re: ESPN Breaking that Lance Armstrong admits

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This point was brought up several times in this (and every Lance Armstrong) thread. The answer is that Lance had the advantage. There isn't just one pill that says steroids and everyone takes it. All of the evidence that has been presented suggests that Lance had the best 'doctors' and refused to let them work with other riders. So it isnt an equal playing field- nor was it equal in baseball.

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There were plenty of other riders that had the power and influence to hire exclusive doctors, but they didn't. Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes was providing drugs for so many cyclists that it was just a matter of time before he got caught and took his entire client list down with him. He might as well have had a big neon sign outside his office that said "Over One Thousand Cyclists Served". I don't think the fact that Armstrong was more discreet than some of the other cyclists is an unfair advantage.

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With that said, I can't imagine having to make the choice about whether to take steroids or not, especially in cycling. If you want to be world class in cycling, taking stuff went with the territory- even more than in baseball. But that doesn't make everyone equal.

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The thing about cycling is that you didn't have to only take drugs to become a superstar, you had to take them just to make a team. Jonathan Vaughters was a journeyman cyclist and the ninth man on Armstrong's 1999 US Postal team, and even he admits to doing drugs that year. In Armstrong's very first European pro bike race, he finished dead last, many minutes behind the second to last rider. That's probably the last time he rode clean and a pretty good indication of how hard it was for clean riders to compete in the highest level of pro cycling in the 1990's.