Who would have thought? In a world where the French are the neighborhood pansy and always try to stab Americans in the back, some clown with a name of Jean-Marie Leblanc and a magazine by the name of L’Equipe have accused Lance Armstrong of cheating.
SHOCKING!
Q: What did France used to be called?
A: Germany, and then we saved them.I could never bring myself to like Lance Armstrong. Just couldn’t do it. A man that leaves his wife and kids for selfish reasons is no man at all. Let alone a hero for riding a bike.
However, Lance Armstrong has been remarkable in his athletic accomplishment of dominating the cycling world in Jordan’esque fashion. Actually – he’s more dominating the Michael Jordan ever was. That in itself is incredible.
“We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it.”
—- Marge Simpson
PARIS (AP) – The director of the Tour de France said it was a “proven scientific fact” that Lance Armstrong had a performance-boosting drug in his body during his 1999 Tour win, and that the seven-time champion owed fans an explanation.
In a story Wednesday, Jean-Marie Leblanc praised L’Equipe for an investigation that reported that six urine samples provided by Armstrong during the 1999 Tour tested positive for the red blood cell-booster EPO. The French sports daily on Tuesday accused Armstrong of using EPO during his first Tour win in 1999.
Photo Galleries…
Best of Tour de France
“For the first time — and these are no longer rumors or insinuations, these are proven scientific facts — someone has shown me that in 1999, Armstrong had a banned substance called EPO in his body,” Leblanc told the paper.
* Does it suprise anyone that a FRENCH paper and the Director of the Tour de France (French guy) hate Lance Armstrong? Here’s a US Citizen who comes over once a year, whips up on all the other cyclists in the world on French soil and makes their vaunted course look like a kiddie course?
Historic cycling event that the French are famous for? Nope. The Lance Armstrong Open.
Q: How does a French soldier surrender?
A: He bends over.,
Here’s how the testing of Armstrong’s blood doping went down:
I. Take Samples that aren’t legitimate
L’Equipe’s investigation was based on the second set of two samples used in doping tests. The first set were used in 1999 for analysis at the time. Without those samples, any disciplinary action against Armstrong would be impossible, French Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said.
Lamour said he was forced to have doubts about L’Equipe’s report because he had not seen the originals of some of the documents that appeared in the paper
II. Take Samples without Identification (Good One)
Separately, the lab said it could not confirm that the positive results were Armstrong’s. It noted that the samples were anonymous, bearing only a six-digit number to identify the rider, and could not be matched with the name of any one cyclist.
However, L’Equipe said it was able to make the match.
* Ok. I believe you.
III. Perform Testing by Biased/Unobjective People
L’Equipe is owned by the Amaury Group whose subsidiary, Amaury Sport Organization, organizes the Tour de France and other sporting events. The paper often questioned Armstrong’s clean record and frequently took jabs at him – portraying him as too arrogant, too corporate and too good to be real.
“Never to such an extent, probably, has the departure of a champion been welcomed with such widespread relief,” the paper griped the day after Armstrong won his seventh straight Tour win and retired from cycling.
* Probably wouldn’t lie to prove anything would you?
—————————-
The truth is this. The TOUR didn’t have any serious drug testing policies in place until 2001. If anyone should be ran through the criticism machine it should be Jean-Marie Leblanc who couldn’t institute a policy to keep his sport clean.
You hate Armstrong? Fine.
You want to drug test? Excellent.
You want to look back 6 years ago at unmarked urine samples and have the process performed by a biased unobjective news outlet? Deplorable.
———————
“FrenchMAN” is an oxymoron.”
5 replies on “France Sucks”
Way to generalize… I hate to squabble with fellow Philly fans, but where do you get off bashing an entire country for the work of one independent newspaper? Of course the report originated in France, they’re the only ones who COULD be testing for this kind of nonsense given that it’s their competition.
You said yourself that the French athletic minister has doubts as to the legitimacy of the report, and Armstrong has more than his fair share of French supporters – so why go off on a diatribe about how cowardly and awful an entire country is? If you want to vilify someone, vilify L’Equipe, and no one else. As you point out, their methods are flawed, so rip them a new one and keep France itself out of this mix.
Keep blind chauvinism and xenophobia out of your sports reporting, because then you’re no better than the supposed evil Frenchmen who you so readily accuse.
I hear you RussianBear Despite BP’s xenophobia, he raises some interesting points about the alleged drug testing. I would’ve gone about it differently but… I’m not in the business of censoring.
boring article… that’s why i voted against
I agree with your comments. I just wanted to write a bashing piece.
i love it. and i like the bashing…. plus.. how can you beleive any aligations based on 6 year old frozen urine.