Richard Adams <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
[quote="Quoted message"]
B. Lafferty said:As translated from AFP.
[s]
Quoted message said:
"I was protecting the interest of the peloton," said Armstrong.
[s]
Quoted message said:Armstrong later insisted he'd had the support of the peloton: "When I came
back I had a lot of people patting me on the back.
"I was protecting the interests of the peloton. The other riders were very
thankful," he said before claiming that the real problem lies with Simeoni,
and journalists who don't do their job properly.
"I don't want to make it a bigger story than it is. The problem with
journalism is that you guys don't research the story.
"Simeoni - there is a long story there. All they want to write about is part
of the story. All he wants to do is destroy cycling, destroy the sport that
pays him.
"When I went back top the group I can't say how many riders said thank you
very much.
"They understand that it is their job, and they don't want somebody from
within destroy it," added Armstrong.
[s]
Does sound a bit like sharing the blame with the committee. Personnally
I think what was done here more negatively reflects on cycling than
letting Simeoni go with the break. It appears petty and bullying to me.[/quote]
Ohh come on does this sound petty and bullying to you?
Armstrong Hunts Down Rider
Opinion: Personal disputes mar Armstrong's perfect Tour.
By Joe Lindsey, Contributing Writer
July 23, 2004
©AFP/Getty
What does it mean to be a patron of the Tour de France?
Is a patron simply the strongest rider of his era, or is there
something more? In the true sense of the word, there is. A patron is
not just a champion, but a godfather of sorts, a man who can dictate
the moods and mores of the peloton, who can turn even a seemingly
meaningless stage to his end. Typically, it is also a benefactor of
sorts, a man whose magnanimity can elevate the dignity of the sport
through observation of its most time-honored precepts, key among them
sportsmanship.
We saw a patron on Tour today, but it was not a benevolent one.
Instead, the ugliest side broke out of the race's grandest champion
today when Lance Armstrong bolted out of the pack to join Filippo
Simeoni, who had just before broken free himself in an attempt to
bridge up to the break.
On reaching the six-rider move, Simeoni said Armstrong looked over at
him and smirked, "Bravo. Nice move." When Jose Vicente Garcia Acosta
pleaded with Armstrong to drop back and let the break have an honest
chance to continue, Armstrong reportedly told them he would gladly do
that, under one condition: Simeoni was not to continue in the break,
either. Faced with the choice of sinking the chances of six riders or
his own, Simeoni drifted back to the pack, accompanied by Armstrong.
In between, the two riders talked, with Armstrong even briefly placing
his hand on Simeoni's shoulder. "Armstrong and I spoke as the peloton
was catching us but I prefer not to say what he said," Simeoni told
BICYCLING's European Correspondent, James Startt, at the finish of
stage 18. "It was too serious." Once back in the field, Armstrong
spoke and laughed with numerous riders and at one point made the sign
of zipping lips.
Simeoni is one of cycling's most anonymous riders. In an 11-year
career he has had just one significant win, a stage of the 2000 Regio
Tour, and as a career gregario, or helper, he has done little to
distinguish himself good or bad. But two years ago Simeoni hurled
himself into a most unwelcome and glaring spotlight when he became a
key witness in the ongoing trial of Doctor Michele Ferrari, a by-turns
acclaimed and notorious physician, who was being tried in the Italian
province of Bologna for sporting fraud. Armstrong had publicly
disclosed only months earlier that he was one of Ferrari's clients.
In his testimony before the Bologna court on February 12, 2002,
Simeoni described how Ferrari showed him how to use the banned red
blood cell booster EPO more effectively. Ferrari denied the charges,
but Armstrong, in a carefully prepared interview broadcast on RAI TV
in Italy on the eve of that year's Milan-San Remo World Cup opener,
said that Simeoni had lied. He repeated the claim in an article in Le
Monde in April 2003, saying that Simeoni was "a compulsive liar" and
had doped long before meeting Ferrari.
In response, Simeoni decided to sue Armstrong for defamation, saying
Armstrong's comments had hurt his career. In a lengthy interview
published in the French sports daily l'Equipe during the first week of
this year's Tour de France, Simeoni said he had been unfairly singled
out by Armstrong. "[Lance] has tried to defend his own image vis-a-vis
Ferrari, but I've never accused Armstrong personally, I would never do
that," he said to the paper. The lawsuit, he said, was "not a question
of money. If I'm awarded money, I'll give it to charity."
Ferrari, who runs a coaching service called 53x12 and continues to
consult with Armstrong, should see his long-running and exhausting
case finally go to trial later this summer after more than two years
of preliminary hearings.
Although not the only cyclist to testify against Ferrari in court,
Simeoni is the only active cyclist. Fabrizio Convalle, winner of a
stage of the Tour of Italy in 1990, testified he had taken unknown
products provided by Ferrari and an amateur cyclist, Carlo Cobalcini,
said before the court that he paid Ferrari to treat him, treatments
that included procurement of EPO. But neither Convalle nor Cobalcini
are professional cyclists today. Axel Merckx and Gianluca Bortolami,
two other clients of Ferrari, failed to appear before the court
although their presence was requested.
Armstrong said today that he chased down Simeoni "to protect the
interests of the peloton." On the face of it, it seems a bit
disingenuous to suggest that attacking a rider who sat almost three
hours down on overall time and didn't figure in any of the superlative
jersey classifications was for the best. But Armstrong wasn't
referring to the race.
"All he wants to do is destroy cycling, destroy the sport that pays
him," Armstrong said of the reason for his actions. In his phrasing,
Armstrong--intentionally or not--recalled Greg LeMond's statement last
week, when the three-time winner said in an interview with a French
newspaper, "The problem with Armstrong is that you're either a liar or
you're out to destroy cycling," speaking of how Armstrong deals with
riders who allege that doping in the sport is widespread.
"When I went back to the group I can't say how many riders said thank
you very much," said Armstrong of the reception given him by the other
riders. "[Simeoni] is not a rider that the peloton likes to be up
front because all he does is attack the peloton and say bad things
about other riders and the group in general." That may be, but the
peloton was content enough on Stage 9 to let Simeoni get 10 minutes up
the road at one point with Euskaltel's Inigo Landaluze. The pair were
caught just 100 meters before the stage finish, but not because of any
particular animosity toward either rider; there were important sprint
points on offer. As well, Postal did no work to bring back the pair
and Armstrong, if he was perturbed by the events, showed no sign of
it. Nine stages later, it was a different story.
Simeoni, though, has suffered since he testified. Rupert Guinness, the
veteran Australian journalist who covers the sport for various
publications, wrote in his story on VeloNews.com that Domina Vacanze
team leader Mario Cipollini didn't want Simeoni on the Tour team,
according to DV director Vincenzo Santoni.
Santoni didn't seem impressed with Cipollini or how Simeoni was
treated by some riders when he did drift back from the break, and
defended his rider to Italian RAI TV.
"We had to plead with to stay in the race," Guinness quotes Santoni as
saying. "He is someone who makes sacrifices for the team."
Further defending his actions, Armstrong said that part of the problem
lies with the press. "The problem with journalism is that you guys
don't research the story. Simeoni - there is a long story there. All
they want to write about is part of the story."
Simeoni had doped before he worked with Ferrari; Simeoni admits it
himself. And he won a reduction of his sentence in exchange for his
testimony, from two years to six months and, eventually to four on the
decision of the Court for Arbitration in Sport. He is certainly no
angel, and his testimony should be examined with the same scrutiny and
care as that of any other material witness to such an important case.
But Armstrong declined to say what else might remain in the full
story.
He seems mystified that anyone could question his relationship with
Ferrari, despite the fact that doping allegations have dogged Ferrari
since at least 1996, when Sandro Donati, who blew the lid off EPO use
in pro cycling with a firebomb of a report that implicated Ferrari's
mentor, Francesco Conconi, testified against Ferrari in one of the
good doctor's first doping trials.
On Friday, Armstrong took a needless risk to emphasize a personal
point. Laurent Jalabert, now retired, wrote on his diary on the Tour
web site that in his opinion Armstrong had gone up the road to send
Simeoni a message: "You'll never win a race again."
And Armstrong's seemingly self-satisfied air on returning to the
peloton--the "zip the lips" gesture and so on--seems to back up that
premise, whatever his comment about looking out for the peloton
(which, probably, can look out quite well for itself). But what does
Armstrong really gain from publicly pursuing such an ugly agenda?
Armstrong's comment that other riders supported him is ugly as well.
For one, it underlines that cycling still has an omerta, or a code of
silence. While the rider's union might be a laughable one from the
standpoint of labor relations with team management or the UCI, it
clearly enforces rigid conformist behavior among its own. Simeoni's
ostracization is just another sad chapter in a book that includes
sections on Jesus Manzano, Christophe Bassons, Jerome Chiotti, Paul
Kimmage and any other pro cyclist who has the temerity to say publicly
that not only did he dope, but others do too, even if no names are
used.
Simeoni will very likely not be a professional cyclist next year. He
has, after all, bit the hand that fed him, [censored] the world's most
powerful cyclist and appears to have few allies in his court. Perhaps
he can get a ride with Amore e Vita, the controversial Italian team
which is known for throwing last-chance contracts at reformed dopers
(last week, they offered just such a gig to David Millar, who was
sacked by his Cofidis team).
Bike racing will probably always have doping of some kind, and there
will be many riders, even clean ones, who want to protect their
earning power ignoring its problems, saying "we do more than anyone to
combat doping," and so on.
But this issue speaks to something else besides the sport's unhealthy
little addiction; it speaks to Armstrong. What does it take for this
man to be satisfied? And how are we, fans of the sport, to reconcile
two utterly adverse sides of a champion? How can a man who has stared
death in the face, who knows the value of his own wonderful life and
has shown such remarkable, limitless and genuine compassion to his
fellow cancer survivors, be so needlessly petty? From here, it looks
like hate, pure and simple.
Armstrong now has six Tours, $16 million plus a year, Sheryl freaking
Crow, his incredible benefit to the sport and to the cancer community
and the adoration of millions of fans. Is that success so
insubstantial that he must go out of his way to make someone else
fail?
It's a sad epitaph to what should have been a perfect Tour for
Armstrong, one where his dominant performance and sublime form
confirmed him as the best racer of his era, and one of the best of all
time.
I wrote weeks ago that Lance Armstrong had two sides--the public
Armstrong you see on television and in his books, and a colder,
spiteful one that is largely private. I wrote that if Armstrong lost
this Tour de France that we might see that the private one was more
his true self.
Ironically, it is instead while winning it that it has come to the
fore.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read more columns by Joe Lindsey.
