Lizzie Armitstead Is No Lance Armstrong and Should Be Given a Break

We've been here before.

Cyclist impresses, wins medals and events only to be found out as a drugs cheat. The truth will come out at some point—as Lance Armstrong found out, to his detriment.

These things never go away. If a cheat beats the testers one year, there's new evidence and testimony that eventually creeps up and bites them. It lurks around the corner, at the bottom of every test tube or on the tip of the tongue of an aggrieved foe.

Call it science or just plain karma, few cheats can dodge their fate forever.

On the eve of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Team GB's Lizzie Armitstead has found herself under the same sort of scrutiny as Armstrong. She's had her character questioned, her sportsmanship put under the spotlight. Her integrity as an Olympic cyclist has been damaged—in her eyes—for good.

All for what? Missing three out-of-competition drugs tests in a 12-month period. At no point has she tested positive, and after the first of those missed tests, she gave a negative sample the following day at the UCI Women's Road World Cup event.

It hardly smacks of her cheating or trying to cover up wrongdoing. Naive and disorganised maybe, but a cheat who deserves to be banned? Pull the other one.

As shoddy as it was on Armitstead's part to miss those tests, we need to get a grip here. It's right to criticise and point the finger for her errors, but for her case to even be put on a level with what we've seen from the likes of Armstrong and, more recently, Russian athletes, is completely unbalanced.

In those cases, Armstrong and the Russians were doping on an industrial scale; Armitstead missed some tests and in one instance, for good reason, due to personal reasons to do with her family.

She can't be tarred with anything resembling the same brush, and banning her would do just that.

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"In this situation I'm never going to win. If I win, people will say it's because of something else," Armitstead told BBC Sport in an emotional interview this week.

She has a point. After four years of training, Armitstead's Olympics is in tatters. If she goes one better than her road silver at the 2012 London Games, the questions will be coming at her as quickly as she rotated the pedals on her bike.

The pressure will be cranked up; those missed tests will poured over all the more.

Should Armitstead fail to at least podium, then what has everything been for since she crossed the finish line in London? She loses with a medal and without.

There are events every year that keep competitors such as Armitstead going. It's the Olympics that really whets the appetite for them, though. It's labelled the greatest show on Earth for a reason—because it is.

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The Olympics is the pinnacle for virtually every sportsman or woman who competes at the Games. Footballers are privileged that they receive acclaim from the masses on a regular basis, and it's the same for tennis stars and the golfers who have turned up in Rio.

For the niche events, though, the Olympics is their stage. It's when sports fans will tune in to synchronised swimming and make a real effort to understand the sport. Judo becomes televised; archery isn't just something we associate with Robin Hood and his merry men.

Sure, cycling sits somewhere in between. It has a profile, but the Olympics is still what drives the likes of Armitstead. And as she takes to the road on Sunday, it'll be with to a backdrop of criticism for something she has clearly not done.

Her record tells us she isn't a drugs cheat, but the suggestion she is has far wider implications. Whether they like it or not, the spotlight is now firmly on British Cycling, too.

"I'm absolutely devastated because people are going to judge me and my family. I will never cheat in any walk of life," Armitstead continued. "I feel extremely guilty that I've had to put team-mates through extra media questions."

Britain's cyclists are a major source of pride for sport in the UK. In a sport that has been dominated by drugs and winners living enriched lives off the back of cheating, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome have excelled through being clean.

They've shown a commitment to training, and Sir Dave Brailsford revolutionised the sport with his techniques and focus. We've seen Sir Chris Hoy become an Olympic hero, while Victoria Pendleton and Laura Trott have also carried the flag to great acclaim.

Those are just a few of the names of which Armitstead's successes should rank alongside.

Let's give her a break.