You can easily identify them with their irrational criticism of Lance Armstrong. I've been dealing
with such people for the last little while, and it's been sort of amusing to counter every single
one of their arguments, but it's gotten tiresome and even dangerous recently.
The subject is usually introduced by the use of the term "The American" to describe Armstrong.
Once, I responded with: "You think Tyler Hamilton will win," but the guy didn't understand me,
because I used the English pronounciation. This is actually important, because if you, at any
time, use American pronounciation for an American name, e.g., Richard Gere (hard "g", the French
use the soft "j" pronounciation, one famous 'serious' journalist, Cristine Ockrent, was surprised
that Gere walked out of her interview, saying that maybe he was annoyed at the fact that she
didn't use their pronounciation, apparently is pronounced with a hard g over there), then you are
for all time considered American, in the sense that you have all their values, you have no ties to
France, etc., etc.
Then the person will usually try to imply that Armstrong is doped up due to his cancer, one guy
continually used the annoying term "robocop" when referring to Armstrong. Of course they have no
evidence to back this up. The weirdest thing about this is that these people also worship Richard
Virenque, doper #1 who was the object of ridicule on French TV for the whole of 1998-99. I suppose
that they would defend their stance by saying that Virenque finally admitted his sins, but what
about Jalabert then?
Yesterday was particularly bad, because I almost ended up getting beaten up by an ex-racer who was
singularly anti-Armstrong. Consistent with his middle age, his hero was Hinault, whom he claimed was
better than Armstrong, because he could have won a 6th Tour, if it wasn't for his promise to
teammate Greg Lemond. I responded by saying that Hinault could have won 4 tours if he wasn't
teammates with Greg Lemond, and later asked him why Hinault attacked Lemond at the end of the 86
Tour if he was so true to his word. He responded by saying that Armstrong had hired Heras to prevent
him from winning the Tour, and I pointed out that in the 2002 Tour, Heras rode a total of about 5km
for Armstrong, and the rest of the time was on his wheel. About this time, he started telling me I
was "a real American", and things started degenerating. The weirdest part about this is that he was
riding a Cannondale. Oh, I think the problems started when he mentioned that he had done the
centenary parade on the Champs Elysees as 1961 Anquetil winner, and I told him that if I had been
him, I would have started racing with some other winner, e.g., Hinault, and it dawned on him that I
could think up something he couldn't...
Another time, some guy, also an ex high category racer, told me his cancer was due to doping, and I
explained to him that there can be no way to assert this, so he just had to take it, especially
given the fact that I was the one who had written papers on probability theory, so knew what I was
talking about.
So, I always end up winning the arguments, but there was an interesting twist today. I once went to
my wife's workplace and one of her colleagues is the bike fan who called Armstrong "that American."
Anyway, since I shut him up with my correct argumentation, he had to take it out on her when I
wasn't around. Of course, Armstrong was doped. His explanation: since he only has one testicle, he
gets extra testosterone shots, with medical consent. Of course, he doesn't know that the only rider
with legal above legal testosterone is Botero, but I wasn't around to point that out. He also said
that the reason that Armstrong can't stand the heat is that this is a symptom of people undergoing
hormone treatments. Armstrong won the 2002 Dauphine Libere in extreme heat in a lone breakaway, but
I wasn't around to point that out either. Then he said that he thought that Ullrich was really
great, but this time my wife had the presence of mind to point out that it was Ullrich who tested
positive and got fired from his team. Needless to say, Richard Virenque is his hero.
This even came out on Television. Every morning during the Tour, people can ask questions to a
celebrity, and one time it was Jean-Marie Leblanc who was asked by some woman: "Can anyone stop this
diabolical Armstrong?" Well, he didn't beat around the bush and immediately jumped on the word
"diabolical" by saying: "surely, you can't mean that in a negative sense. Armstrong is the hardest
working rider in bike racing, has the most rigorous training methods, etc." I guess that in his
position, he has to deal with these morons all the time.
-ilan