RockyMtnMerlin

13 out of the last 14 posts were spot on.
WHOOOSSHHH was half right. That half was denigrated by the other half. I was on U.S. Navy ships that made several port visits to France in the 20 yrs in the Navy and was treated very well. I have also been there on vacation and other "semi-official" visits (I can't say more). I found that the French treated me as well as I treated them - very well indeed.

patentcad

So you think xebras aren't scary?

But they are. They're like striped ponies. That's totally F'd.

Fat Boy

My experiences from Belgium and Holland was a little different. My friends and I were mostly ignored. Not really treated poorly, and not really welcomed, either. Just sort of a cordial, business-like conversations.

There happened to be a couple bike teams doing some sort of training camp or something at the hotel I was staying at near Liege. I went out to check out the bikes as they cleaned them up, and couldn't have been more snubbed by the Belgian Mafia.

In Holland, I was at a sporting event in Assen where they sang the US national anthem. It couldn't have been sung worse. It was as much as a nationalistic insult as the Dutch could muster. You can youtube it if you want, it's bad enough people put it up there. Pretty chicken**** if you ask me. They wouldn't have gotten the such poor treatment here. The Dutch people that I have know for years were ashamed.

mollusk

Kind of a "Yer not from around here, are you" thing. I've gotten that some places overseas but a lot more in the good old USA. I think that it must be fear of zebras.

Fat Boy

Can you help me out with this one? Certainly there were some French that fought with the American colonial troops, probably Lafayette is the best known. The French financed a large portion of our Revolution, but they didn't put many men in the scrum that I'm aware of. If they did, it certainly was late in the game.

waterrockets 

+1 We'd be speaking English for ***-sake (you know, en-GB).

Check out The Battle of the Chesapeake.

Super Guanche

He left the tester's presence, which you don't do. I don't see why there should be one rule for Armstrong and one for everyone else.

patentcad

Why not?

kensuf

The AFLD doesn't need to "win", just hold everything up so Lance can't make the starting line in July.

kensuf

Reminds me of a trip to the Yucatan peninsula I took in '95. The wife and I went and did a tour group trip to Chichen Itza and there was a woman from Nebraska who kept pointing at the people living in palapa's while asking the tour operator "Why don't they just go get jobs?"

Duh.

There sure are lot's of dumb amerikuns out there that don't realize how good we've got it, and how different cultures/countries live..

Scummer

You're an idiot. I'm German *gasp*, don't speak a word French and haven't been killed by the French on my 2 cycling trips I took through southern France. They are friendly folks just like every other population on this planet.

By your logic they should have hated my guts.

Brian Ratliff

The way I understand it, we (the Americans) were pushing back the Britons before the French troops got involved. However, without the French navy and troops, I think the English would have just sailed in a new army to replace their tired and worn out one and we would have been f-ed. Late in the game it may have been, but as I understand, decisive. Like our involvement in WWI.

bdcheung

glad to see we've managed to keep this relevant to road bike racing.

gsteinb

They canceled the tour during the great war... it's a six degrees kind of thing.

Racer Ex 

Might be prudent not to take Lance's comments as absolute fact. He's been known to spin a yarn now and again.

Count Rochambeau had over 6,000 ground troops alone.

Colonialists were not manning French naval vessels, which were crucial in turning the war in our favor. The French Navy also kept a large portion of the British naval forces busy in other parts of the new world, rather than allowing them to focus strictly on the revolutionary war.

As far as being cowards, they did lose a couple of million people in the two great wars, so it wasn't like they were sitting around eating cheese waiting for us to come take care of them. You'd think that despite an appalling lack of historical knowledge on the part of much of our citizenry the phrase "French Resistance" would have come up once or twice.

Me, I think we ought to give back the Statue of Liberty.

unterhausen

You can always add someone to your ignore list. Although if a person is this out of touch with reality, it doesn't annoy too much.

Duke of Kent

Of course.

But here's the only thing that matters:

Until the tester's identity can be proven, he has no authority to conduct a test. So until that time when the tester is officially confirmed by the UCI/WADA/AFLD, LA has every right to leave his presence.

I wouldn't give any hair/blood/urine samples to someone without proper identification, would you? Whether or not he has something to hide is irrelevant; he's not obligated to provide anything to anyone without the proper level of authority.

RockyMtnMerlin

True enough. On, the other hand, as stated above Lance knows people are gunning for him and he should have erred on the side of caution and remained within sight until the guy's identity was established.
edit - Unless Lance and team were intentionally making a point about a lab coming to test him.

HigherGround

The stories between Lance and the tester seem to be just one person's word against another's. However, if the part that I put in bold text above is true, it sounds like the AFLD is changing their story after the fact. I hope, for Lance's sake, that he received a copy of that report at the time; that would be his best defense.

I wonder if the tester was OK with how the testing took place, later discussed it with other officials from the AFLD, and then someone else higher up the food chain had a fit about Lance leaving before the tests were conducted?

RockyMtnMerlin

I had the same exact thought.

Brian Ratliff

That's a good point. If the guy didn't have his creds in order when he approached Lance, then Lance is under no obligation to follow protocol until the creds are established. Fire the tester, add another unscheduled test to Lance's schedule, and call it good.

And think if it had been an obsessed fan. Would Lance get any portion of the ebay sale of his hair, blood, and urine?

Racer Ex 

Authority to test comes from French law. You (and Pat McQuaid) are incorrect. Until the testee can prove that the tester is not authorized, he/she is obligated to remain in their presence or deal with the consequences. Otherwise athletes just wander off whenever a tester shows up saying they didn't prove who they were or thought they were fakes while their DS makes 20 minutes worth of phone calls.

The tester presented his ID and paperwork. That wasn't enough for Lance, who claims the paperwork wasn't "impressive" and says he and Johan had no idea the French authorities had the right to test (he uses "french lab" instead of AFLD which is the French equivalent to WADA). Then he went and took a shower while Johan made his phone calls.

All in all for "the most tested man on the planet" who has been racing in France for a little while, he seems a bit obtuse about testing authorities and protocol, as does Johan.

wfrogge

Why do you hate America?

Racer Ex 

I owned a 1968 Dodge Dart.

bdcheung

https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/othe...ng/7993738.stm

UCI chimes in on the AFLD-Armstrong debacle.

McQuaid says, ""The French are not acting very professionally in this case"