Live and Let Live

I’m depressed now that I can’t watch Lance Armstrong ride every day in the Tour de France. It was truly a great performance, but more off the bike than on. His efforts to rebuild a number of burned bridges were especially laudable.

Lance seems even to have won over Christian Prudhomme, the general director of the Tour, who said recently that the French public embraced him because he suffered on this Tour as never before. He is now a “sportsman” in the grand French tradition. The only person who seems to hate Armstrong (beside his still-vocal legion of detractors) is Alberto Contador, who says he has nothing in common (“zero,” “totally incompatible”) with the American. Unfortunately for Alberto, the flies are now circling around him. Gred LeMond (who suspects everyone of cheating except himself) has implied that Contador’s climb on Verbier was fueled by drugs.

And so it goes. Our emotions make us crazy. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. I’m not sure why Greg has to say these things. I suppose he feels he’s making the world a safer, better place. But there’s no need. He came back from a shooting accident and debilitating illness to win the Tour twice after his initial victory in 1987. He put American cycling on the map. LeMond was (and is) a great champion, but the sad fact is that he seems to be the only person who doesn’t know it. Wouldn’t it be easier simply to live and let live, Greg?