TdF officials want Lance to make up his freakin’ mind, already

December 2nd, 2008 by Ron Callahan 136 views No Comment

Okay, not really. Tour de France officials responded with a shrug when asked to comment about Lance Armstrong’s Monday annoucement that he would indeed ride in the Tour de France.

Tour officials said nothing had changed since Armstrong’s surprise announcement in September that he planned to ride in the Tour again—even though he had since publicly expressed doubts about that idea.

“We’re in the same situation,” Tour spokesman Christophe Marchadier said.

Armstrong was in Paris last week, and despite earlier reports that he and Johan Bruyneel would meet with Tour officials, no such meeting took place. Armstrong says that the news reports of him being concerned with his safety got blown out of proportion, and now says:

“We’ve had threats in the past. The French government and the (Tour) organization have ensured protection,” Armstrong said, according to a French translation of his remarks. “So am I worried about that? No.”

Leaders of the French teams Cofidis and Francaise de Jeux didn’t exactly jump for joy at the news. Eric Boyer of Cofidis (but no longer the AIGCP as reported in the article) said:

“I don’t want to react. It doesn’t interest me.”

FdJ leader Marc Madiot said:

“You can tell him simply that France isn’t Texas. We’re not in the Far West in France,” Madiot said. “We are honest and respectful people. That’s all.”

I can’t say that I’m not surprised by the collective yawn in France. Lance stirred up a lot of hype about returning, not returning, committing to the Giro, and re-returning. It’s sort of like it used to be when I tried invite my brother over for family events. He would spend several weeks being vague: