He took more minutes out of his rivals today!!!!! Screw those Frenchies and their doping allegations....and Greg Lemond! He's just jealous! Dont' mess with texas...or Lance Armstrong! http://live.cyclingnews.com/
Greg Lemond is a jagoff who needs to shut the hell up. He's talking out of his arse and embarassing himself. He's pathetic.
Seriously....why is it that so many people overseas have such a hard time accepting this Texan is just really that freaking good??? He has never failed a drug test!
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=1840996 Associated Press LA MONGIE, France -- Lance Armstrong took a big step toward a record sixth straight Tour de France crown on Friday by surging past key rivals on the first climb in the Pyrenees. The Texan moved from sixth to second in the overall standings following a ride in which he was runner-up to stage winner Ivan Basso of Italy. Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton, Iban Mayo and Roberto Heras were among the pre-Tour contenders whose hopes of dethroning the five-time champion faded as Armstrong powered up the ascent ahead of them. Ullrich, the 1997 Tour winner, lost 2 minutes, 30 seconds to Armstrong -- a major setback. Hamilton gave up 3:27 while Heras was 2:57 behind. "I could tell he [Armstrong] was going to strike a big blow," said French rider Richard Virenque, who was 3:27 behind. "He stunned the favorites." Armstrong's merciless performance on the ascent to the La Mongie ski station showed he will be hard to beat. He is 5:24 behind French champion Thomas Voeckler, who struggled in the mountain stage but limited the damage by holding the yellow jersey. Voeckler had been leading Armstrong by more than nine minutes before the grueling stage. He placed 41st on Friday, 3:59 behind Armstrong and Basso. Basso, considered a possible future Tour winner, won a stage for the first time in his career. The 26-year-old cyclist captured the white jersey as the best young rider in 2002, when he placed 11th overall. He was seventh last year and hopes to win the showcase race in two to three years.
Uh-oh ~ German Jan "Hasselhoff" Ullrich may have to take some illegal/banned Amphetamines to catch noble Texan Lance Armstrong now...
To live life, walking around being suspicious of one another, it seems so cowardly and rotten. It really is. The air of suspicion in the world today.. .it's degrading. It's becoming one of our most wretched characteristics.
I think Ivan Basso is a superb climber, but his CSC team isn't nearly as strong as USPS. Anyhow, noone can give as much as Armstrong can give for as many days. Armstrong can recover like noones business. This is his strength. We'll see what happens to Basso tomorrow. Cyclingnews post race: http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2004/tour04/?id=results/stage12 GO LANCE GO!!!!
Greg Lemond is the last American who won the Tour - fair and square. Lance gained some time again today due to his abuse of banned substances. Sooner or later, I will be vindicated here. The truth will come out.
Cmon man, add to the thread or quit being a prick without anything to back yourself up....just like the rest of Lance's doubters! Lance Armstrong has been an amazing athlete all his life. He was a professional triathlete by the age of 16 making a living at winning when he was still in highschool!!! MAKING A LIVING AT THE AGE OF 16! You know triathlete? Swim several miles, ride 80 or so miles, run a marathon? You know triathlete? At the age of 16? Get it, huh, huh? Dude, he is 32yrs now, if he has been doping to win half his life, he'd be dead by now....like Pantani. He is simply a gifted athlete fair and square, you bunch of crybaby euros....
I'll just resurrect this thread once the truth is out... Some of you probably also still believe that Florence Griffith-Joyner's (RIP, doping victim) records were all due only to hard training...
Lemond questions Armstrong's associations A decade before the emergence of Lance Armstrong, Greg Lemond rose to prominence as America's first mainstream cyclist. Lemond burst onto the national scene with his victory at the Tour de France in 1986, becoming the first American to win cycling's most prestigious event. Almost killed in a hunting accident a year later, Lemond recovered to return to cycling and, in 1989, grabbed the Tour de France's most dramtic win, when he used a blistering final-day ride to overtake France's Laurent Fignon to win the event by eight seconds -- the closest finish ever. Lemond cemented his status in the cycling world when he repeated as champ in 1990. Now, as Armstrong is threatening to claim his record sixth straight Tour de France title, Lemond speaks with ESPN's Outside the Lines (segments airing Friday on SportsCenter at 6 p.m. ET and in its entirety Sunday at 9:30 a.m. ET) in his first public interview since his 2001 statements questioning Armstrong's relationship with a controversial Italian doctor now on trial for doping. "If [Armstrong's] clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud," Lemond said. Lemond also discussed the aftermath of his 2001 statements, including receiving an angry phone call from Armstrong. In the call, Lemond claims that Armstrong said that doping was rampant in cycling and threatened to spread rumors that Lemond doped as a rider. "He basically said 'I could find 10 people that will say you took EPO'," Lemond said. "He basically said 'you know, come on, everybody's done it,' basically kind of like 'hey everybody, EPO's fairly common.' " Lemond also claims that Armstrong's camp threatened his business interests. "The week after, I got multiple people that were on Lance ... Lance's camp, basically saying 'you better be quiet,' and I was quiet for three years," Lemond said. "I have a business ... I have bikes that are sold ... and I was told that my sales might not be doing too well if ... just the publicity, the negative publicity." Reached in France, Armstrong expressed regret about Lemond's assertions. "Greg's comments are unfortunate because Greg was an idol of mine, but was an idol of everybody in this race," he said. ... This isn't the first time. It's been four years that the shots have been lobbed across the Atlantic when we are over here trying to do good work. We've proven time in and time out that we were clean." http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=1841300 ------------------- Lemond has absolutely no reason to lie. Armstrong, on the other hand, has explicitly been accused by a masssage therapist who worked with him for years, by a rider who was on the same team for years, by Lemond, and by several other people. He does not deny working with a doctor who is widely known as THE doping godfather. Sorry, but you guys are seeing it through patriotic glasses, which is fine. The truth is probably what Armstrong himself said - probably almost everyone does it - he just perfected it and he is the one who seems to have the least pricks of conscience about cheating. He is a liar and a giant fraud, and sooner or later you will know it. Sorry for the illness he had to overcome...I admire that he managed to do that. Perhaps it gave him the feeling that life owes him something and he does not need to feel guilt when he cheats.
