It is not as if this is a question that I or NEWSWEEK need to confront in any formal sense. But Dave is a cycling enthusiast, and he’s just looking for a little affirmation. He is forever appalled at how Armstrong’s Tour de France triumphs are short-changed in the annual assessments of American sporting glory. I, too, have disappointed him. In response to his question the past three years, I have hemmed and hawed and summoned up Tiger or Shaq or Ray Lewis or Barry Bonds. But this year I couldn’t resist, at least not my friend’s passion and the hidden plea in his question. Yes, I said, in surrender. Absolutely! Four Tours de Force in a row. Lance is in a class by himself. (And when he wins next year, he will be in a historical class with Miguel Indurain as the only consecutive five-time winners in history.)

But even as I said it, I suspected that come December, when these judgments are rendered, Lance will not be the man. And I confess that, despite what I professed to my friend, I, too, wonder if Lance is worthy of that honor. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the Tour’s place in the sporting world. I am no provincial, and I recognize that the Tour ranks only behind the Olympics and World Cup among international competitions. Of all the major sporting events, it is certainly the toughest, 2,000 miles-plus of relentless agony. I’ve driven that distance in France and arrived far more exhausted than Armstrong appeared Sunday as he pedaled the final stretch on the Champs Elysees. (Still, it is remarkable how victory by an American riding for the U.S. Postal Service team can seem so alien.)

Nor do I want to be lumped with the French, whose antipathy to and resentment of Armstrong is borne largely of base anti-Americanism. The French cling to the notion that they are superior to Americans in so many things-cooking, winemaking, love, soccer and cycling-when about all they remain superior at these days is smoking. Granted, Armstrong is not the most accessible and engaging fellow, not a charmer like Greg LeMond before him. Lance was prickly long before he battled cancer. And while his remarkable recovery has made him an inspiration as well as formidable warrior in the campaign against cancer, it has not made him warm and cuddly.

So if it isn’t the event and it isn’t the guy’s personality, what exactly is my problem? It’s the specter of drugs that hovers over his sport. That hardly makes cycling unique. Baseball’s glorious tradition is being sacrificed on the altar of steroids. And somehow we’re supposed to believe that all those 240-pound NFL lineman of yesteryear turned into 320-pounders by simply pumping iron. Women’s tennis is about to implement more rigorous testing procedures as its players’ shoulders increasingly resemble those of stevedores. Track, swimming, cross-country skiing, weightlifting-so many of the sports in the Olympic family are believed to be massive cheatfests by most every reporter who covers them. I remember, at my first Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the unsettling feeling of watching three shot-putters on the medal podium, all of whom had been previously banned from their sport for drug use.

Even by those standards, cycling has been rife with abuse. Even as Armstrong was still celebrating, French authorities detained the wife of the Tour’s surprise third-place finisher as she was leaving the country with a massive quantity of drugs, reportedly including performance-boosters EPO and testosterone. The cyclist, a little-known Lithuanian whose third-place showing was a surprise, claimed his wife was simply bringing drugs home to her mother. Oh my, what will mom do now without her monthly EPO hit?

Of course, the next drug cheat to fess up will be the first. Meanwhile, Armstrong has been tested as often as any athlete on earth and has always tested clean. That leaves us with only a couple possible conclusions. The most appealing one is this: Armstrong is not only superior to every other cyclist on earth, but he is so much better that he can ride clean and still whip all the cheaters. That is the position-one of unabashed admiration-that a recent and fascinating profile in The New Yorker took: see Lance Armstrong and think Superman on a bike.

It is also probably the fairest assumption, innocent until proven guilty in keeping with the highest American ideals. But spend too much time in the trenches of sports reporting and cynicism trumps fairness most every time. It is common knowledge in the sports world that cheating will always run ahead of detection because it is a far more lucrative market. Even random testing, the best weapon in the campaign against cheating, is no sure defense against a sophisticated drug regimen and the market’s latest offering in masking agents.

None of this adds up to a shred of evidence against Armstrong. But it inevitably tempers my enthusiasm and that of many of my colleagues for his achievements. And that’s one of the saddest commentaries on modern sports. Those of us most familiar with the terrain can’t convince ourselves that our champions are clean. I will always admire the courage of Lance Armstrong’s comeback and his cancer crusade. But as much as I want to reclaim the innocence of my youthful view of sports, I just can’t be a true believer any more. Not in any of these record-smashers. In pretty much any of our sports. So I guess that means not in “Sportsman of the Year” awards either.