In just a couple of hours, Lance Armstrong will jet out of the prologue time trial gates. For the next 22 days, we will discover what, at age 37, Armstrong has left in his legs, his mind, and his heart. I don't think two of those three are in question, but in a training season marked by crashes and a healing period, Armstrong hasn't had the luck of his past years.
In a country that today somehow surprisingly seems more American than the country Armstrong was born in, Armstrong will have his critics. The allegations will rise again, and a battle of the European sports media once again will find their way into the pages of LeMonde and other European papers. Lance isn't doing it to clear his name. After years of the focus being on is he or isn't he, he has focused this battle in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and alone on a specially designed time-trial bicycle to raise awareness of his ultimate battle--not just a win in Paris but a win for humankind.
Armstrong has become one of the greatest voices in the fight for cancer, and although politics isn't Armstrong's forte despite flirting with politics in the medical field, I hope Armstrong can look at the dangers of the nationalized medicine with its rationing and realize for the real battle to defeat cancer to happen it's going to have to involve the same private healthcare system and pharmaceutical companies. A government that rations and says no to cancer patients because of a government algorithm isn't going to be a positive force in the battle to defeat cancer.
My eyes look to Monaco today. The tour begins with a short 15.5 km time trial. That's about 10 miles. No overall winner will be found today, but once again Armstrong can lay down the gauntlet in the Tour De France and show the world he is prepared to spread his message by winning the Tour De France.
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