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POINT by: VeloGuy

Okay, so there you are, you are just getting back home from a 5 hour ride, and there is some guy you have never seen before standing at your doorstep all by himself. Okay, so right off the bat, you are a little uneasy, right. He tells you he is from the AFLD (not your best friend to be sure), and he needs your pee, your blood, and oh yeah, let me give you a haircut too.

It is not like you don’t have wack jobs threatening to kill you like once a week. Or some crazy French cycling fan who wants nothing more that to spit in your face and kick your arse. So why would you be just a little concerned about some French dude standing around your home for the last few hours?

Damm right Lance had a right to be concerned. Damm right he is going to check out your credentials not once, but probably two and three times before he lets you stick him with a NEEDLE. Damm right he is going to be uncomfortable with not having control of the situation.

I can not think of anything he did wrong. AFLD dude shows up, tells Lance who and why he is there, and Lance says to hold on why he has Bruyneel check the guy out. Asks if he can go take a shower and gets a yes. Comes back 20 minutes later and when Bruyneel says he is legit he gives the pee, blood, and hair. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that he is Lance Armstrong and he is going to challenge again for the 8th time to win the Tour de France. The French would rather have Jan Ullrich come back and win than Lance Armstrong again.

The AFLD’s outrage was planned, staged for the media. And a sad view of how the French plan on running the 2009 Tour de France.

COUNTER POINT by: Canon Fire

Lots of important people really hate Armstrong. The heads of AFLD, ASO, UCI and countless others in positions of authority don’t attempt to hide their contempt for Lance. In their minds Armstrong is guilty, and every time he passes a drug test they take it as an offense to their finely honed sense of justice. Lacking an actual positive, they’ve become like tabloid journalists looking for dirt. And now they’ve pulled on the white gloves, cause any dirt will do.

Basically they’re just acting like jerks. But then again, Lance is kind of a jerk too.

Some bossy lab geek didn’t show the proper amount of respect and so Lance put him in his place. Armstrong probably shuts people down like that every day. “I’m Lance Armstrong. I don’t take orders from you, dirtbag.” Of course, this lab geek had the AFLD code on his side. It’s the classic case of the speeding ticket turned ugly. Like the Mel Gibson in Malibu thing, except take out the anti-Semitism and add in some anti…um…Frenchatism.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the AFLD and their lab try to entrap Armstrong every time they test him. After all, there are actually more ways to violate the doping code and procedures then there are words in the Inuit language. (It’s true, look it up if you don’t believe me.) It’s frankly amazing Armstrong hasn’t fallen prey to a technicality before now. But trap or no, he did violate the code. If he’d just swallowed his pride and waited for the tester’s background checks, we wouldn’t be talking about this asinine crap. But instead he took a shower.