After years of denial, Lance Armstrong admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey which aired Thursday evening to doping in all seven of his Tour de France Championships. Armstrong’s name is now often being mentioned in the same sentence as banned baseball great Pete Rose. Lance Armstrong is no Pete Rose.
There are many colorful words people could use to describe Lance Armstrong, but the most important is cheater. Regardless of what you think of Armstrong as a person, he cheated at his sport and in obtaining all of his achievements. Armstrong gave himself an illegal edge when competing. The level of talent he seemed to possess was fraudulent. Lance Armstrong allowed people to believe he was the greatest of all time in the sport of cycling. He wasn’t.
While Pete Rose also lied regarding breaking the rules in his sport of baseball, his lies were about placing bets. When Pete Rose took the field, every ounce of talent he brought to the baseball diamond was pure Pete Rose. Every one of his record breaking hits and every shred of hustle came from no other source than Rose.
Comparing Lance Armstrong to Pete Rose is like fools gold to the real deal. Lance Armstrong was never the athlete or the superstar he led people to believe he was. Rose broke the rules, but he is nothing less than one of the greatest players to ever play the game. Pete Rose maintains the record as major league baseball’s hits king, with more hits than any other player in baseball history.
Lance Armstrong is a fraud and deserves nothing other than what he gets. Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
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