I won the Tour seven times...

Everyone by now must have heard about the USADA-report concerning Lance Armstrong. It also states that the USADA wants to delete the seven Tour de France victories of Armstrong.

There's been a lot about this in the worldwide newspapers, but what caught my attention was this column of Sven Ornelis (radiomaker, columnist) in Het Laatste Nieuws of Thursday 11th October.

I'd like to quote it (in my free translation to English, of course):

When the phone rang in the middle of the night, I woke up from my hard-earned sleep. On the other side of the line was a man, speaking in a heavily accented Dutch, claiming he was the head of the UCI (International Cycling Union).
He sounded friendly, but especially worn-out and desperate. His enthusiam not quite made it up to the shocking news he delivered to me. After all the confessions of the team around Armstrong, he told me, the UCI had decided to clean out the Augias sty which is identic to cycling - for once and ever.
Of course it's easier said than done, he confessed.
The confessions amounted to enormous proportions: Armstrong and all of his team were taking doping. So they should delete all of them out of the official lists.
And then it became even more difficult. Doping was not only found with the profs, also with the crew surrounding a team, with amateurs, even with those who support the sport. They all took drugs to help them forward.
"Is it right you didn't have a bike during the past twenty years?" he then asked.
I was honest enough to state I did have a bike, but I had not used it after the first testride when I got a flat tube.
"Alright," said the man. "It's late, I'm dead tired and our sport is so damaged that I want to beg you: keep quiet about that bike, burry it in your garden, and accept those seven Tour victories."
His voice broke. He cried. What do I say? He howled.
So I had to accept. My victories are not all too clean either, but I saved a desperate man and his favorite sport. With the last lie...

It's all true of course. Not only in cycling, but I guess in most sports the athletes take drugs to help them compete better.

For me sport should be something pure. Back to the old days, when sport was just for the honors, and when the winner of the Greek Olympics got a laurel wreath on the head.