Last Dance

By the time you read this, Lance Armstrong, wearing the RADIO SHACK colors for the last time, had just finished his final race as a professional cyclist at the Santos Tour Down Under. While the race doesn’t have the marquee status worthy of Lance in his heyday, he was under contractual obligation (for a reportedly cool million Benjamin’s!) to do the race this year for the last time. It’s also the same race three years ago that he launched his worldwide anti-cancer campaign.

Going into the final stage, (yesterday) Lance was currently at 81st spot (of 131 riders), more than 3 minutes behind the overall leader, Australia’s Cameron Mayer, who rides for the US based team, GARMIN-CERVELO.

Instead of having a party-like atmosphere reserved for a retiring employee, LA is riding a low-key race due to the ongoing doping investigation conducted by the US Federal agents about systematic doping practices that occurred during his tenure with his former team, US POSTAL.

It also didn’t help that one of the respected US sports magazine, Sports Illustrated, had announced that they had uncovered reports of Armstrong’s allegedly abnormally high testosterone to epitestosterone ratio from 1993, 1994 and 1996 when he was riding for MOTOROLA. (This is the same test that Floyd Landis, the defrocked 2006 Tour de France champion, former teammate of Lance Armstrong and currently his biggest detractor, failed.) The test was taken before he was stricken with cancer and when he was associated with the US National team.

The only problem with the test, assuming it is correct, is that there were no confirmatory or “B” tests. In essence, there really is no case, just allegedly new information that could potentially damage the Lance image but would not bolster the case against him if he gets sued in relation to the Federal investigation.

SI’s witness is another Lance ex-teammate at MOTOROLA, Kiwi Stephen Swart. But Swart has been heard before in a deposition when an insurance company, who was supposed to pay Lance millions of dollars if he won the Tour de France, argued in court that the company should not pay Lance since he doped to win. Unfortunately, the company lost and so did the testimony of Swart.

Meanwhile Lance said, “I have nothing to say…I have perused it”, regarding the SI report that will be out today. Mark Fabiani, Lance publicist, commented in SI’s allegations saying, “The story is filled with old news, recycling the same old tired lies from the same old tired liars”.

Let the war begin.

Finally, the roads in Cebu City now are getting worse and worse. If the Honorable Mayor Mike Rama is reading this, I’d like to tell him that I travel every morning to work from Labangon to Urgello and Mayor, it’s just one long stretch of “sungka-an”! I won’t be surprised if NASA sends its astronauts for training here, Cebu’s roads have a similar surface to the ironically named Sea of Tranquility, an area on the moon where Neil Armstrong landed the spacecraft Apollo 11……Good luck to Luis Miguel “Igi” Maximo who got an invitation to join in the Juniors race, 18 and under in the Tour of Jala-jala. It’s a 54 km race so I think it’s just within the range of Igi. Go, Igi, Go!!!……I’d like to thank Dr. Paul John So, Dr. Roy Catis and the rest of the Gullas Medical Center staff for taking care of my very painful, ingrown toenail problem. If I had gone to the “manicurista”, I’d probably have a tomato as a toe by now. Thanks a lot, guys!!! – THE FREEMAN