Amazing documentary on TV tonight. A sports documentary about the cycling life of Lance Armstrong. Who is on the doorstep of winning his 7th consecutive Tour de France. An amazing story. I read the book about his story, so seeing the pictures with the story was quite impressive. But what was even more impressive was something Hein Verbruggen, the International Cycling Union (UCI) chairman, had to say… Apparently Armstrong has been donating money to the UCI for many years, to support their quest to end the use of doping in the cycling sport. Just recently Armstrong even bought a new blood testing machine for the UCI. Using his own money…

What makes this even more amazing is the fact that Armstrong is seen as one of the cyclists most likely to be using doping, as he survived cancer, and how can a cancer-survivor win the Tour de France without using doping? Well it can. Armstrong is the living proof for that. But even though he is by far the most tested cyclist for doping, many people, especially the French, still regard to him as a person who does use it. I am a bit skeptical, but I am that with all cyclist. Not just Lance Armstrong. And as long as they answer questions about doping with “I have never been caught“, I will stay that little bit skeptical. But when a cyclist is funding doping research, what can you say?

When I will be watching the Tour on Saturday there is no room for doping in my little world. Just 189 hero’s. One a bit more hero then others, but initially all hero’s. And after 3 weeks, Armstrong will be the biggest hero of them all again. It will be interesting to see how fans and press react to this news. Hopefully like me, and become a little bit bigger fan of Armstrong! :-)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2005 at 22:02 and is filed under News & media, Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.