Lance Armstrong
I don’t really follow cycling, but this story has one element I can’t ignore: The French.
Every year, since Armstrong began to dominate the Tour, I’ve tuned in and followed the print reports to see him win again. There is something satisfying about watching an American dominate a sport the Europeans love, particularly when we as a nation don’t really care. It’s like humiliating them without even trying.
Every year I’ve seen the French media with these dark whispering of doping. Surely L’American can’t be this good? Surely the Europeans are at a disadvantage. There must be something nefarious going on.
So now a French tabloid jumps on six year old urine samples to point out a chemical that couldn’t be detected back then, and are using this to smear the entire Seven. There are a lot of questions to be asked. Such as:
1.) Armstrong has given seven years worth of samples with no detectable substances.
2.) Has the chain of custody of these samples been clear?
3.) What would it take to spike these samples, and can that be determined?
There are more, mostly relating with the falsification of testing.
This just smells bad. France wants to knock the American down, and they might have found a way. Armstrong is now in the impossible position of proving a negative, and if the European media is as honorable as the American media, he doesn’t have a chance.
Filed under: Grab Bag
Armstrong’s urine smells bad? After 7 years, I would think so. Only a Frenchman would enjoy playing with 7 year-old piss. Besides, according to reports I saw/heard the urine doesn’t have his name on it.
Armstrong is most definitely a great athlete, and a fine example of the triumph of humanity over adversity. The French in contrast are a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Now that Lance is retiring they can have their precious Tour back.
Speaking of America winning sports we don’treally care about, I wonder how our soccer teams are doing? That one was even better from a domination/don’t care perspective.
I am possibly the highest ranking member of the “Fan of American Teams in Sport’s We Don’t Care About” club, so allow me to update you. Our Men’s Soccer (Futbol) team played Trinidad and Tobago the other night in a World Cup qualifier, of which I watched the second half. Despite being down a man due to a red card, T&T held off the Americans to a scoreless second half. The lone American goal coming at the two minute mark, we won 1-nill. Still, the Americans had plenty of chances and couldn’t convert. This of course spells trouble, if you can’t put three goals on a short sided squad from Trinidad and Tobago, how are you going to hold out against the Dutch or for that matter any team from a place where they call the sport Football. This may just be a single bad game though, as the word around town is the American team is much improved from the last squad which went surprisingly deep into the World Cup tournament.
The women’s team is seeing some of it’s greats retire recently and is on the verge of losing it’s standing as the premier international squad. China, Sweden and I believe Norway are looking to be the major contendors.
Further reports on Curling, Cricket, Aussie Rules and Rugby forthcoming…