Angry Al's Take on Lance

Sometime yesterday I got a call from my old friend Al,nicknamed Angry Al by all those who know him. Al has written two articles for this site in the past,opinionated and intense,he is always a good one to get you thinking,even if you don't agree with him. Everyone seems to be talking about Lance these days,his "fall from grace,"at least to me,far surpasses what happened with Tiger Woods. I say this because with Tiger,he never really connected on the personal,emotional level like Lance did.It is not a stretch to say that Woods was aloof and distant from the public while Armstrong has never been.Here Al offers a blunt appraisal of the recent events surrounding Lance Armstrong.

" Some questions: who in the top echelon of sports like professional bike racing,track and field,elite marathoning and road racing aren't using, or haven't used, performance enhancing drugs(peds)? The rumors and reports that attest to the fact athletes are using have been circulating for years as do the number of positive drug tests. Is there anyone out there naive enough to think that any of the 25 top finishers at the Tour de France didn't use p.e.d.'s prior? Are there still people who don't know that you can take performance enhancing drugs before a competition and avoid detection? And speaking of taking p.e.d.'s and avoiding detection, consider the following.
Have you ever wondered why a female marathoner was able to decimate the world marathon record with a 2:15? In a space of 7 months she ran a 2:17 and the 2:15 while never coming near those marks again. And please, spare me the she's been injured excuse,these injuries are often caused by maxing out your body over a period of time while using,ask Mark McGwire and Regina Jacobs about that one. How come "Flo-Jo" obliterated the world marks for both the 100 meter and the 200 meter in 1988 with times that no one has come close to before or after? Anyone recall Ben Johnson practically standing up as he left the blocks and still being able to set a WR in the 100 meters? Low 26's for the men's 10K,mid 12's for the men's 5k,2:03 for the men's marathon, how many of those times and the others I mentioned before were run 'clean'? Call me a cynic but I doubt any of them were. That's just the way it is these days in the world of big time athletics,there's tons of money to be made by lots of people.Again,some might say they drug test these athletes so how can they be using? As I said, thanks to modern chemistry,detection is very difficult,especially when you know when you will be tested.Obviously,more has to be done to find the cheaters if the governing bodies of these sports are going to catch them. I wouldn't look for that to happen anytime soon.Perhaps I'm more of a realist than a cynic.This all brings me back to Lance and the big question. Hasn't he said that he never failed a drug test? I don't believe I ever read in the News that he had. By the way,that wasn't the big question.The big question is,what was the reason or reasons for the seemingly obsessive investigation of Armstrong over the last few years to prove he used p.e.d.'s? I haven't seen that being done with other athletes.
I conclude with this---
Do I think Lance used,yeah,just like all the others in the Tour do. I think this because it is common knowledge in the biking world and a year can't go by without one or more of the top riders getting busted.Is it ok to cheat because everyone else does? Of course it isn't.
But my question remains, why the fixation on Lance?