Time to get over it

Lance Armstrong has finally admitted what the general public has been suspecting since October, when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency aired the seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor's dirty laundry.

Since Oprah is the best person to confess your sins to, the now disgraced cyclist shakily and indirectly admitted, "I cheated," during the two-night spectacular last week.

Not to miss on a misdeed, er, money-making opportunity, her network raked in the dough during the drawn-out affair. Advertisers paid an estimated $100,000 for two spots in both nights of the special, an amount that is 40-50 percent higher than typical pay during other major interviews or features.

Those words, which spilled out of Armstrong in some sort of circular fashion, carry a nasty connotation: peeking at a classmate's paper, being sent to the principal's office and awaiting parental wrath at home.

Whether or not we have bamboozled our way through an exam, we are all guilty of cheating in some form or another, whether by lying about how many times the dog has been taken outside to do its business, stealthily swiping money from the bank during a game of Monopoly or whittling down golf scores when no one was looking.

While Armstrong's fib and ensuing defense was on a more grandiose level, it is time to move past it, because he has been raked over the coals enough in these past few days.

Blood doping or not, the man is still an incredibly dedicated superhuman athlete. Thirteen Tour de France rides equals roughly 29,081 miles in 273 days. He finished second overall in his first Ironman 70.3 in Panama last February, and won another similar-length triathlon in Maryland in October.

"I'm a competitor. It's what I've done my whole life. I love to train. I love to race," he told Winfrey. "Not the Tour de France, but there's a lot of other things I could do. I deserve to be punished, but I'm not sure that I deserve a death penalty."

Despite the lifetime ban, some race officials appear to be somewhat sympathetic. Although it was before cheating was admitted but after the USADA stripped his Tour de France wins, the previously mentioned Maryland race dropped its USA Triathlon sanctioning so Armstrong could compete.

The triathlon was a cancer research fundraiser, and brought in $100,000 from the race alone, and another $30,000 from Armstrong's celebrity factor during speaking events and a live auction.

"I think he's a great inspiration for anybody," said Lennie Phillips, a brain cancer survivor who competed alongside Armstrong in a special wave. "All of these allegations, whether they're true or not, I don't know, but he still had to go through all those treatments."

It appears some good did come from Armstrong's doping. His wins have brought fame to a little yellow rubber "Livestrong" bracelet, which has helped raise nearly nearly $500 million to help 2.5 million individuals affected by cancer.