Not Rooting For the Superstar

Lance Armstrong is back in business, pursuing the lead in his comeback bid during the Tour de France bicycle race. And now the media is putting out long articles and news segments on this race. The French Tour has been largely ignored since Armstrong’s past “retirement” from the sport after he achieved his seventh Tour title.

I have seen Armstrong training, and he uses a lot of expensive technology that employs computers analyzing his bicycling movements to give him feedback as to the most efficient way to pedal. Other bicyclists possessing less wealth or who don’t have the connections that Armstrong has are not able to compete at this level. So what we see on the race course, where hundreds of bicyclists are apparently on the same course and also apparently are on an equal “footing”, is just an illusion: those with the advantages of advanced, expensive training will succeed while the others will drop back into the field.

I will not be rooting for Lance Armstrong in this year’s Tour de France. Nor will I be following it on television (there is a channel that has continuous coverage). Why? Because when Armstrong isn’t in the race, there is more spread out coverage of the race. But when Armstrong is in it, the attention focuses on him and his supporting team. The unspoken presumption is that he is the only bicyclist that anyone cares about!

Bicycling is a sport of margins. There isn’t very much difference between a champion and an also-ran. Getting the edge over other competitors not only requires special training; apparently a team of self-sacrificial bicyclists needs to be there to help the “champ” pace himself and strategically place himself in relation to his opponents. So when I’m watching the race, I see that many of the participants aren’t in it to win; they’re just sycophants of the team leader! And I have a problem with that. I’m not judging Armstrong, either. He is simply taking advantage of the considerably better resources available to him to optimize his performance.

The whole idea of bicycle riding, as I see it, is based on the notion that, in the midst of our technology-crazed society, a person can still get on a relatively simple vehicle and get around pretty doggone fast! I like to at least pretend that this is also true when applied to high-level athletic competition. But it seems that athletics, which I would have thought championed human performance as being separate from technology, has instead embraced that technology, even to the point of merging with it.

At this writing, it looks as if Lance Armstrong has a good chance to win the Tour de France again. So why should I root for this already extremely-wealthy glory seeker? Or even for any fellow American? Why not just pick out someone from another country and root for him instead?