CYCLING GIRO D'ITALIA:FROM THE saddle to the suit, and then back to the saddle. Cycling legend Lance Armstrong has moved into a new, post-modern phase. He turned up at the Foreign Ministry in Rome yesterday in an elegant dark suit and light blue tie, there to promote "the global fight against cancer".
For all the world, he looked more like a sharp entrepreneur than a cyclist who in three days’ time will be setting out on one of the toughest stage races in cycling, namely the Giro d’Italia.
The point about the seven-time winner of the Tour De France, who at the age of 37 has come out of retirement to ride in both the Giro and the Tour, is that this time around, winning may not be the main aim. Even before he crashed in the Vuelta Castilla y Leon in Spain on March 23rd incurring a bad collar-bone break, Armstrong was probably some way off the pace of the fastest and fittest.
As he conceded yesterday, having lost at least two weeks following surgery, he is quite clearly not a contender for the overall race classification in this year’s Giro. His target is something else: “A month ago, after the crash, I was really not sure whether the injury would heal and just how I would recover from the surgery. . . but that set me back at least two weeks and I am now behind schedule.
“So I have to go into the Giro realistically knowing that I am not a contender for the overall but our team is very strong. I think we have a rider (Levi Leipheimer) who is a strong challenger and I’ll be riding for him. From a professional standpoint, from a cycling standpoint I’ll be riding for the team but more importantly from a social standpoint, from the standpoint of my (cancer) Foundation.”
For much of his professional career, Armstrong has been dogged by the controversial allegation that his extraordinary success has owed at least something to the use of prohibited substances.
This year’s controversy surrounds Filippo Simeoni, the reigning Italian champion and an old acquaintance of Armstrong. Five years ago, Simeoni took a defamation suit against Armstrong because the American had called him a liar for claiming that controversial Italian doctor Michele Ferrari had prescribed performance-enhancing drugs for Armstrong.
On Monday, Simeoni handed in his national champion’s jersey by way of protest at the fact he has been excluded from this year’s Giro. The Irish Times wanted to know if Simeoni’s exclusion had anything to do with Armstrong: “I do not run RCS (the race organisers), I do not select the teams, the riders, I don’t say who comes and goes . . . I’m more than happy to have him in the race but it’s not my race.”
As we said, the post-modern Armstrong speaks. By the way, however, he did add that he would be “disappointed” if he did not win at least one stage in this Giro.
