Seven Tour de France medals. Seven yellow jerseys. Gone.

Victim or villain?

It’s up to you to decide which one to believe. The Lance Armstrong who battled and battled, defied the odds and became the greatest cyclist of all time, or the Lance Armstrong who doped so he could win, lied about it and then kept lying until he couldn’t afford the lawyers to fight his battles anymore.

Pick a side. Take a stance. As Armstrong did. By putting down his sword, Armstrong is done fighting. But that doesn’t seem right because from what we know about Lance Armstrong. All he’s done his entire life is fight.

The man was diagnosed with stage III testicular cancer that had spread into his abdomen, lungs and brain at only age 25. He was given only a 40-percent chance of survival, and he did it.

Then he went on to win seven Tour de France titles in a row.

Those stories don’t happen. There are things like batting titles, scoring records and championships. But defeating cancer is an entirely different accomplishment.

Maybe that’s why some people, if not most, choose to believe in him. To believe that his story is in fact true. That he did defeat cancer and did win those titles by his own merit, not from illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs.

He’s different from the baseball players who have been caught. He’s been relentlessly pursued by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency like it’s an old-time witch hunt. He’s not some big-headed, egotistical jerk.

Or is he? Victim or villain?

This time it’s different. It wasn’t just another case of a baseball player getting into trouble that we seem to hear every few weeks. We as fans virtually became numb to all of it. Accusation and denial. Over and over.

Even of those who were acquitted of charges, like Roger Clemens, do we really believe he didn’t use them? Probably not. How about Barry Bonds? He’s still got his home-run title. But to us, his oversized head might as well be an oversized asterisk.

But it’s been different lately. Athletes are seeming to take a different approach. When Melky Cabrera and Bartolo Colon were charged, we expected them to deny it again, just like nearly everyone before them. But they didn’t.

So many athletes live somewhere in the middle. In between innocent and guilty. Clemens is there. Bonds is there. Now unfortunately, Armstrong is there too.

In Armstrong’s case though, there is so much good to be had. Livestrong is a company that has raised more than $470 million in the fight against cancer. Images of him on a bike in a test lab are what stick in our minds. Not images of courtroom trials.

Then there’s the thought of this “era” being an epidemic. Whether it’s baseball or cycling, or any sport for that matter. Was it just a case where 20 years from now we look at this as the “steroid era” and athletes were just trying to level the playing field? Was it a case where athletes overstepped the boundaries in search for the edge in their sport?

There will be people who say they should just all be banned. There will be people that take the aforementioned stance of it just being a tainted era.

But in Lance Armstrong’s unique case, when he laid down his sword, quit fighting the allegations and said “enough is enough,” he left it up to us — the public — to determine his place in history.

Victim or villain?