The Lance Mystery: I doubt we'll ever know for sure about Lance Armstrong's 1999 piss test for performance enhancers. The thing they were testing for wasn't even illegal back then, after all. But the French sure seem to have a throbbing boner for the guy, as the latest flap makes clear.

Seems to me that no non-Frog could win the Tour seven times and not have his motives, integrity, and medical record questioned. It's a matter of national pride. I mean, what else do they have, other than this silly two-wheeled race through an inconsequential country? At least the Italians, for example, realized that it's better to blow through les pays at high-speed, in a motorized conveyance -- preferably the twelve-cylinder kind. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: The Tour de France is the dumbest sporting event ever conceived. Imagine riding your bike across the French countryside, an idiot trustifarian sort of accomplishment at best, without stopping to swill some vin ordinaire, eat some cheese that smells like your biking shoes, and take a twirl with the comely lasses of the villes (suggested courting gifts: perfume, economy size, and a twin-blade Bic).

Still, the stupid American pulled it off 7 times. Was he doping? Who the hell knows, but the question is ridiculous in nearly any professional sport. Surely others were doping. Why couldn't they beat Lance? Ah, hell with it.

More here.