George Kimball America At LargeLance Armstrong wasn't the only American sporting icon to spend the past month on a bicycle. While Armstrong was busy beating the odds, as well as a bunch of Belgians, over in France, Barry Bonds was perched atop a stationary bike in his private training facility, attempting to rehabilitate a remarkably enduring knee injury whose arrival happened to coincide with the arrival of Major League Baseball's new steroid testing policy.
As the world knows by now, Armstrong overcame testicular cancer to win an unprecedented seven successive Tours de France, with four of the seven victories coming after his 30th birthday.
Bonds' chronological curve has been even more freakish. He has hit 703 home runs, more than all who have played the game save Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth, and nearly 500 of them came after he turned 30. Given his late-life prowess, that the San Francisco Giants slugger would become the all-time leader no later than 2006 seemed a virtual certainty before federal agents came knocking at the doors of the Balco lab a couple of years ago.
Armstrong, who has gone where no man has gone before, says he is clean, and Americans overwhelmingly want to believe him. Even though the event he has dominated has been rife with drug scandals, his story is so inspirational the tendency is to suspend disbelief and accept his contention that he has been able to beat a pack of drug cheats at their own game, year-in and year-out, on a diet of Wheaties and bananas.
Armstrong hasn't failed a drug test since 1999 - and on that occasion he was absolved when it was determined he had received medical clearance.
Bonds has never failed a drug test, and the purity of his improbable late-life accomplishments might have gone unchallenged if only his accomplices had not folded under pressure from the Feds. His personal trainer, Greg Anderson, showed himself to be a stand-up guy by copping a guilty plea without giving up Barry, but when Balco founder Victor Conte was squeezed by the Feds he bared his soul and named names.
Bonds, having been ratted out even before he appeared before the grand jury, was left with two options. The first was to risk a federal perjury rap, the second to plead "the dog ate my homework". Unsurprisingly, he opted for the latter, claiming he had availed of substances known as "the cream" and "the clear" under the impression that he was using a "nutritional supplement" and "flaxseed oil".
The testimony of American sprinter Tim Montgomery revealed that "the clear", which Conte packaged in vials labelled "flaxseed oil", was in fact THG. Conte himself confirmed that "the cream" was a steroid.
The onetime Tower of Power bassist also revealed that Bonds' prescribed regimen included a drug used to treat female infertility, which is evidently even more effective than whiskey in masking steroid use.
The response of the American press to Armstrong's improbable string of Parisian triumphs has been characterised by a remarkable absence of scepticism. The rest of the world seems less gullible. On Sunday morning, as Armstrong prepared to ride down the Champs-Elysées, had he paused to pick up a copy of L'Equipe he would have read that in accomplishing his feat he would "have provoked more questions than he will have answered".
Somewhere between the finish line and the medal ceremony, Sheryl Crow must have whispered something about the L'Equipe article into Lance's ear, because in his victory speech he paused to taunt the nonbelievers: "For the people who don't believe in cycling, the cynics, the skeptics, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you can't dream big. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles."
As ripostes go, it was a little more thoughtful than Bonds' more succinct "Kiss my ass", but the message to his accusers was much the same.
Bonds has sat out the 2005 season, but here's the latest update from Barry's website: "All the signs are pointing in the right direction for a late-season comeback . . . but there hasn't been much change in my condition. My rehab is coming along and I still don't have a timetable for my return to the team. If I'm ready in September and the Giants want me to play, I'll play. It is all up to the doctors and when they say I can come back."
Like "when my urine is clean" perhaps? Since no one in his right mind believes Bonds, the question is, or ought to be: why do so many otherwise rational people accept Armstrong's claims of purity as gospel?
In his autobiography, Armstrong deemed drug testing "the most demeaning aspect of the sport"; but shouldn't an anti-drug crusader, as Armstrong postures himself, welcome testing? Armstrong's contention that he is drug-free has been challenged by a former team-mate, and by an admittedly disgruntled former member of his support team.
His medical advisor, Dr Michele Ferrari, was convicted by an Italian court last October of sports fraud and illegally prescribing performance- enhancing drugs to cyclists.
Bonds has been fingered by Conte, by his own testimony, and, implicitly, by Anderson's guilty plea. A discarded ex-mistress also claimed that Barry knowingly and eagerly enhanced his performance through chemistry. If nothing else, Lance and Sheryl should be together for some time.
