The Lance Armstrong surrender/punishment happened Thursday night, just as I was preparing to make the 25-hour journey back to the UAE, so I didn’t exactly rush into “print.”

I would say I am disappointed, but then I realized that my disappointment in Lance Armstrong happened years ago, a very gradual process that had been completed long ago, inside my head.

I am confident the man cheated while racing, and I believe no one should be able to retain championships won due to cheating. A variety of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) rules-breaking, in his case.

It’s simple. Cheating is cheating, whether it was last week or a decade ago.

One analyst summed it up perfectly — and if I recalled who said it, I would credit that person.

We have been asked to believe that in an era when seemingly every other elite cyclist doped (and was caught at it) … Lance Armstrong managed to beat them all without having doped.

We are seeing more and more often how easy it is to beat tests. With Melky Cabrera nailed nearly two full seasons after he (apparently) began taking artificial testosterone, and Bartolo Colon in the same boat, what does Armstrong’s “never failed a test” thing really mean?

Almost nothing. Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds never failed a test, either.

Apparently, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency had a bunch of guys ready to testify about Armstrong’s history with PEDs, and we also were supposed also to believe that all those cyclists (and contemporaries of Armstrong) were liars and Lance was not.

I have no desire to have all things “Lance” come down in flames. He generates money for cancer research, and that’s fine.

Hard to be as sanguine about his sport. Is cycling clean? Has it ever been clean in the past 20 years? The past 40 years? Is there any reason to follow a sport so routinely loaded with cheaters?

It is tempting to say no, and that (as much as for procedural reasons) might explain why the UCI, cycling’s governing body, may resist the call for Armstrong to be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. If his seven titles are not legit, doesn’t that make all things UCI bogus?

(Yes, it does.)

I find fascinating the quote from Armstrong about how he knows who won those Tour de France titles, and his teammates know, and everyone knows — which neatly left out the necessary (yet implied) “in an era when we all doped.”

I can understand the unwillingness by some to accept the idea that Lance Armstrong cheated, especially those who found his fight with cancer an inspiration.

But those who closely follow cycling are almost unanimous in their belief that he did, and I value their opinions.

Much of sports is dirty. Cycling especially is. Instead of fighting to save Lance Armstrong’s reputation, cycling needs to worry about cleaning up its own.