July 15, 2004
Outrageous
If Bol can tolerate another post about sports, he may find this interesting. Le Monde, which has been the most aggressive daily in launching doping accusations against Lance Armstrong, ran an article today with portions of an interview from Greg LeMond, the last American Tour champion. The article is titled "Lance Armstrong is Ready To Do Anything to Keep His Secret." Of the seven interview questions, all of them discuss doping, and four discuss Armstrong in particular. Some of the more interesting questions (and excerpted responses):
1) Your wife, Kathy, says in L.A. Confidential that in July 2001 Lance Armstrong called you to accuse you of having taken EPO during the course of your career. (LeMond: EPO didn't exist back then.)
5) You don't believe in the miracle of Lance Armstrong's victorious comeback from cancer? (LeMond's answer: "There are no miracles in cycling. There is always an explanation.")
6) And if Lance Armstrong becomes the first cyclist to win six Tours? (Here, LeMond says that he is not jealous of Armstrong and that he used to support him, but with "all these stories," it is tough to stay a supporter.)
7) Lance Armstrong responds to those who doubt his integrity that he has never tested positive. (LeMond: "Everyone says that" -- other dopers have never tested positive either. The interview ends with "I don't know how he will be able to continue to convince the world of his innocence."
Jealousy, party of one?
In other Armstrong news, Lance accused a reporter today of breaking into his hotel room to look for dope, and says that he is worried that someone might plant something on him.
It's such a consistent pattern. Someone starts to dominate their sport or field and they're rapidly accused of cheating. I've read some Le Monde's other articles on this and it's all the worst kind of reporting. It's all just speculation and hearsay. It's ridiculous. That said, if it turns out that he has been doping (which I highly doubt, nobody from Austin uses drugs, after all), I'd be very disappointed.
In my heart, I no longer believe that Lance and the rest of the Tour favorites are innocent of doping. There has been too much shameless lying coupled with spectacular confessions over the years to believe that any top cyclist is clean. The recent revelations of David Millar and Jesus Manzano attest to this. If top riders really are clean, then they ought to be pissed as hell that so many riders are cheating (and there is no doubt that many do). Just saying one passed the controls isn't good enough--it's well established that the controls don't detect effectively.
Lance is innocent until proven guilty. But to convince his fans he needs to engage more passionately in the fight against doping--something hard to do if he really is doping. Doping, in so far as it is done secretively and in the spirit of chearing, is quite simply a disgrace. Whoever does it is unworthy of the sport and ought to receive a 2 year ban followed by a lifetime ban.
In other news....today is the hour of truth. The day we've been waiting for all year. Who will be the strongest on the final climb?
I tend to believe that Lance is innocent, although I certainly have my doubts. I just don't know enough about how the investigations are conducted. For the most part, they seem to be shoddy operations by local (in-country) police forces. I know the organizing body (I forgot what it's called) does some investigations also, but I don't know by what method. Is it like the NFL, where players know in advance about random testing? Anyway, I'll worry about that stuff later. There's cycling afoot.
What do you mean by the final climb? It is a damn good ascent, but the Alps are yet to come.
Results are coming in as I type: Basso wins, Armstrong second, Voeckler lost a ton of time (from 9.38 on Lance down to 5 minutes) but stays in yellow, Ulrich is way back (2.5 minutes behind Armstrong)...
IMO, today and tomorrow are the decisive days of the Tour. The Alpine stages aren't as tough, although the Mountain Time Trial will make a difference.
Incredible performance today by Lance and his team. All of his main rivals rode dissapointingly--tonight has to be tough for all of them. Only Ivan Basso rose to the challenge, but Basso probably isn't ready to rival Lance. His only chance is to try to put at least 3 minutes into Lance tomorrow, which isn't likely.
If Lance repeats today's performance tomorrow (by far the hardest stage of the Tour), he has it all but won. For tomorrow's stage, I won't count out Mayo, but Simoni, Mancebo, Armstrong, and Basso are the likliest winners.
Hmm... After reading the report, I wonder if Armstrong allowed Basso to win today. But this is a little hard to believe, given that Lance surely wants to put as much time into Ullrich as possible. He put big time into Ullrich in the first mountain stage in the last Tour and still nearly lost it.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2004/tour04/?id=results/stage12