The madness must stop!

So it's been pretty obvious for some time that Lance Armstrong is to European cycling fans what Barry Bonds is to American baseball fans... especially when it comes to the subject of performance enhancing drugs. Both men are arguably the most dominant figures in the history of their respective professions and both men have had to endure relentless accusations that attempt to diminish (or erase completely) any impact of their accomplishments. However, their two paths diverged in the woods some time ago.

There is one glaring distinction between the two stories as far as I can see: There is a mountain of evidence and testimony to suggest that Barry Bonds is guilty of using performance enhancing drugs (and basically being an all-American jackass) and a similar sized mountain of evidence and testimony to suggest precisely the opposite of Lance Armstrong. So much so that a recent ruling from an independent investigation concluded that the allegations against Armstrong were bogus. This is the sort of thing that I expected would convice any decent human being that it was time to give up the crusade against Lance Armstrong and accept the fact that your countrymen (AHEM, France) were legitimately bested by an American... hell, a TEXAN. I mean, for God sakes, didn't we learn our lesson with this whole incident?

That being said, I was incredibly disheartened today to come across a story about the most recent development in poor Lance's tale. This truly pisses me off. Le Monde is merely trying to slander the reputation of Lance Armstrong. Their accusation, that he addmitted to doctors to using EPO and other performance enhancers prior to 1996 is based on the supposed testimony of one of Armstrong's former teammates and the teammate's wife (who is said to have a strong dislike for Armstrong). All the doctors and friends of Armstrong who were present at his alleged admission have testified to the contrary: That Armstrong never made any such admission to his doctors or anyone (Doctors who, at the time, were treating him for cancer which had spread to his brain and spine).

All one can hope is that when this new information is found to be false, this will be the end of it. I couldn't possibly envision any sort of apology from the editors at the various French media which have consistently made vain attempts to defame one of America's greatest sporting exports, so Lance probably shouldn't expect one. He should, however, expect to be able to live for the rest of his life without having to constantly defend his past.

One of the great comforts I have in all of this is that at this point I'm pretty confident it bothers me much more than it bothers Lance Armstrong. Why should he care about an outlandish claim in Le Monde? He survived cancer, won 7 Tours de France, passed thousands of drug and blood doping tests in the process and has consistently overcome accusations and silenced critics since. All this has been done without ever taking a shot at a society which would like nothing more than for him to return to America and pretend that he never wore their precious yellow jerseys. Unfortunately for them, Armstrong has too much pride, conviction and righteousness on his side to play their slander game. I can only conclude that what they hate the most is that he does what he does with class... hardly what they feel they should expect from an American.