Armstrong responds to Tour chief's sly shot at him

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...x.html?cnn=yes

The Fraunch will never get over the fact that a good ol boy from texas with only one nut kicked thier sorry arses for 7 years straight. It's amazing the depths they will go to try and belittle Lance.

GO LANCE

LeBlanc needs to be more professional.

Funny thing here. After the French were found to be in secret cahoots with Iraq during the nuclear weapons dispute Snelgrove's Ice-Cream changed the name of their French Vanilla to America's Vanilla and colored it red white and blue.

I'm sad to say this of anyone but, the French seem to me to deserve it.

Old link but I think is still works

It's easy for somebody to allege Lance used dope. It's impossible for Lance to prove he didn't.

But what Peter says about Paul usually tells us more about Peter than Paul.

Interesting drop in at the bottom...the favorties are Jan, Basso, Valverde, and Landis because the route favors climbers.

Certainly Ivan and Jan belong on the list. Valverde? Maybe but still a little young. Floyd? Doubtful.

Most of the time I think the guys who cover these stories actually know very little about cycling.

Yeah and there was a story on VeloNews today saying Landis will prepare for the Tour by racing the Giro, which seems like a bad idea to me. He won't even make it on the podium.

Basso, for a guy who raced the Giro just a few weeks before le Tour, did amazingly well in 2005... but I don't see a way ANYBODY could race two twenty stage races in a row and win the second race.

Considering how Basso dominated the Giro up until and then after he developed stomach problems I definitely wouldn't put it past him to podium for both tours. I think he's the odds on favorite for the win in July.

Mark

In my opinion, this was a really low blow. This was about the freaking route presentation, there was no need to make comments about whether Lance did or didn't use drugs. He's retired now, it's over, and there's no need for uncalled for criticism like this. I love lance, but i'm also not blind. i regcognize that he may have used drugs, but damn, there was absolutely no need to try and soil his reputation.

I find this quote from Johan Bruyneel particularly interesting regarding possible French jealousy:

"When I think back on all that, it's been the same scenario for them for years. A French rider hasn't won the Tour in 20 years. Why? Simple, they haven't been good enough. And then you see the final ProTour standings and notice there were four Americans in the top 10 (Armstrong, 5th; Levi Leipheimer, 7th; Bobby Julich, 9th; George Hincapie, 10th) and for the French, they had four riders in the top 100 (David Moncoutié, 30th; Anthony Geslin, 62nd; Christophe Moreau, 79th; Laurent Brochard, 84th). That's the facts. It's nothing more than that. I realize it's frustrating for them."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...ct05/oct28news

It's a bunch of sour grapes from a bunch of idiots. Don't blame all the French though anymore than you can blame all Americans for George W.

EXCELLENT POINT!^^^

we'll see what happens with cheney and bush with "indictment" in the next couple of weeks...im hoping for impeachment :D

I think the some of the boys who posted on this are just crazy ! How does this years race profile not favor Jan. Point number one NO TEAM TIME TRIAL in the past the "TTT" has caused big problems for Jan on the "GC" due to a poor team work and organization . Second the the "TT's" are much longer then the have been in the past both are over 50K If my memory serves me well . These long "TT's" are much better suited to the big German then Ivan Basso . Third most of the big mountain stages are in the last week of the Tour were we often see Jan come into his own and Ivan seems lose form as the tour draws to a close . Just what I was thinking