Despite never testing positive to any performance enhancing drugs
during his long career, Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong finds he’s
being retrospectively accused of being a drug cheat. Why are the
allegations being levelled now?

Armstrong claims it’s just another tabloid witch-hunt, and at this stage
it’s probably best to keep an open mind about whether the greatest road
cyclist of his generation was a cheat – but in does seem certain that
there are people in France desperate to nail him. Why has there been no
attempt in the French media to examine the business links between the
French daily sports-paper L’Equipe – that’s
revealed his alleged positive testing from the ’99 Tour– and the race
organization itself?

L’Equipe says
recent testing of six frozen samples of Armstrong’s urine taken over different
stages of the ’99 race have tested positive to the steroid EPO. But why is the testing only taking place now?

Which brings
me back to the point of why L’Equipe only recently entered the picture. Could it possibly have
anything to do with the fact that the same organization that operates the Tour
de France – Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), happens to belong to the French
media group EPA (Editions Philippe Amaury), which is also owner of
L’Equipe? If the involved parties were
determined to get to the bottom of any cheating allegation – why wasn’t this
course of action taken much earlier?

The answer is blindingly obvious: if they had run with the story
sooner it would’ve damaged the standing of the race. Whichever way you
look at it this appears to be a wholly cynical media and business
manipulation, and surely part French pay-back for Armstrong’s
dominance.

It’s hard not
to see this exercise as perfectly timed to get Armstrong and allow the
race essentially 11 months to put the scandal behind it before next year’s race. And in one final bonus for the French – they
also get to do a major character assassination on an American icon and buddy of
George W. Bush.