RON RAPOPORT: Well, he comes from Farmersburg, Pennsylvania, a
Mennonite upbringing, no radio, no television, no alcohol, no caffeine.
Jeffrey, when he first started riding, his parents had him ride in
sweat pants because they thought shorts were unbecoming.
======================
Umm....That's Farmersville, not "Farmersburg". PBS should have added
another (sic) to the transcript of Rapoport.
===========================
But, Jeffrey, I've got to tell you that this is the most drug-addled
sport there is, and it's not going to be long before somebody accuses
Floyd Norris (sic) of having taken drugs just the way they accuse Lance
Armstrong and everybody else who's ever won the Tour de France.
RON RAPOPORT: Well, it's a nice July coincidence, but they're certainly
very different, aren't they? Here you have Floyd Norris (sic), who I
would wager that very few people outside of the sport of cycling knew
his name a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports/july-dec06/victory_07-24.html
JEFFREY BROWN: Two Americans, two countries, two sports, and two big
victories. We begin in France.
After years of cycling domination by Lance Armstrong, there was a new
American in Paris, when Floyd Landis crossed the finish line yesterday
to win his first Tour de France.
FLOYD LANDIS, Tour de France Champion: Thank you, everybody who kept
believing. And most of all, my team, when things weren't going so well,
they kept fighting and never stopped believing.
JEFFREY BROWN: It was a victory that almost wasn't. After a disastrous
ride on Wednesday dropped Landis to 11th place, eight minutes behind
Spaniard Oscar Pereiro, he made most of the time back with a remarkable
climb through the Alps on Thursday.
ANNOUNCER: Floyd Landis will win the Tour de France.
JEFFREY BROWN: In the end, Landis won the grueling tour, three weeks
and 2,257 miles, by a mere 57 seconds and brought a more positive kind
of excitement to a race that began with a doping scandal that
eliminated several top contenders.
Adding to the feat, the 30-year-old Pennsylvania native had suffered a
hip injury from a crash several years ago and will undergo replacement
surgery this fall.
FLOYD LANDIS: I don't feel like my life was a failure if I didn't win a
race, but it was a dream. And I would be extremely disappointed if that
was taken away by an unfortunate accident.
JEFFREY BROWN: Landis became the third American to win the tour.
The comeback kid
JEFFREY BROWN: And with us is Ron Rapoport, sportswriter and regular
commentator for National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition."
Ron, the tour's director called Landis' big comeback ride on Thursday
"the best performance in the modern history of the tour." That's pretty
high praise.
RON RAPOPORT, Sports Writer: Kind of gets your attention, Jeffrey,
doesn't it, I imagine, saying a thing like that?
You know what I think though, part of it has to do with the fact that
Landis had done so badly on one day and then he has one of this great,
great days that they're calling the greatest in the history of circling
the very next. Now, that's the kind of performance everybody can get
behind, being awful one day and great the next. It's sort of instant
redemption.
And I've got to tell you that I think there's another reason they're so
excited, and that was, before the race began, there was this incredible
indictment of drug use in that sport. And here is a sport that people
really only pay attention to one week a year, and they're just getting
ready for their big moment, and all of a sudden all anybody wants to
talk about is drugs.
Along comes Landis. He has this wonderful victory, very exciting, and
all of a sudden everybody is feeling good about bicycle racing again.
So no wonder they're a little excited, I think.
JEFFREY BROWN: Tell us a little bit more about Floyd Landis and his
background?
RON RAPOPORT: Well, he comes from Farmersburg, Pennsylvania, a
Mennonite upbringing, no radio, no television, no alcohol, no caffeine.
Jeffrey, when he first started riding, his parents had him ride in
sweat pants because they thought shorts were unbecoming.
And to get into this kind of level, he literally had to run away from
home, go to California, and start riding seriously. Now, his parents
weren't very happy about it. They've gotten back together, and they're
all one big, happy family now.
But not everybody in the community where he grew up is excited about
it. They think that there's too much emphasis on the individual nature
of the victory. It's not the kind of thing that he's been taught, and
so there is a lot of getting used to what this all means in
Farmersburg.
JEFFREY BROWN: Now, doing all this with this hip injury that I
mentioned seems all the more remarkable. Do you know to what extent, if
any, it affects his riding? And what's the talk about whether he's
going to be able to come back after this and compete at this level?
RON RAPOPORT: Well, I think he put off the hip replacement surgery that
he needs so he could ride in this race, so obviously he made a
calculated decision. But you're right: He's had three four-inch screws
inserted into his hip after the crash.
And he told his mother that lately -- he told reporters -- that he told
his mother lately the screws are pushing against bone and muscle. So
this is a young man in need of a serious operation. And it's a real
testament to his ability to ride this way with that kind of injury, you
bet.
JEFFREY BROWN: And what about another American winning there in Paris
in France's great race? Is there any, oh, I don't know, resentment
building?
RON RAPOPORT: I don't think so. You know, this is something different.
Lance Armstrong was such a machine when he won these races, it was sort
of a given, where as Norris (sic), you know, had this bad time and this
good time. And everybody kind of really is enjoying the way he won the
race.
But, Jeffrey, I've got to tell you that this is the most drug-addled
sport there is, and it's not going to be long before somebody accuses
Floyd Norris (sic) of having taken drugs just the way they accuse Lance
Armstrong and everybody else who's ever won the Tour de France.
You wait and see. He's going to be facing some of the same charges,
too. It's just the nature of bicycle racing at this level, I'm afraid.
An emotional win on the greens
JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Well, let's now move to our other big sports
story. This one was just across the English Channel.
With this last short putt for par, Tiger Woods won his third British
Open Sunday.
ANNOUNCER: Tiger Woods is back in the winner's circle at the majors!
JEFFREY BROWN: It was his 11th major golf championship, but an
especially emotional one for the 30-year-old, his first since the death
of his father, Earl Woods, to cancer nearly three months ago.
TIGER WOODS, Golfer: I guess it's a bunch of emotions that came pouring
out from what we've had to deal with as a family. And some of those
things, I just wish, you know, Dad could have been here.
JEFFREY BROWN: Just last month, Woods had suffered an embarrassing
elimination at the U.S. Open. But in Britain, on a course just outside
Liverpool, Woods led most of the way, playing steadily with few
mistakes and brilliant shots along the way.
Woods became the first golfer in nearly a quarter-century to win
back-to-back British Opens.
Winning for his father and himself
JEFFREY BROWN: Now, Ron, Tiger Woods is a famously cool customer, so a
little unusual to see him break down like that.
RON RAPOPORT: Well, Jeffrey, we saw something we've seen many times
before, Tiger Woods winning a major golf tournament in just a ruthless,
relentless fashion. And we've seen something we never saw before:
breaking down and crying.
Not shedding a tear, not at the emotion of it all, not just, "You know,
thank you, Dad, and so on," but wracking, relentless kinds of sobs as
he collapsed into the arms of, first, his caddy and then his wife.
That's something we've never seen before, because Tiger has always been
in such control of his game on the golf course and his emotions off it,
and to see him react this way was really quite a remarkable sight, I
think.
JEFFREY BROWN: Tell us about this relentless nature of his game.
Because that is the one, that is the way he won this one, the way he's
won others, with that steady kind of wearing-everybody-down approach,
right?
RON RAPOPORT: Well, it's more than that, really. I mean, on the 13th
hole, Chris DiMarco made a birdie to get within one hole of -- within
one shot of Tiger. And now we're on the back nine of a major golf
tournament, which is a time when champions famously come undone, when
championships are lost as often as they are won.
We only have to think back to what Phil Mickelson did at the Masters,
the way he simply just blew it on the last few holes. Tiger's response
to DiMarco's birdie coming within one stroke? He just birdied the 14th,
birdied the 15th, had a three-shot lead with three holes to go, and
said, "See you later."
I mean, it was just vintage Tiger. Remarkable that he could just turn
it on at that moment and turn a close golf tournament into a victory
march for himself.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, in fact, it was, as we said in our set-up, it was
just a month ago that he failed to make the cut at the U.S. Open, which
was remarkable in itself. Every golfer I know talks as much about the
psychology as anything else of the game. How does he turn it around so
quickly?
RON RAPOPORT: Well, Tiger's just a very, very focused individual. I
haven't seen anybody since Michael Jordan who could exert that kind of
force of will, determine what needed to be done, and then just go out
and do it.
And, yes, he didn't make the cut at the Open, and he didn't win the
Masters, but golf is a game of losing. Golf is a game that the greatest
champions, Tiger included, lose more often than they win. And yet here
he is. He just came back a month later after not making the cut at the
Open, and he just made this tournament his own.
It was just a remarkable expression of that force of will that he
exhibits like no other athlete on the stage today.
A good month for American athletes
JEFFREY BROWN: So two victories yesterday, put them together. Do you
see any common thread or is it just a nice July coincidence?
RON RAPOPORT: Well, it's a nice July coincidence, but they're certainly
very different, aren't they? Here you have Floyd Norris (sic), who I
would wager that very few people outside of the sport of cycling knew
his name a couple of weeks ago.
And he comes up with this very exciting, up and down, thrilling coming
back from the brink with this wonderful one-day performance victory.
And here you have Tiger doing what he's done so many times, in the same
relentless, ruthless fashion, and just taking another tournament and
making it his own. It was a remarkable thing to see.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Ron Rapoport, thanks for walking us through
it.
RON RAPOPORT: Thank you, Jeffrey. Good to be with you.
Howard Kveck said:I was listening to Newshour on the way home today and they had a segment where
the host (Jeffery Brown) talked about the two big American victories in Europe on
the weekend. The Tiger Woods part didn't really interest me much, but the section on
the Tour de France was, ummm, interesting. They had a guy called Ron Rappaport as
the "expert," and about halfway through he started calling Floyd Landis "Norris."
Eh? But one of the first things out of his mouth was this: he described cycling as
"a sport that people only pay attention to for one week a year." Perhaps for the
most part he's right, but it really made it seem obvious what he thought about the
whole thing. He also said, "I gotta tell ya, this is the most drug-addled sport
there is." Okay, we know there's drugs and other enhancements in use. No denying
that. But you'd think he might realize that cycling is also the sport that's been
most public with its drug issues. MLB just keeps its head in the sand about it, as
do most other sports, hence no big public perception of drug problems.
--
tanx,
Howard
Never take a tenant with a monkey.
remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
