During the running of Saturday’s eighth stage of the 2005 Tour de France, six-time champion Lance Armstrong smiled warmly at a France 2 television camera and said, ”Bonjour, France.”
It was a telling moment, for the camera lingered on Armstrong and Armstrong continued to smile, a mutual declaration of love between the rider and his French spectators.
But that was not all. After the stage, the 33-year-old American appeared on the post-race show — something he never did during any of his previous appearances on the Tour — and patiently analysed it with veteran commentator Jean-Rene Godart.
At the end of the show, Godart warmly thanked his guest and told him how touched he was to have had the opportunity to spend the time with him.
There has obviously been a sea of change in the often stormy relationship between Armstrong and the nation that hosts the race he has always considered the greatest sporting event in the world.
For his part, Armstrong has made himself readily available for interviews, before and after a stage, and has been trying to express himself in French, for better or worse.
Before the start of the Tour, he also came out publicly in support of Paris’ doomed bid to hold the 2012 Olympic Games, even though his heart was with New York.
”Paris deserves the Olympics,” he said. ”[It] is one of the legendary cities in the world.”
That opinion provoked a furious reaction in the Big Apple, with the rabidly right-wing New York daily, the New York Post, showing Armstrong standing in front of the Eiffel Tower wearing a beret and a bike jersey decorated with a weasel and the words ”Axle of Weasel”.
On July 5, Armstrong told an interviewer, ”In the United States, I have always defended France and the French.”
Clearly, as the daily Le Monde described it, Armstrong is carrying out ”a seduction”.
And if anyone was still in doubt, Armstrong’s current partner, singer Cheryl Crow, told France 2, ”Lance loves the French and France. He will be sad to leave the Tour.”
The French have also played the part of the willing lovers. This year one has not seen the signs or heard the catcalls accusing Armstrong of doping. No one has booed or whistled when he appeared on the podium to pull the yellow jersey of the race leader over his shoulders.
He has not been harassed by camera crews going through his team’s trash for illegal substances, as happened several years ago.
Nor, as in the past, has a reporter broken into his team’s hotel room to look for evidence of cheating.
In addition, there has been no talk — so far — in the media of an Armstrong who is cold, aloof, arrogant, mechanical, robotic — all terms used previously to describe him.
On the contrary, the media here are going out of their way to show their respect and even affection for Armstrong.
For example, the daily Le Parisien is running a series every day describing a chapter in his long relationship with the Tour de France.
The sports newspaper L’Equipe is publishing daily interviews with current and former Tour riders who recount their favourite memories of racing with him.
And the daily Liberation has described him as an ”American artist”.
This is, of course, more than a mere love affair: it’s a long, tender farewell. Armstrong is running in his final Tour de France, and the French have perhaps understood the words of Joni Mitchell’s old hit song Big Yellow Taxi: ”You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” – Sapa-DPA