrong has done for cancer patients and survivors like him
makes it hard for some to entirely dismiss him as a fraud who duped the
world by doping throughout his history-making cycling career.
"I
wasn't surprised at the admission," said Mike Thompson, a triathlete and
four-time cancer survivor from Austin, Texas, who has known Armstrong
since 1997 and most recently ran in a training group with him last
summer. "I think he made a smart decision to finally admit to what has
been going on for years and I think it was a very, very hard decision."
Thompson says he doesn't think Livestrong, which has raised millions
of dollars for cancer patients and their families since its
establishment in 1997, would have been the force it was if Armstrong hadn't been
catapulted to the top of, not just the cycling world, but the entire
sporting world by his Tour de France success after beating stage-four
testicular cancer.
"It doesn't mean what he did was OK," he says,
noting that he never asked Armstrong point-blank if he had doped, and
Armstrong never talked about the accusations against him. "People don't
have to like him, but you have to recognize he has done a lot of good
for a lot of people.
"My biggest concern would be for his kids,"
Thompson says of his erstwhile training buddy, who has five children.
"He loves his kids and family...You have to understand both sides of the
story—him going through cancer gave him an all-or nothing-choice to
give up or fight like hell."
"He did whatever he had to to get to the top of the mountain and there are consequences, and he will have to live with them."
