Lance Armstrong... greatest doper there was or ever will be

So in addition to being an arsehole LA personally kicked off the doping arms race in the 00's with the end result that when 21 year old neo-pros can die in their sleep it's described as "natural causes" and not even an autopsy takes place.

Not sure if serious, or parody?

If this is a serious point it gets to the core of the problem I have with Armstrong-hating.

First, I would question the assertion that the Tour had decided to 'go clean' in 1999. The evidence for that seems partial, following on a decade of blood doping by the pro-peloton. It seems implausible that there was any consensus to clean the sport up and it is certain that doping was happening on teams other than US Postal. Pantani, for example, was juiced to the gills pre and post 1999. To suggest Armstrong was the cause of that is wrong.

Second, if Armstrong was doping and others had gone clean, one response would have been to ostracise him rather than to compete on his (doped) terms. Of course the deeply ingrained culture of doping and omerta, which far predated Armstrong's success, precluded that. It is plain that Armstrong was first a product and later an exponent and enforcer of the doping culture, but to suggest he created it is wrong.

The problem, as I see it, is that Armstrong has become a proxy for the entire culture of doping in professional cycling in the late 90s and early 00s. In that analysis, Armstrong becomes directly responsible for the deaths of neo-pros. Yet the doping culture was far broader than Armstrong and to lay the blame solely at his door is to let every doctor, DS, cyclist and soigneur who played a part in propagating that culture off the hook. It would be great if Armstrong came clean or was successfully prosecuted, but it wouldn't solve the far broader problem that existed and still exists.