I don't want to hear about any asterisks with Lance Armstrong. I don't want to hear about would have beens and should have beens and could have beens. I just want to hear about this guy from Austin, Texas, coming back from testicular cancer, playing out a story for the ages. There is a magic here that should not be diluted in any way. An American, leading the Tour de France, is like a Russian leading major league baseball in home runs, like a North Korean knocking them dead in the NBA, like a Jamaican bobsled actually winning an Olympic gold medal.
Cycling is the quintissential European game.
The American has to give up home, hearth, Big Macs, fries and Top 40 radio simply to compete. The idea that this guy can come back from a life-threatening disease and three years later be hurtling up the Alps and down the Pyranees, wearing the yellow jersey, leading this race, this foreign event, is mind boggling. It is one of those inspirational sports moments that pops up every now and then to give all of us hope in whatever impossible situations we might face. There might be 100 storm clouds around this year's Tour, nasty stuff involving charges and counter charges, talk about growth hormones and pharmecutical advantages, but Lance Armstrong is peddaling right through them. Nothing should diminish his achievement.