Lance Armstrong concluded one of the greatest sports careers of all time in Paris on Sunday with an unprecedented 7th Tour de France victory. But according to France’s AFP wire, many suspicions remain regarding the possible use of banned substances in his rise to Cycling’s pinnacle. As a result, French officials have declined repeated international requests to consider renaming the event Tour de Lance. (Looks like I've wasted a lot of stamps!)What has made Armstrong’s domination even more remarkable, in case you’ve been living in a cave for the past decade, is the fact that his string of unlikely victories began just 18 months after he recovered from testicular cancer. That’s what makes his entire story so nuts, if you’ll forgive the pun.
Despite the skepticism of some, however, Armstrong has never tested positive for illegal substances. Yet, rather than admit he might actually be a skilled and proficient athlete, many people prefer clinging to the belief his return was aided by a foreign substance of some kind. I hate to dismiss these suspicions out of hand, so I have been allowing for the possibility that Lance may have plagued by a rare, performance-enhancing cancer that, in addition to destroying healthy cells and disrupting the normal function of organs throughout the body, works to improve the muscular and respiratory facilities that are key to cycling. (I Googled it yesterday and I think it's called Cycloma)
Anyhow, I’m sure Lance would like nothing other than to prove he’s been clean all these years, if for no other reason than to force his detractors to eat crow – and I don't mean Sheryl.
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