LIVESTRONG... With a little help?!?

After years of speculation, he said she said, and strong denials the USADA has finally formally charged 7 time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong with doping.  There will be a hearing and ultimately an arbitration panel will decide whether or not those wins will be have to be vacated.  What does all this mean for Armstrong?  For his legacy?  For his charitable work?

Nothing.  If we are honest about it cycling is barely a blip on the radar screen of most American sports fans. If we are willing to forgive and forget about the PED use by our heroes in the more prominent sports we certainly will have no such problem doing the same for Armstrong should he be found guilty.  His legacy will be tainted to an extent but again, it's cycling.  Most Americans couldn't tell you who would be considered our greatest cyclist if the title is stripped from Armstrong again should he be found guilty.  (BTW it would be Greg LeMond)  His charitable work won't suffer.  While his celebrity is valuable at this point I'm not sure he really needs his image to be squeaky clean to continue to raise money for cancer research.  It's cancer!  It doesn't need a celebrity face to make people want to help cure it.

Hopefully this all goes down fairly quickly and we will have an end of some sort to the last decade of prominent athletes being on trial for doping.  At least until the next future HOF baseball player shows up for a season and needs a new hat size.