The Yellow Peril
So, there he was on Wednesday, the next president (perhaps) of the United States sailing into Boston, surrounded by Vietnam vets and looking very patrician and patriotic as he waved to the crowds. And then I saw it. A flash of yellow escaping from his elegant left cuff. You see, John Kerry had on one of those yellow wristbands that indicates the wearer has contributed to Lance Armstrong's cancer-fighting foundation. It turns out that the Democratic nominee for the White House is a big fan of Tour de France winner.
Now, what I'd like to know is will John Kerry continue to wear his Live Strong wristband if he manages to capture the starred and striped version the maillot jaune on 2 November? And will he still be wearing it in January next year if, as leader of the free world, it falls to his lot to shake the hand of the French president? This will be a particularly delicate moment because M. Chirac leads a country that is not very fond of Mr Armstrong, and M. Chirac aspires to lead a continent that is not very fond of Mr Armstrong. Given the brittle state of trans-Atlantic relations, the great champion would be doing both politicians a favour if he exited the cycling scene and let some second-class European rider win the event next year, but this is as likely to happen as, say, Texas adopting the 35-hour working week, so it might come to pass next year that a President Kerry, confronted by Iranian irredentism and North Korean cultism, will also have to combat another pernicious ideology, anti-Armstrongism.
Because France is the main breeding ground for the anti-Armstrongism pathogen, and because candidate Kerry is said to be well attuned to all things French, Rainy Day is presenting this modest overview of the situation in the hope that it might be of use to his foreign policy planners. This should not be construed as an attempt to curry favour with a future Kerry administration, though. Bloggers are dedicated to helping those in need; personal gain is not part of the equation.
A good starting point for anyone wishing to get a closer understanding of anti-Armstrongism is the book L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Amstrong, which arrived on the shelves in the run up this year's Tour de France. Currently the subject of legal proceedings in the High Court in London, this potpourri of unsubstantiated rumours of drug use by Armstrong is the creation of Pierre Ballester, aided and abetted by London Times sports writer, David Walsh. "Extraordinary allegations require extraordinary proof," said Armstrong as he dismissed the book when confronted by questions about its contents during his first Tour press conference in July.
The Ballester-Walsh book set the tone of the French media coverage of the Tour, and the rancidity increased with each day and each epic Armstrong achievement. Led by the chagrin-filled Le Monde, the French media watched and wailed as the Texan demolished the opposition and became the first rider in the Tour's history to win six times. "But Chirac's France wants French winners and, if it can't have them, other Europeans. But Americans? Non, merci," was how Alastair Campbell summed it all up in the London Times last Monday. On the same day, an ungracious editorial in Madrid's El Pais remarked "The triumph of Terminatour comes ... as questions are asked in various quarters if he won these six Tours cleanly or with the help of stimulants." The same leader characterized the Texan as "arrogant, cold, machine-like." Switzerland's La Tribune de Geneve picked up this thread and described the US Postal Service team's effort as "a typically American business that scorns humanity." This was topped off by a zenith of arrogance: "Mankind is not fond of those who gorge themselves on success without suffering and without showing compassion for their fellows." And this about the man who survived cancer and who now raises millions of dollars to combat it!
Despite all this virulence, the anti-Armstrongism award goes not to Switzerland, nor Spain, nor France but to Germany. Last Monday, the S?sche Zeitung, which is taking Germany's decline very badly, devoted its front-page commentary to the Tour. It began:
"May we quickly wish for something? Good. Then, we wish for the winner of the 2005 Tour de France. The name is irrelevant, really. The main thing is that it is someone we can look at without feeling unwell. The winner should not have pencil-thin lips? "
And it goes on in this horrible vein until it comes to this bitter end:
"The next time, someone should come, who is so good that he doesn't need a killer instinct to win, someone with full lips, someone who nestles onto the bike like a good rider on a horse, ah, a name comes to mind immediately."
The name here is probably that of the German Jan Ullrich. What's so tragic about this piece is not just its racist nature, but the embracing of failure, the preference for anyone but Lance Armstrong.
Chirac and Schr? and Zapatero would dearly love a European winner of the Tour de France next year, just as they would dearly love to see someone else greet them at the door of the White House. The depressing reality for this gang of three is that Lance Armstrong likes to wear yellow, and both candidates for the US presidency like to wear his yellow wristband. Anti-Armstrongism is a loser's game.
