Could it be that Lance Armstrong, the American that continues, year after year, to win France’s most renowned sporting event, has been using banned substances all along? Is this a legitimate gripe or just sour grapes?
This article by Fabrice Rousselot of France’s Liberation would lead one to believe that after all these years, Armstrong has lost none of his capacity to raise the hackles of his apparently unwilling hosts at the Tour de France.
Rousselot writes in part:
“Perhaps this will be his most beautiful victory. We would like, of course, for this lovely fable to end there. We would like to stick to this official version, if only for the good of the sport. But then, it has been a long time since the bike began destroying its own myth. How can we talk of Armstrong without dwelling on the heavy suspicions of doping that hang over his head? How can we evoke the Grande Boucle [the Great Loop – a nickname for the Tour de France] without compiling a list of those false champions who, every year, get their spokes caught in tests for illegal substances of all kinds? Who has actually posed the question of the timeliness of Armstrong’s return to a race, the image of which is already quite damaged? No one.”
By Fabrice Rousselot
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
July 7, 2009
France – Liberation – Original Article (French)
The Tour de France loves a good tale. One of heroes who climb improbable passes in pain and sweat. What could be more beautiful, therefore, then than a return of the fanfare surrounding the American prodigal son? The one who has built his reputation on the strength of his calves and his character. Lance Armstrong, of course, of whom it has been said a thousand times that he returns to continue as the spokesman for a battle against cancer that he himself has defeated.
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