JOHN LEICESTER The Associated Press
Friday, October 1, 2010
PARIS (AP) — For Lance Armstrong, it became a tradition.
On the triumphant last day of his Tour de France victories, the champion cyclist and his teammates celebrated by riding past chattering crowds and the leafy trees that line Paris' most famous boulevard, the Champs-Elysees. They radiated bonhomie, smiling and sometimes waving star-spangled banners. Armstrong and Co., the scene suggested, was one big and happy cycling family.
Reality, however, was not so cut-and-dried.
Even with riders who were integral to Armstrong's unprecedented run of seven consecutive Tour wins, the single-minded Texan remained somewhat aloof. His teammates watched Armstrong's back on France's sun-seared roads, elbowed aside rival teams, carried his water bottles, shared meals, bus trips, and helped to construct the story of the cancer survivor who tamed cycling's most mythic race. But, some of them also say, they never got to intimately know the man in the winner's yellow jersey. After they and the crowds went home, some never had much contact with Armstrong again.
That contrast between the public and guarded sides of the man who revolutionized France's storied race with his modern American ways could become a hurdle for U.S. investigators trying to corroborate allegations from Floyd Landis. One of 23 support riders without whom Armstrong might not have won so many Tours, Landis claims that doping was part-and-parcel of being on his teams and that Armstrong cheated, too.
Odd how you have all these ex-riders who've gotten busted for doping, yet no-one saw anything ???
Friday, October 1, 2010
PARIS (AP) — For Lance Armstrong, it became a tradition.
On the triumphant last day of his Tour de France victories, the champion cyclist and his teammates celebrated by riding past chattering crowds and the leafy trees that line Paris' most famous boulevard, the Champs-Elysees. They radiated bonhomie, smiling and sometimes waving star-spangled banners. Armstrong and Co., the scene suggested, was one big and happy cycling family.
Reality, however, was not so cut-and-dried.
Even with riders who were integral to Armstrong's unprecedented run of seven consecutive Tour wins, the single-minded Texan remained somewhat aloof. His teammates watched Armstrong's back on France's sun-seared roads, elbowed aside rival teams, carried his water bottles, shared meals, bus trips, and helped to construct the story of the cancer survivor who tamed cycling's most mythic race. But, some of them also say, they never got to intimately know the man in the winner's yellow jersey. After they and the crowds went home, some never had much contact with Armstrong again.
That contrast between the public and guarded sides of the man who revolutionized France's storied race with his modern American ways could become a hurdle for U.S. investigators trying to corroborate allegations from Floyd Landis. One of 23 support riders without whom Armstrong might not have won so many Tours, Landis claims that doping was part-and-parcel of being on his teams and that Armstrong cheated, too.
Odd how you have all these ex-riders who've gotten busted for doping, yet no-one saw anything ???
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