IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TRACKING THE GREAT LANCE ARMSTRONG'S TRIALS AT THE TOUR, here a brief update on the not-so-noble Europeans via John @ Inside Europe: Iberian Notes
Lance Armstrong has been taking an incredible amount of abuse this week. As you might have seen, the crowds along the roads have been enormous, barely leaving enough room for the cyclists, and Armstrong publicly blasted Tour management for poor security, saying he was afraid when riding through crowds of aggressive drunken Basque supporters and that he was more disgusted than anything else at the behavior of many drunken German fans. He criticized the record level of poor sportsmanship directed his way, saying he'd never seen it in cycle racing before: he's constantly spit on, insulted, and threatened. Chechu Rubiera, one of Lance's Spanish teammates, said he'd never seen anything like it, either, and that the crowd insults him merely because he's a member of the US Postal team. When Armstrong won yesterday, he was greeted with an enormous chorus of boos and whistles; seems that people, including the incredibly prejudiced Spanish announcers, thought he was arrogant or something for winning three stages in a row. What should he have done, ride less than his best? Throw the race? Let somebody else win? If I were Lance, I'd go out of my way to rip their balls off tomorrow at the individual time trial just to piss them off. I just hope nobody sticks a knife into him.Not to worry, they're probably saving that move up for the Olympics. Posted by Vanderleun at July 24, 2004 10:49 PM
Let's hope they'll save it up.
Wikipedia (link under my name) has this on Eddy Merckx:
He won the Tour de France five times.
In 1975, he attempted to win his sixth Tour de France, but became a victim of violence in sports. A Belgian beating the record of 5 wins set by Frenchman Jacques Anquetil did not sit well with non athletic French spectators. He held the yellow jersey for 8 days, which brought his record to 95, but on stage 14 a spectator leapt from the crowd and punched him in the kidneys. He kept racing with a double fracture and took medications. The pain in combination with the medicine caused him to fall during the race and shake the scafolding on the podium. He eventually soon ran out of energy and lost his lead but on the last stage he showed one last sign of defiance by sprinting ahead of the peleton. He would never win the Tour de France again.
Posted by: Jim B at July 25, 2004 12:10 AMIt's British "soccer yobs" who are known worldwide for the propensity to turn a soccer match into a riot.
It was a German who knifed Monica Seles, who at that time had some prospect of becoming the best women's tennis player the world had ever known.
It's the French, Belgian and Spanish spectators along the Tour De France who've abused Lance Armstrong, American athlete, for having the temerity to beat them at their own game.
The lowest of the "bleacher creatures" at a New York Rangers' hockey game would never behave as poorly as this, especially toward someone whose achievements he could never match.
Yet there are people who baldly claim that America's first foreign-policy priority should be to regain Europe's good opinion.
In my arrogant American opinion, Europe had better kneel before us and humbly beg our pardon PDQ, before we get really pissed off.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at July 25, 2004 4:43 AMRipping balls off may be closer to the truth than intended.
Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at July 25, 2004 7:28 AMAll this after he tried to placate the crowds by saying that the U.S. should not have gone to war without European support, but I doubt this had anything to do with international politics.
The French, Germans and Spanish are just poor losers, thats with a big L O S E R S.
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