xenogere

Could be ’slimy’ French journalism

Posted on Aug 26, 2005 by jason

Amazingly, as I've been moving content from my old site to this one, I have run across some of my geriatric posts regarding the French.  I was not happy with France back then, but not for the herd mentality reasons many would think.

Surely you anticipated my amusement with the raucous hoopla the French are now causing with Lance Armstrong.  A French daily sports newspaper, L'Equipe, recently ran a story that said Armstrong had been doping in 1999.  They claim that a four-month investigation found that six of his urine samples during the 1999 race tested positive for the red-cell booster EPO.  The article headline was "The Armstrong Lie."

I feel for Lance in this case and strongly suspect the French are demonstrating ignorance and jealousy.  Ignorance in that he was not doping and their assumption that they can say what they will; jealousy in that they've lost their own race for so long that they can't stand Armstrong for being the world's leading bicycler and seven-time champion of the Tour de France.

Although, during chemotherapy treatment for cancer, Lance did indeed take EPO, that was in 1996.  All tests conducted outside of his chemo schedule indicate he was clean, yet the French have somehow found samples from six years ago that test positive.

Huh…  Let's put this into perspective.

When Lance announced his retirement earlier this year, the same newspaper wrote, "Never has an athlete's retirement been so welcome."

And who performed these tests?  That would be the French.  Do you think it's possible someone wanted to taint Armstrong's reputation?  Perhaps, especially if they're French.

I'm also left to wonder why the lab did not inform Lance before informing the newspaper.  Would it not be prudent, in the interest of forgoing libel suits, to have engaged the "person of interest" first?

Organizers of the Tour de France said they were shocked by the latest allegations.  None of them seemed to remember that all previous allegations against him, made by the French, of course, had been proven false.  Instead, they quickly jump on the bandwagon in an attempt to put the American down.

"The Tour de France believes that the results of the lab are 100 percent reliable.  It's the best lab and a lab known for doing such testing," Matthieu Desplates said (he's a press attaché for the Tour de France).  He went on to say that "everyone felt betrayed."

The lab performing the tests claimed that they were unable to test for EPO in 1999.  They went back to the "B" samples provided by the riders to see if they could screen for additional substances not screened for originally.

Here's the real fun part…

The lab conducted the latest tests randomly on anonymous samples.  Even they were unable to provide rider names with the results.  Despite this, L'Equipe said it was able to confirm the positive tests were Armstrong's by matching his medical certificates with the numbers on the samples.  Yet they fail to mention that another 15 samples from other riders from the 1999 race also have reportedly tested positive.  Why are they not held up for public ridicule like Armstrong?  Why are they not publicly decried as liars and cheaters?

They're probably French.

Should the allegations prove to be true, it would indeed be an unforgivable event.  The important part of that is "should the allegations prove to be true."  Thus far, we have a single newspaper report making the claims and a French lab somewhere that is still testing six-year old samples — in theory, anyway.  Oh, and the tests are random on anonymous samples, yet somehow a single French newspaper has been able to match results with a rider — while ignoring the other 15 positive samples.

The entire situation is suspect.  As I said, the French have made plenty of allegations like this before, all of which have been proven false.  Why should this be treated any differently?  For now, the burden is on the French to provide unequivocal proof of their claims and verifiable by independent third parties who can remain completely untainted by French bias which has already been demonstrated time and again on this very same issue.

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