Vive Le Lance!
I don’t really agree that The Tour de France is “antithetical to the American character,” but the lack of national interest surrounding Lance Armstrong and his most recent Tour de France battle has been a little annoying. Highlights from critical race stages would be buried on major news sites, even displayed below stories about sports that aren’t yet in season. Even in Austin, Lance’s hometown, you may see a few banners on downtown buildings, but it’s not like the city was on pins and needles as Germany’s Jan Ullrich came within seconds of preventing Lance’s fifth straight victory. I’m certainly guilty of not keeping up with the tour as much as I could have. In fact, I only actually watched race footage one time, although I could never really figure out when it was on TV.
One thing I’ve appreciated about Lance is his candid responses to questions or his frank assessments of his performance. “I’d rather be lucky than good,” he noted after a crash cracked his bike’s frame, but held up. Lance’s perspective on his victory: “Physically I have not been super; tactically I have made some bad mistakes. My level this year was not acceptable.” Some of the things he said during the past few weeks almost sounded like he was prepared for defeat. But he summoned the will to get past a stomach virus, tendinitis in his hip, and two crashes and win the race. Sally Jenkins, a co-author of a few of his autobiographies, says that she admires his willingess to show weaknesses and imperfections. “To this day, the picture on his driver’s license is the one he had taken during chemo, in which he is bald and has no eyebrows. He has a fundamental lack of vanity that I suppose is a result of having been so exposed during his illness, of having his organs, his chest, abdomen, brain and his very bones X-rayed and held up on light tables. Those scans were the pictures of a weak and ailing man: He was scarred up in places and missing a thing or two. When he recovered from the illness, some essential reserve was gone as well.”
July 27th, 2003
