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When the former cycling champion Lance Armstrong confessed to doping last year, it hurt me deeply.

Oprah Winfrey began her famous interview with him by asking a series of key questions, demanding ‘either a yes or no answer’.

With Lance’s every confessional ‘yes’, he stabbed me in my heart. Because I had been a believer in his miracle myth: the cancer survivor who won the Tour de France a record seven times.

The myth motivated me to run two marathons. In other areas of my life where I had to dig a bit deeper to keep going, I would sometimes draw on his story.

As evidence began to emerge that he had cheated I ignored it at first. Feeling forced to choose between an American superhero who inspired people around the world, or a bunch of cynical Irish and French journalists, I knew which side I wanted to be on.

So I advocated for his side of the story, pointing to a number of non-cheating reasons for his miraculous success, and dismissing his accusers as envious trolls, or cynical bores.

I couldn’t see the truth because I had made Lance’s lie into a beautiful lie, and his accusers’ truth into an ugly truth.

So when he finally confessed that he had cheated his way to those victories, a number of uncomfortable things hit me.

That I had fallen for a lie – but that wasn’t the worst part.

That I had advocated for a liar – but that wasn’t the worst.

No, the very worst part was when I realised that I shared in Lance’s guilt.

Lots of us did. From the moment he returned to cycling after beating cancer, the ‘miracle man’ narrative that surrounded Armstrong meant he was tacitly encouraged to cheat.

Whenever he imbibed a banned substance, people looked the other way: cycling authorities, big business and sponsors. The politicians and celebrities who queued for a moment in the spotlight with him were also in no mood look too closely.

His fans, like me, also encouraged him. Every time we bought a yellow wristband, or told him in other ways that he was inspiring us, we were unwittingly telling him he had to keep winning to keep the myth going. And in the dope-ridden sport he was competing in, to keep winning meant to keep doping.

Uncomfortable as it is to consider, even the cancer community unwittingly encouraged Lance. Every week he would receive heartfelt letters from desperately-ill people telling him that his continued victories were the only thing preventing them from curling into a ball and dying.

Facing this onslaught of money, adulation and choking responsibility, he carried on cheating. Well, what would you have done?

Lest I come across as indulging in a spot of self-flagellation, or of letting Lance off the hook, I should recall that he made the first move. He was cheating before he became a well-known cyclist.

And once he was famous he basked in the adulation. So it would not be accurate, either, to paint him as a reluctant cheat, who was all along desperate for someone to free him from his sins. After all, he set out to destroy all his accusers, seemingly reserving his most venomous attacks for women, a tendency which was, in my opinion, his most hideous offence.

But given that those of us who powered his myth share some of his guilt, it’s time for us all to offer him a chance for redemption. Having come clean, Lance wants to ride clean. But his lifetime ban condemns him to being an eternal cheat. It’s time to reconsider that position.

His admission to doping left deep wounds in cycling fans and cancer patients around the world. Lance is probably now too old to compete in the Tour de France or other leading events. But a strictly-controlled comeback in a significant cycling or triathlon event would allow wounds to heal.

He would either win clean and experience redemption, or fail clean and finally draw a line under the whole sorry saga.

Either way, it would make for a sporting spectacle of cinematic proportions, and Lance ain’t the only one who loves those.