First question for Oprah to ask:
"Lance, how does a guy with no TdF victories get to 105 pages on a Cyclechat thread?"
I've just read Seven Deadly Sins and I kept finding myself wanting D Walsh to move on and get over it. I felt like someone walking out halfway through Apollo 13, not really bothered whether Tom Hanks survives.
Sir Armstrong is a super cheat. A super super cheat. But I cannot erase from my mind the radio commentaries of his 1999 win (I was in France with no TV). Some of it chilled my blood to listen to. I used snippets of it for the bedtime stories for my (then tiny) children.
I cannot lose my continued regard for Sir Armstrong as a dramatic and powerful rider. I do not need him as a friend and have anyway never met him.
When I 'raced' the kids in local car parks when they were little, they always wanted to be Armstrong and I always had to be Cippoloini. Insofar as they give a damn about pro-racing, my kids still rather like the man.
Super-super cheat and bully and manipulator, but Pantani was a cheat too... and well... everybody. And we knew it from day one and still tuned in and got excited.