Remember way back in May, when the Giro super-criterium in Milan was neutralized? Well, here’s Lance Armstrong’s take:
(from this long feature at NOS, via RoadID, RT’d by Versus producer @joelfelicio)
Check out Armstrong’s reactions: forcing Mart Smeets to come out and declare him the Captain of the Peloton, rather than saying it himself. Casting the other heads of state as bickering “little bosses”, and even painting race officials as ineffectually timid. One senses the implication that, without Armstrong, the pro peloton would still be squabbling on the cobblestones of Milan’s old city.
It is especially interesting to watch this interview contrasted with a video Armstrong made just the day after the protest. The facts are by and large the same, but the difference in tone—especially in regard to the rest of the peloton—is undeniable. Lance (or the NOS editors) also fail to mention the dangerous finishes preceding the Milan stage, which played a significant role in motivating the protest.
I’m not taking a swipe at Armstrong with this post. I may be teasing a bit, but the fact remains that the privilege of writing the history goes to the side that wins the war. And Armstrong’s won that war—seven times. Just consider this an insight into the sort of driven, maybe not-so-fact-oriented mindset that it takes to battle your way to the top of the world’s toughest race for seven consecutive years.
i think every non-republican (myself included) should be shaking after seeing this video. watch out texas, you got a new governor on you hands.
well maybe i like getting worked up.
I think, personally, that a man as committed and as focussed as Lance would far better in a political position than a man like Bush, who floated through Yale and Harvard and had all the ‘right’ qualifications. If he can manage government anywhere neer his own self management, then what more does he need?
SNIP
When I arrive at the flat at the scheduled time, it is Sheryl Crow, his new pop-star girlfriend, who greets me at the door, very warm and welcoming. She comments favourably on the haircut, then Armstrong appears at the end of the hallway, smaller and slighter than he looked on the bike in Paris, big Texan smile, T-shirt, blue jeans, brown boots. A long, firm handshake and we go into the kitchen for coffee and curly little chocolate biscuits he says he got from a store down the street.
He lives, close to several of his US Postal Service team colleagues, in a first-floor, four-bedroom apartment at the heart of Girona’s old town. Although a confirmed atheist, he takes me almost immediately to the tiny chapel, lovingly describes its features, and, above all, the 15th-century painting of the Crucifixion that takes pride of place.
A married man with three young children, he bought the flat as a wreck and, with the help of a young Texan architect, transformed it into a beautiful family home. Huge photos of his children cover the wall of the study, but the marriage to Kristin is over, so Armstrong’s four-year-old son, Luke, and his two-year-old twin daughters, Grace and Isabelle, are in Texas. As he’s showing off the 12th-century stonework in the tiny cloistered garden, he says this is where he used to play with them and he misses his children so much that it hurts.
Once we settle down to talk at a long wooden table, we are swapping stories about George W. Bush, his fellow Texan. We agree that our politics are different to Bush’s, but that the President is smarter, funnier and more likeable than the caricature. Even Sheryl, whose politics Armstrong describes as “way out Left”, says that it’s hard to meet Bush and not like him. I had assumed, because he and Bush were Texans and I’d seen pictures of them laughing and joking in the Oval Office, that Armstrong was a Republican. But he says his politics are “middle to Left”. He is “against mixing up State and Church, not keen on guns, pro women’s right to choose”. And very anti war in Iraq.
SNIP
https://www.lancearmstrongfanclub.com/uktimesonline.html
Well said.
If only more Americans had as subtle an understanding of the role personality plays, I think the political environment would be much different.
Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Who’s the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about?
One senses the implication that, without Armstrong, the pro peloton would still be squabbling on the cobblestones of Milan’s old city.