Any Tour de France followers?

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Can someone explain to me these different stages? Why there are so many and brief rules... Because I don't understand how Lance Armstrong is behind more than 6 minutes off the lead and now he's something like 5 minutes ahead of the pack (or the nearest rival). To me, that seems like a HUGE lead change... Anyone?

Spectator falls to his death during Alpine stage of Tour de France
GRENOBLE, France (AP) - The body of a 64-year-old Tour de France spectator was found Thursday by the roadside leading up to the L'Alpe d'Huez ski station, police officials said.

The man appears to have fallen some 40 metres to his death during Wednesday's 16th stage of the Tour, when hundreds of thousands of fans packed a winding alpine route during a time trial.

The man, thought to be from the Paris region, was not immediately identified. He was found by a police patrol vehicle. Police had been alerted to his disappearance by family members.

An autopsy on the body was expected Friday.

© The Canadian Press, 2004
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
I've got the same feeling.

I hear that's quite an accomplishment ... 6 in a row ... kind of like Schummi with his championships, but Schummi is practically invincible throughout each season unlike Lance during his Tour de France voyage. :)
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
yudansha said:
I hear that's quite an accomplishment ... 6 in a row ... kind of like Schummi with his championships, but Schummi is practically invincible throughout each season unlike Lance during his Tour de France voyage. :)


Ye, Lance is a legend in Cycling,
 

kickingbird

candle lighter
Am following the Tour a bit. My son does mountain bike races and trail running (off road marathons), as well as 100-mile runs (he took 3rd in his latest), so I have an interest in those types of activities. I am, of course, hoping Lance wins again. He is truly driven. After all, he beat cancer. What ticks me off though, are all the accusations of "drug use". It is the same brain-dead mentality certain people have when they just can't possibly imagine anyone doing something like that without using drugs. The people and the press won't let it alone, they just keep digging and digging and slinging. People like that have the attitude "he/she HAS to be using SOMETHING!" - because they themselves couldn't do it without "something". They are dangerous, because they'll stop at nothing to prove their point, even to the means of setting someone up. Can you imagine if Jesus were around today? There'd be all kinds of accusations about who his "real" dad is, and that walking on water is just an illusion! Not comparing Lance with Jesus, just relating how people have a hard time existing without pounding someone else into the ground. I hope Lance wins - and I do not care what the French say, or the Germans who spit on him, or anyone else. He is trying his best and is winning from behind - he deserves to win if he does. People like him compete with themselves, not others. He is beating his own personal best.
 

Littledragon

Above The Law
kickingbird said:
Am following the Tour a bit. My son does mountain bike races and trail running (off road marathons), as well as 100-mile runs (he took 3rd in his latest), so I have an interest in those types of activities. I am, of course, hoping Lance wins again. He is truly driven. After all, he beat cancer. What ticks me off though, are all the accusations of "drug use". It is the same brain-dead mentality certain people have when they just can't possibly imagine anyone doing something like that without using drugs. The people and the press won't let it alone, they just keep digging and digging and slinging. People like that have the attitude "he/she HAS to be using SOMETHING!" - because they themselves couldn't do it without "something". They are dangerous, because they'll stop at nothing to prove their point, even to the means of setting someone up. Can you imagine if Jesus were around today? There'd be all kinds of accusations about who his "real" dad is, and that walking on water is just an illusion! Not comparing Lance with Jesus, just relating how people have a hard time existing without pounding someone else into the ground. I hope Lance wins - and I do not care what the French say, or the Germans who spit on him, or anyone else. He is trying his best and is winning from behind - he deserves to win if he does. People like him compete with themselves, not others. He is beating his own personal best.


Neat... ;)
 

Baseball Lady

New Member
yudansha said:
Can someone explain to me these different stages? Why there are so many and brief rules... Because I don't understand how Lance Armstrong is behind more than 6 minutes off the lead and now he's something like 5 minutes ahead of the pack (or the nearest rival). To me, that seems like a HUGE lead change... Anyone?

Yudansha,

The race is a combination of time trials (shorter stages where each person goes directly against a clock - each rider starts at a different time) and the longer endurance parts of the ride (where all riders start at the same time that day). You will see Lance behind the pack in some sections of the race (but that is just because a rider or group of riders has taken a lead for that portion) The overall ranking is based on total time for all stages. The yellow jersey is for the rider who is leading the overall race. Lance rarely goes into the lead until they hit the mountain part of the ride and then it is like he is in his groove. He has won more stages in this year's ride than in past years though. Hope that helps!!

Baseball Lady
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Baseball Lady that was VERY VERY helpful! Thank you very much!

I know about that yellow jersey, but I didn't know about the rest. That was very helpful. Thank you.

Lance getting into his groove at the mountain part? Wow, that's amazing!
Let's hope he wins again. I hear he's from Texas. So is he a big thing there now?
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
American cyclist Lance Armstrong wins record sixth Tour de France

PARIS (AP) - Lance Armstrong rode into history Sunday by winning the Tour de France for a record sixth time, an achievement that confirmed him as one of the greatest sportsmen of all time.

s072521A.jpg
Overall leader Lance Armstrong of Austin, Texas, signals "six" to the photographers shortly after the start of the final stage of the Tour de France, Sunday. (AP/Laurent Rebours)

His sixth crown in six dominant years elevated Armstrong above four champions who won five times. And never in its 101-year-old history has the Tour had a winner like Armstrong - a Texan who just eight years ago was given less than a 50 per cent chance of overcoming testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain.

Armstrong's unbeaten streak since 1999 has helped reinvigorate the greatest race in cycling, steering it into the 21st century. And the Tour, as much a part of French summers as languid meals over chilled rose, molded Armstrong into a sporting superstar.

No. 6. The record. The achievement was almost too much even for Armstrong to comprehend.

"It might take years. I don't know. It hasn't sunk in yet. But six, standing on the top step on the podium on the Champs-ElysDees is really special," he said.

For him, the final ride into Paris and its famous tree-lined boulevard was a lap of honour he savoured with a glass of champagne in the saddle. Even Jan Ullrich, his main adversary in previous years who had his worst finish this Tour, gulped down a glass offered by Armstrong's team manager through his car window.

Belgian rider Tom Boonen won the final sprint, with Armstrong cruising safely behind with the trailing pack to claim his crown. Armstrong's winning margin over second-placed Andreas Kloden was six minutes, 19 seconds, with Italian Ivan Basso in third at 6:40. Ullrich finished fourth.

Armstrong opened a new page for the Tour in 1999 just one year after the race faced its worst doping scandal, ejecting the Festina team after police caught one of its employees with a stash of drugs.

Armstrong's victories and his inspiring comeback from cancer have drawn new fans to the race. His professionalism, attention to detail, gruelling training methods and tactics have raised the bar for other riders hoping to win the three-week cycling marathon.

Eye-catching in the bright yellow race leader's jersey he works so hard for, Armstrong donned a golden cycling helmet for a relaxed roll past sun-baked fields of wheat and applauding spectators into Paris from Montereau in the southeast.

He joked and chatted with teammates who wore special blue jerseys with yellow stripes. They stretched in a line across the road with their leader for motorcycle-riding photographers to record the moment. The team was the muscle behind Armstrong's win, leading him up gruelling mountain climbs, shielding him from crashes and wind, and keeping him stoked with drinks and food.

With five solo stage wins and a team time-trial victory with his U.S. Postal Service squad, this was Armstrong's best Tour, one in which he was forced - once again - to defend himself against accusations that he might be taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Armstrong built his lead from Day 1, placing second in the third-fastest debut time trial in Tour history. That performance silenced doubts that Armstrong, at 32, was past his prime.

Even more so than in other Tours that he dominated, he finished off rivals in the mountains - with three victories in the Alps, including a time trial on the legendary climb to L'Alpe d'Huez, and another in the Pyrenees. He also took the final time trial on Saturday, even though he his overall lead was so big he didn't need the win.

"We never had a sense of crisis, only the stress of the rain and the crashes in the first week," Armstrong said. "I was surprised that some of the rivals were not better. Some of them just completely disappeared."

Basque rider Iban Mayo peaked too early when he beat Armstrong in the warm-up Dauphine Libere race three weeks before the Tour. Mayo crashed in the Tour's rain-soaked, nervous first week, racing toward a treacherous stretch of cobblestones that Armstrong crossed safely. Mayo finally abandoned the race after the Pyrenees, his morale shot after two disappointing rides in the mountains where he'd hoped to win in front of Basque fans.

Former Armstrong teammates Roberto Heras, left trailing in the mountains, and American Tyler Hamilton, badly bruised in a crash, also went home.

"The little guys, the pure climbers - Mayo, Tyler - the first week is very hard on them, always fighting for position, the wind. A lot of acceleration through villages at the finish. This becomes a problem for them after 10 days," Armstrong said. "That's the beauty of the Tour. If the race was 10 or 12 days long, they'd be much better. You have to do it all."


Ullrich, the 1997 champion and a five-time runner-up, never recovered from seeing Armstrong zoom into the distance for two straight days in the Pyrenees.

The only rider to stay with Armstrong there was Basso, a 26-year-old with the makings of a future winner. He came out of the Alps, where Armstrong for the first time in his career won three consecutive stages, in second place overall.

But Kloden, the German champion and Ullrich's teammate, outdid the soft-spoken Basso in the final time trial, placing third behind Armstrong and Ullrich. That ride propelled Kloden, who did not complete last year's Tour, into second spot on the podium, pushing Basso back to third.

"I never would have predicted Kloden before the Tour. But you could see he was really strong and skinny in the first week," Armstrong said.

Armstrong still hasn't decided whether he will back next year to compete in the race he loves above all others, for which he trains relentlessly, leaving his three children in Texas, with former wife Kristin, while he pounds the roads in Europe.

"I don't know what I'll do next summer. I suspect I'll be here. It's too big of a race. My only hesitance is I think the people and the event perhaps need a change, new faces, a new winner," he said. "If I'm here, I race to win."

Seven victories would be like owning seven sports cars, nice but not necessary. Armstrong says he's interested in trying other races - the Tour of Italy, Classics, and beating the one-hour cycling world record held by Britain's Chris Boardman.

After more than 3,057 kilometres of racing, riders mostly took it easy on the 163-kilometre final stage, until they reached the crowd-lined Champs-ElysDees. Some took souvenir photos of themselves as they rode, and Armstrong even stopped by the side of the road momentarily to adjust his saddle.

He also chatted to Belgian rider Axel Merckx, whose father, Eddy, is one of the five-time champions Armstrong passed. The others are Frenchmen Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil, and Spaniard Miguel Indurain.

Victory in France has brought Armstrong fame, wealth and softened some of the brashness he displayed as a young rider. He's picked up rudimentary French and says his love of the Tour won't end when he eventually retires.

"I'll definitely watch the Tour on TV, always," he said.

JOHN LEICESTER; © The Canadian Press, 2004


U.S. President George W. Bush calls Lance Armstrong after sixth tour win

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - President Bush called Lance Armstrong on Sunday to congratulate him on a sixth straight Tour de France title.

"You're awesome," Bush told Armstrong.

Bush "congratulated him on behalf of the nation, and told him his country was proud of him and that he was an outstanding athlete," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

Bush spent the morning clearing brush at his ranch but came into his house about the time his fellow Texan crossed the finish line, Buchan said. The president watched TV coverage after the race's finish.

Bush took up mountain biking this year as his knees grew more painful from years of running.

Officials of the U.S. Postal Service, which has sponsored Armstrong's team since 1996, were thrilled with his latest win in Paris, shouting to be heard via cell phone from Paris over music and cheers of the crowds.

"Lance just made history, bringing home the sixth straight victory in the Tour de France. The team today rode into the history books, and we couldn't be more delighted," Anita Bizzotto, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer of the Postal Service.

Bizzotto said she hoped Armstrong would try for a seventh straight victory, "as along as he feels he can keep winning, and be an inspiration to people all around the world."

The Discovery Channel, which will take over sponsorship of the team next year, also hopes to have Armstrong on the squad.

"In days and weeks ahead, we'll talk about the 2005 schedule and roster and certainly our hope and expectation is Lance will continue to ride for years to come," the Discovery Channel's David Leavy said.
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Banned British cyclist David Millar explains why he turned to drugs

LONDON (AP) - British cyclist David Millar, who was barred from the Tour de France after admitting he has used banned drugs, says he'd like to work with the sport's governing bodies to warn others against doping.

"I have made mistakes and I am ready to learn from them," Millar said in an interview published Tuesday in The Guardian newspaper. "I want to show how I got round the system and am willing to work with the International Cycling Union and British Cycling. I would like to explain the dangers of drugs to young riders."

French police raided Millar's home in Biarritz in late June as part of a doping investigation into his pro team, Cofidis, and found two used syringes. Millar told a French judge he used the banned blood-boosting hormone EPO on three separate occasions, once in 2001 and twice in 2003.

Millar, who had competed three times in the Tour de France and won three stages, was barred from this summer's edition of the race and suspended by the British Cycling Federation. He also withdrew from the British Olympic team.

Millar faces being stripped of his gold medal in the time trial from last year's world championships in Hamilton, Ont.

A disciplinary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 4. Millar suggested he may quit the sport if he receives a long ban.

In the newspaper interview, Millar said he turned to EPO for "dozens of reasons building up over the years." He said he resented pressure from Cofidis to race when he was injured.

"It was like a way of getting back at them: 'Look what you've driven me to,"' he said.

Millar said the pair of syringes seized by French police had contained the EPO he used before winning the world championship. He said he kept the syringes as a reminder of how desperate he had become.

"It had scarred me," he said. "I had won the world championship by a huge margin and didn't need to have used drugs. I had got to a point where I had wanted to win so much that to guarantee my victory I did something I didn't need to do. I didn't want to forget about it."

Millar said he first made up a story to the police but eventually came clean.

"I could have kept fighting, fighting, fighting, but fundamentally, I'm not a good liar," he said.

Millar said he hung onto the syringes partly because, deep down, he wanted to be caught.

"I believe in the power of the subconscious," he said. "It was my get-out. I wasn't happy. I wasn't enjoying it. I didn't like the point I'd got to."


Millar said he was first introduced to EPO during the 2001 Tour de France by an unidentified "older professional" on the Cofidis team.

Before the tour of Spain that September, Millar said, he travelled to Italy and was shown how to inject himself with the drug. He said the drug - which stimulates the growth of oxygen-carrying red blood cells - was used in small quantities and taken well before competition to avoid detection.

Millar said he had no second thoughts about using the drug at the time.

"When the line is crossed, it's crossed," he said. "It stops being sport."

Millar said he used EPO again in May and August of 2003 to help get through intense training sessions. In addition to EPO, he said he used testosterone patches to maintain his level of the male hormone.

Millar said he had turned his back on doping at the start of this year.

"I wanted to win the Olympics clean, for myself," he said. "I wasn't good with myself. I had changed as a person. ... I was unstable. my self-esteem started evaporating. I was living a lie and that wasn't good for anyone."

© The Canadian Press, 2004
__________

In other news: Italians encourage Tour de France champ Armstrong to compete in Giro

ROME (AP) - Lance Armstrong was encouraged by several prominent members of the Italian cycling community to compete in next year's Giro d'Italia, which the American recently hinted might be in his plans.

s072733A.jpg
Overall leader and five-time Tour de France winner lance Armstrong, of Austin, Texas, negotiates a curve as he enters Concorde square in Paris during the last stage of the Tour de France, Sunday. (AP/Peter Dejong)

"To give more weight to his career, Armstrong absolutely must ride the Giro, also for the affection he has for Italy," said Franco Ballerini, a former professional rider and current coach of the Italian national team.

"If he were to come it would be an equal relationship of giving and earning. The Giro would give him completeness and he would bring attention to the race," Ballerini said in an interview in Tuesday's Corriere della Sera.

Shortly before he clinched his record sixth Tour de France title on Sunday, Armstrong confirmed speculation that he was thinking about changing his plans for next season.

"I don't know what I'll do next summer," the American told reporters during a train ride to the start of the Tour's final stage. "I suspect I'll be here. It's too big of a race. My only hesitance is I think the people and the event perhaps need a change, new faces, a new winner."

The Giro, held for three weeks each May, is cycling's second most important multi-day stage race and one in which Armstrong has never competed in, despite numerous declarations to Italian newspapers that he would like to one day.

For the past six years, Armstrong has designed his entire season around the Tour de France and raced in few other major races to prepare for the French race.

"You can't ride for just one month of the year," said Felice Gimondi, Tour winner in 1965 and Giro champion in '67, '69 and '76. "Armstrong at the Giro? We're awaiting it."

The last cyclist to win both the Giro and the Tour in the same year was Italy's recently deceased Marco Pantani in 1998. Miguel Indurain of Spain also accomplished the feat in 1992 and 1993. And Belgian great Eddy Merckx did it three times in the 1970s.

Armstrong's chief challenger in his Tour wins, Jan Ullrich, rode the Giro to prepare for the Tour in 2002.


Not all Italians are thrilled by the idea of Armstrong at the Giro, however.

"It's a little late: he should have done it before," said Claudio Chiapucci, who finished second twice in the Tour and third once in the early 1990s.

Chiapucci was upset with Armstrong for pursuing Filippo Simeoni during an early stage breakaway in the Tour, accusing of him of unsporting conduct as retribution for the Italian testifying about doping abuse within cycling at a trial linked to an Italian doctor associated with Armstrong.

Chiapucci said Armstrong "behaved liked a baby" with Simeoni.

"The Texan leaves me indifferent and it would be that way also on the streets of the Giro d'Italia," said El Diablo - the devil - as Chiapucci was known in his competitive days.

Italian cycling president Gian Carlo Ceruti also denounced Armstrong's treatment of Simeoni as "unsportsmanlike."

However, 1984 Giro winner Francesco Moser said having Armstrong at the Giro "wouldn't be bad, especially since he lived in Italy when he rode for Motorola and he had a great friend like Fabio Casartelli," referring to Armstrong's former team and teammate, who died in a fall at the 1995 Tour.

Alfredo Martini, Italy's national cycling team coach from 1975 to 1997, said Armstrong could ride both the Giro and the Tour.

"A champion like him, with a team as strong as his, could do it easily," Martini said.
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Armstrong's coach: Eliminating waste boosts performance

PARIS (AP) - A famous sculptor was once asked how he managed to create a beautiful woman from a block of coarse stone, and he replied that the woman was already in the stone and he just had to remove the debris from around her.

The sculpting of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France fitness follows a similar story. Armstrong's reign at the top of the Tour de France podium began when George W. Bush was still the governor of Texas, and the Y2K bug was our biggest worry. In the summer of 1999, and in every summer since, Lance arrived at the Tour better prepared than anyone else and left three weeks later with the yellow jersey.

For six years, the goal has remained the same, but the methods for reaching it have changed.

Progression is one of the principles of training. To provide the stimulus for continued improvement, your training workload has to progressively increase over time. At the elite level of professional sports, however, you start to run out of hours in the day.

Increases in workload have to alternate with longer periods of quality recovery, and eventually you reach a point when there's not enough time in the week to complete the training and obtain the rest necessary to do it well.

In the process of designing Lance's training for the Tour de France, I couldn't just add hours or intensity to his schedule. We had reached the limit of available training time before the 2003 Tour de France, and he struggled to win the race that year. For 2004, the potential to reach the necessary fitness level was within Armstrong; I just had to remove the debris to allow his full power to emerge.

Lance's preparation became more about what he wasn't doing than about what he was.

NO DIETING

The more a cyclist weighs, the harder he has to work to reach the summits of mountain passes. At the same time, it is neither healthy nor practical for a Tour de France rider to maintain his optimal competition weight year round. While some of Lance's rivals gained a lot of weight during the winter, he didn't because the process of spending the entire spring losing weight takes away from an athlete's ability to train effectively.

I developed a new nutrition program for Lance to eliminate the need for proactive weight loss. The process of thinning down requires either caloric restriction or extra hours on the bike, both of which hinder his ability to complete high-quality workouts targeted at developing Tour de France fitness. Using heart-rate monitors and power meters, I examined the demands placed on Lance over the course of the training year, and adjusted the calories and balance of nutrients in his diet to provide fuel for performance while eliminating waste.

During the middle of winter, Lance's workouts were long but not terribly difficult. He burned a balanced mixture of carbohydrate and fat, with a little protein, for energy. As the intensity of his training increased in the spring, he needed to consume more calories, many of which needed to come from additional carbohydrate.

Lance worked hardest in training and competition during the late spring and early summer, which meant those were the months his caloric and carbohydrate intake were at their peak. At the Tour de France, Lance consumed nearly 1000 grams of carbohydrate a day; nearly double his daily intake in January.

Matching nutrition to training provides the body with the nutrition it needs for health and performance, without the excess that leads to weight gain. When you look at the normal relationship between nutrition and exercise for active adults, exercise load changes dramatically from winter to summer but there is no corresponding change in diet. As a result, there is a part of the year when you are eating more than you need (and gaining weight), and there's a part of the year when you're eating too little. During this latter period, you lose weight but you also hinder your ability to exercise at your best.

NO WASTED EFFORTS

The old-school methods of training lacked precision. We sent athletes out for several hours, but much of that time was spent at intensity levels that were either too easy or too hard to provide the desired results. Athletes were spending six hours to accomplish what could be done in four focused hours.

Lance doesn't waste time on his bike. He knows the goals of the day's workout before he leaves the house, and once his power meter tells him he has ridden long enough to accomplish those goals, he goes home. Extra time on the bike isn't necessary and just leads to more fatigue and longer recovery periods.

GETTING MORE FOR LESS

Removing the waste from Lance's training and nutrition programs left more room for better recovery, which allowed me to increase his workload and reap bigger rewards. At the highest levels of sport, it takes a huge effort to see a 1 per cent improvement in performance, and no individual change in training or nutrition is solely responsible. Rather, it is the combination of minute modifications that leads to significant gains.

Increasing the efficiency of Lance's training and nutrition programs also simplified his Tour de France preparations, giving him more time to relax and concentrate on his life outside of training.

Back in 2000-2001, Lance used to restrict his diet and weigh his food to be leaner for the Tour de France. With his weight tracking along with his training this year, he had more freedom to eat what he wanted, and he didn't have to obsess about everything he put in his mouth. Likewise, eliminating waste from his training allowed more flexibility to handle his busy schedule without compromising performance.

In the end, performance at the Tour de France is the only way to evaluate the effectiveness of Lance's training and nutrition programs.

In 2003, he struggled to win his fifth yellow jersey. After focusing on hard work and efficiency for eleven months, he went to the 2004 Tour and won five stages en route to a dominating victory. Removing the debris revealed a beautiful champion, resplendent in yellow.

CHRIS CARMICHAEL; © The Canadian Press, 2004
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
It always happens this way ... a big victory and then investigations...

Italian police question Simeoni over clash with Armstrong at Tour de France

ROME (AP) - Italian anti-doping police have questioned Filippo Simeoni over the Tour de France stage when the Italian rider was chased down by Tour winner Lance Armstrong in a move apparently linked to a feud over Simeoni's testimony about drug use in cycling, a police official said Wednesday.

Simeoni was questioned Tuesday in Rome about the July 23 stage through eastern France from Annemasse to Lons-Le-Saunier, said Col. Stefano Ortolani of the paramilitary Carabiniere NAS anti-doping squad.

During the stage Armstrong reined in a breakaway that Simeoni was part of, even though the Italian rider posed no threat to Armstrong's efforts - later successful - to win his record sixth Tour.

Simeoni, an Italian with the Domina Vacanze squad, has testified against controversial sports doctor Michele Ferrari, with whom Armstrong has ties. Ferrari faces allegations of providing performance enhancers to riders.

Simeoni told an Italian court in 2002 that Ferrari advised him to take performance-enhancing drugs. Following that, Armstrong reportedly called Simeoni a liar and the Italian now says he is suing the Texan for libel.

Ortolani declined to give details about Tuesday's questioning.

However, sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport quoted Simeoni after he left police questioning as saying that Armstrong had threatened him as they rode alongside each other during the July 23 stage.

"He prevented me from continuing the breakaway and afterward he threatened me," Gazzetta reported Simeoni as saying.

Simeoni then recalled Armstrong's words as they rode together: "You made a mistake to speak against Ferrari, and you made a mistake to take legal action against me. I have money and time and lots of lawyers. I can destroy you," Simeoni quoted Armstrong as telling him, according to Gazzetta.


After the July 23 stage, Armstrong said other riders congratulated him when he brought Simeoni back to the main pack.

"Everybody understood that this is their job and they absolutely love it and they're committed to it and they don't want somebody within their sport destroying it," Armstrong said. "He's not a rider who thinks about other riders and the group in general. So ... when I came back I had a lot of riders patting me on the back and saying 'Thank you."'

A sports manager of Armstrong's team indicated that the incident was linked to the feud between the two riders.

The Gazzetta report, which Ortolani described as accurate, said Italian investigators could open proceedings against Armstrong for sporting fraud, violence, and intimidation of a witness.

© The Canadian Press, 2004
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Two positive doping tests at Tour de France belonged to Belgian rider

AIGLE, Switzerland (AP) - All but two urine and blood samples taken during the Tour de France were negative for doping products or prohibited substances, the International Cycling Union said Friday.

The exceptions were samples belonging to Belgian rider Christophe Brandt, who was expelled from the Tour, the UCI said.

More than 350 blood tests were conducted before an during the Tour, UCI said.

Hendrik Redant, coach of Brandt's Italian team Lotto-Domo, said the rider was sent home July 9 after testing positive for methadone, a drug typically used to help recovering heroin addicts. Brandt suggested that a laboratory error might be to blame.

© The Canadian Press, 2004
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Lance Armstrong is a great athlete.

You're welcome, kickingbird. I enjoyed those myself, too (and I'm not a fan of Tour de France or a Lance follower either...).
 

yudansha

TheGreatOne
Live Strong wristbands a hit among politicians, movie stars

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - John Kerry wears one. U.S. President George W. Bush has one, too. So do several movie stars.

One of the hottest fashion trends in America is the Live Strong yellow wristband produced by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the cycling superstar's cancer-fighting organization. Since the fund-raising effort started in May, the charity has sold seven million of the rubber bands for $1 US each - and it plans to sell 1.8 million more. Nike donated the first $1 million, and proceeds go toward programs for young people with cancer.

Sales easily surpassed the $6 million the foundation initially hoped to raise. The wristbands can be purchased at www.wearyellow.com.

"It's been an overwhelming experience," foundation president Mitch Stoller said. "I think everybody, from average Americans to celebrities, are getting the message of courage and hope."

Armstrong overcame advanced testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain before putting together one of the most astonishing athletic feats of the past decade by winning a record six straight Tour de France titles.

Armstrong was given only a 50 per cent chance to live in 1996 but has won every Tour de France since 1999. He has inspired cancer survivors around the world and linked himself to the traditional yellow jersey worn by the Tour leader and champion.

The foundation timed the fund-raising campaign to coincide with this year's race, which Armstrong won July 25.

Kerry, the Democratic nominee for U.S. president, wore his wristband while campaigning this week and at the Democratic National Convention. Kerry had a cancerous prostate removed in February 2003; his father died of complications from cancer in 2000.

White House spokesman Taylor Gross said Bush also has a wristband and supports the Armstrong foundation.

Foundation spokeswoman Michelle Milford said the group appreciates the candidates' support but will avoid any political debate.

"The way we fight cancer is a bipartisan issue," she said. "We want support from everybody."

Milford said foundation officials have been keeping track of celebrities wearing the wristbands. Bono of the band U2 and actors Alec Baldwin, Bruce Willis, Robin Williams, Matt Damon and Ben Stiller have been sighted wearing them, Milford said.

The wristband had a noticeable presence at the Tour de France as well.

"A lot of his competitors were wearing them," Milford said. "Cancer doesn't pick teams."

The biggest spike in sales came during the race. The foundation sold 25,000 in Paris on the race's final Sunday alone. Another 400,000 were sold over the foundation's web site over the next three days.

But the popularity has brought out profit seekers as well.

The online auction site eBay has several listings for wristbands for sale at inflated prices. One listing said the online sale could help the foundation raise cash, but there is no guarantee the money will be sent there, Stoller said.

The foundation is trying to steer buyers away from second-hand purchases.

"We don't want people buying these and trying to profit," Stoller said. "That's not the intention of this campaign."

JIM VERTUNO; © The Canadian Press, 2004
 
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