In 1991 Lance Armstrong won the Gastown Grand Prix.
He is one of the most photographed athletes on the planet today and you can go back more than two decades to watch the cycling phenom, long believed and now exposed as a cheater, win one of his earliest races.
His seven Tour de France victories - now mere blank lines in the history books since he was stripped of the titles Monday by the International Cycling Union - put him at the top of the sporting world. His contribution to cancer fundraising after he himself survived the disease made him a figure of hope for patients and families worldwide.
As Mike Howell asks in his 12th and Cambie column today, can you tell, at 19 and racing a tight circuit in downtown Vancouver, if Armstrong was doping? How can we not ask this today? Armstrong's victories and is legacy are tainted.
Of course we can't, and he'll never say. He'd have been awfully young and new to the sport, even one that seems to reward habitual doping, to have been doping already. Besides, he continues to defend his record and is neither admitting nor apologizing for his behaviour.
Twitter: @MHStewart
