Lance Armstrong

For David Walsh, it is all black and white. There are the good guys in professional cycling, those who take no performance-enhancing drugs, and the bad guys, those who do. And Lance Armstrong is definitely a bad guy. Walsh, a British journalist, is the author of From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France, published just in time for Saturday's kickoff of the yearly bicycle race around France. Lance Armstrong is Moby Dick to Walsh's Ahab. This is his third book aimed at proving that Armstrong used illegal substances, though the first published in English, due to threatened lawsuits and to publishers' lack of interest in tarnishing an all-American hero.

TWO DAYS have now passed since Lance Armstrong's reputation took the harshest blow ever - two days for America to try to convince itself that he's right and that a French newspaper is wrong, or lying, or confused, or out to get our hero. And two days of waiting for Armstrong to explain himself. Not that two days is anything, especially around here, where the Raffy Watch is closing in on four weeks. Still waiting on his side of the story, the one that he promised to produce back when he was first unveiled as having flunked baseball's steroid test.

I hate telling people not to do what they want. Free will is intrinsic to the human experience. That said, I wish Lance Armstrong would stay retired from professional cycling. It's not that I'm obsessed with athletes retiring on top. I didn't think any less of Michael Jordan after he failed to fly in his two-year comeback with the Washington Wizards. But Armstrong is fighting a battle that goes beyond his competitive legacy, andit's one he cannot win. You see, many cycling aficionados, especially those outside the United States, believe Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs.

As a longtime fan of bicycle racing - I was on the finish line in Paris in 1986 when Greg LeMond became the first American to win the Tour de France - I followed Lance Armstrong's career with intense excitement as he took cycling from the wings to center stage in his country's sport consciousness. That said, it became clear that while his story of cancer survival was compelling and inspiring, Mr. Armstrong was not a pleasant person. He was selfish and self-centered. But so are many athletes.

When Lance Armstrong met last month with his own personal Javert , Travis Tygart of the anti-doping agency, he said after the frustrating meeting, "You don't hold the keys to my redemption. "Only one person holds the keys to my redemption, and that's me," he said, according to reporting in The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Armstrong was vacationing in Hawaii over Christmas, where Oprah Winfrey has a home, and it was then that she reached out to him. They met for lunch, and he agreed to a come-clean interview with her. Upon reflection, it appears, Mr. Armstrong decided that Oprah holds the key to his redemption.

Not even steady rain and 700 miles could come between Brian Silver and a chance to race Lance Armstrong. Silver, along with seven of his family members, traveled from Chicago to Columbia to join in a 5-kilometer race yesterday to support the organization that helped his family through his brother's fight with cancer. Continuous early-morning showers didn't stop hundreds of runners, bikers, cancer survivors -- and Armstrong -- from supporting the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults race, part of a weekend-long event that brought in more than $500,000 for the organization.

Cycling superstar Lance Armstrong, beater of odds, didn't have a chance yesterday. A 50-mile fundraising bike ride that Armstrong was to lead - and which was to provide a victorious finale to a cross-country bike tour to raise awareness about cancer - ended unceremoniously early yesterday morning when the weather prompted authorities to call off what had been billed as a rain-or-shine event. The fundraising ride will not be rescheduled. But floods, darkness and disappointment could not stop the crowds.

The International Cycling Union's announcement today that it was stripping superstar athlete Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles over charges of illegal doping effectively ended one of the most celebrated sports careers in recent memory. Mr. Armstrong's name is to be removed from the Tour's official record books, and he is banned for life from future competitions. It's likely the International Olympic Committee will move soon to strip him of his 2000 Olympic bronze medal as well, and corporate sponsors may demand he return millions of dollars in now-tainted winnings.

The courage that helped Lance Armstrong beat cancer and win cycling's most prestigious race inspired hundreds of people yesterday at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, where he introduced new cancer-fighting technology that uses precise beams of radiation to target tumors. "I never would have won the Tour de France without the illness," Armstrong said at the event, during which the hospital also announced it would name its cancer center after Geaton A. DeCesaris Jr., 47, of Lothian and his wife, JoAnne, in honor of their $3 million contribution.

For most of the past 20 years, sharks have been the biggest stars in the on-air firmament at the Silver Spring-based Discovery Channel. But it's hard to slap advertisements on said man-eaters, and they don't give the best speeches either, so in an effort to raise its global profile, the cable network is sponsoring a predator of a different sort - one Lance Armstrong. The company has never linked itself so publicly with one person, much less an athlete. And few, if any, television networks have thrown their lots so clearly with individual sports stars.