Lance Armstrong In Rhyme

Lance Armstrong? He's a hero. How can there be any doubt?
He triumphed over mountains on the Tour de France. His bout
With cancer proved that no opponent's ever had a chance
When stepping up to battle with the fellow known as Lance.

Lance Armstrong? He's a liar, and a doper, to be sure.
No way that he could ride that way…no way he could endure
The strain of winning all those Tours without the PED's.
While everybody else was dirty, Lance was clean? Oh, please.

"Live Strong" the little bracelets say, and Lance has done it well.
He's given hope to others who have struggled through the hell
Of treatment for the dread disease which Armstrong bravely beat.
How can one think a man like that would ever stoop to cheat?

The lengthy list of those accusing Armstrong never ends.
These guys were once his teammates. These people were his friends.
Sure, Lance has called them jealous liars, envious and vile,
But there have been so many, that it seems after a while,
That each one can't be lying, each one can't have built a tale,
That, if it's true, might find Lance shouting "treachery!" from jail.

Lance never failed a drug test. Lance has told us that a lot.
The same's been said of Barry Bonds. Is that the best you've got?
Lance trained with such intensity, his ethic stressed the work.
The same's been said of Roger Clemens. Doubts about him lurk.
"He was a man," said Hamlet of his father to a friend.
He also said "I shall not look upon his like again."
The same is true of Lance, I guess, and like young Hamlet's dad,
It prob'ly would be nuts to think him wholly good or bad.