Armstrong Humiliates French, Part VII

Once again, Lance Armstrong, arguably the greatest athlete ever, has won the Tour de France. With all due respect to other great athletes, Michael Jordan, Eric Heiden, Wayne Gretzky, etc., no other athlete has been able to dominate a sport so convincingly over so long a time as Lance Armstrong. Today is a wonderful day, and a sad day as he wins the most grueling sporting event on earth for the seventh time and ends his career at the same time.

While he has won previous Tours by more time and with more stage wins, this year was arguably his most dominant. On two stages of the Tour, Lance was left alone to battle a number of his chief rivals. His teammates could not cover the attacks, but he did. Unlike in previous Tours, he did very little attacking. In Stage 9, Armstrong attacked on the slopes of Courchevel. He added to the time that he had put into his rivals in Stage 1 and solidified his lead. Even though the attacks came, there was never any serious doubt as to whether Armstrong would win. At various points throughout the Tour, it seemed as though other riders were attacking each other, but not Armstrong, convinced that he could not be broken.

Lance's seventh win extends France's dry streak in its own Tour. It has now been twenty years since Bernard Hinault won his home country's Tour, that time only because American Greg LeMond, his teammate, followed the team manager's instructions and surrendered his own likely Tour victory to help his teammate. After the Tour, Hinault said that he would ride for LeMond the following year. In fine French fashion, Hinault broke his promise and raced his teammate and was defeated. A curse?

Since Hinault's win, the French have become little more than a blip on the radar screen of the General Classification, the overall competition in the Tour. This year, Christoph Moreau, who finishied in 11th, was the highest placed French rider. Next year, the Tour is likely to come down to Lance's chief rivals from this year, Italian Ivan Basso and German Jan Ullrich. After that, Kazack Alexandre Vinokourov, Armstrong's Discovery teammate, appears poised to take the reigns. This year, the sole French stage win came on Bastille Day. Winning on Bastille Day has become the Tour for the French, as they are unable to seriously compete in the Tour's other competitions. If the French want to look for any source of pride, they must look into the distant past. Hopefully while looking back they will realize the many things that have led them down the path to insignficance.

For now, though, Vive le Lance and Vive le Tour!