Climbing the Alps- Most of what I know about cycling, I learned while playing poker. Turns out one of the guys in my weekly game, a physicist, used to be a competitive cyclist when he was younger. I asked if it was because he saw Breaking Away when he was a boy. Sadly, the answer was No, but he copped to it being a good movie.
My friend’s got a little bit of pudge, so you wouldn’t know to look at him now, but apparently he used to be pretty good. But he gave it up because he eventually got to the point where he realized that among the people he was biking with, some would be going to the Tour de France one day, and the rest would be doing something else. And he was one of the guys who needed to find something else.
But before he left, he got to know and race with a lot of people who would become big wigs in U.S. racing. No, he doesn’t know Lance Armstrong. However, he does know a bunch of people who do. So here’s the low-grade, third-hand dirt.
Apparently, nobody’s got his back because he’s a major league asshole. One of the reasons so many people are lining up to testify against him is because no one likes the guy. In other words, apparently he’s exactly the kind of guy you think he is: someone who leaves his wife after she stood by him while he was battling cancer, so he can go bop Sheryl Crow. A real class act. Rumor mill has it, even his own kids don’t like him.
But then again, the way this whole thing unfolded is a bit of a fiasco. The American anti-doping agency is fighting with the international anti-doping agency to see who has the rights to take him down. Kinda like in the movies when the sanctimonious feds pull a murder suspect from the local cops because he’s got dirt on some terrorists.
The battle to see who gets first crack at Armstrong even went to court, when Lance sued on the grounds that the U.S. agency doesn’t have jurisdiction. The court’s response was, essentially: Leave us out if it. It’s a private matter, not a government matter. Besides, the court said, the guy’s probably dirty, and we don’t care who nails him.
And that was the end of Armstrong’s smoke-and-mirrors campaign to hide the truth .
So it turns out the Americans are gonna wrestle this inquest away from the Europeans, at least for now.
So by what rights does a U.S. agency strip someone of titles they earned in France? I don’t know, to be honest. Sounds pretty dodgy to me. But then again I, like my friend, the court, and lots of people in the know, have very little doubt that Armstrong was crooked. Why?
Winning seven Tour de Frances, including five consecutive after fighting cancer, is difficult enough to believe. Now add this to the equation:
Just about everyone else in those races was dirty.
You’re gonna tell me not only did the guy win year after year after year after year, competing against the world’s best, but he did it as the only clean rider in the field?
Yeah, I don’t think so. Time to take this sneering, sanctimonious punk down.
A guy who has so much goddamn testosterone there’s no room to add anymore, Cheesy Bruin, is up tomorrow.
