Everyone’s got an opinion.

Yeah, it’s been said a million times. It’s cliché. But there’s a reason it’s a popular saying-to an extent, it’s true.  It seems that just about everyone has an opinion on the news, and the double-edged sword that is social media has allowed us allowed us to voice our opinions, at the price of having to listen to our neighbor voice his. So when the news broke that Lance Armstrong confessed to using performance enhancing drugs, almost everyone had an opinion to share.

But does anyone have a solution?

The link between syringes and sports has grown stronger in the last decade or so, but as this connection becomes more and more apparent, there doesn’t seem to be any easy solution in the foreseeable future.  This isn’t an easy reality to deal with, as many feel that the use of banned substances can taint a player’s legacy, or, in some cases, the sport itself. But Armstrong’s confessions took us a step further, and forced us to address some issues that otherwise might have been overlooked.

Make no mistake-Lance Armstrong’s confession to using PEDs, which was aired last week in a two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday and Friday, was not a complete shock to all. Doping isn’t uncommon in cycling-the sport was littered with other perpetrators, such as Floyd Landis and Marco Pantini. Many believed he was guilty since allegations surfaced back in 2005, when he was accused of taking EPO (a form of “blood doping” that aims to increase the blood’s oxygen transfer capabilities). But it was pretty hard not to get caught up in the sentimentalism of Armstrong’s story-the story of a cancer survivor who came back to win seven Tour De Frances Titles in a row.

Looking back, it seemed too good to be true; but for the most part, we believed him.

That’s partially because Lance had a way of making it very hard on people who didn’t believe him. He attacked them with language and lawyers, and made it very difficult to believe that the feel good story that he had become was a lie. He seemed genuine.

But it’s also because you wanted to believe him.

Other cyclists might have doped, but this was Lance Armstrong. This was the guy who was in the Nike commercials, and was the catalyst that made every young kid in America to hop on a bike and ride. This was the guy who was raising money for cancer when he wasn’t winning Tour de France Titles. You wanted to believe that what drove him was that he had come back from the brink of death, and what gave him that extra push was the fact that he knew how valuable life was and he wanted to make the most of it.

 

But when Armstrong’s ride came to an end officially last Thursday, it broke our trust. It wasn’t hope or inspiration or puppies or rainbows that fueled Armstrong along the way. It was cortisone and HGH. The feel-good story of Lance Armstrong was dead, and he was the one to put the nail in his own coffin.

So if we can’t believe in the Lance Armstrong story, what can we believe? Is any sports story safe from syringes?

Sure, there have been cases with other sports, and cases with other athletes, with different stories, different outcomes and different endings. There have been bigger stories, but there haven’t been bigger lies–at least when it comes to doping. (Pete Rose sadly agrees.) But Armstrong’s justification for doping (essentially, that it was impossible to win a Tour de France without it) points to the larger issue-the rising popularity of PEDs. As sports themselves become bigger, the competition in the ballpark, on the field, and on the track becomes tougher, and athletes are looking to any way they can to rise to the top.

 

How do we know who and what to believe with sports anymore? Many are tired of the steroid stories, but there is real cause of concern. You have to wonder how much athletes got away with in the past, when the awareness of doping wasn’t as high and there were less regulations to meet, less drug tests to take, and-most importantly-less chances to get caught. And as the competition gets bigger and better, more and more athletes will be tempted to try their luck with steroids. It can be uncomfortable being a sports fan today and not fully knowing if the problem is under control.

But how it be controlled?

Armstrong found a way to pass tests even when he had doped every time he won a title. How can you control it when athletes everywhere are finding new loopholes and new ways to cut corners, putting their health and the perception of their sport on the line? How can you control it when it has become part of the culture, as is the case with cycling? The use of PEDs make sports unfair, and that takes away from the whole reason we love sports to begin with-they’re fun. It’s a big enough issue for everyone to have an opinion. But we need more than that.

We need a solution. You just have to wonder if there is one.