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Lance Armstrong (pic courtesy Photosport International)Brian Cookson repeats appeal to Lance Armstrong to skip Tour de France charity ride
UCI president Brian Cookson has warned Lance Armstrong that Tour de France fans are unlikely to welcome him if he joins former England footballer Geoff Thomas on his charity ride this summer – and has repeated his appeal to the disgraced cyclist not to take part in it.
Armstrong, who in 2012 was stripped of the seven editions of the race he won from 1999 to 2005, plans to join Thomas for two days of the ride, which follows the entre route of the race, one day ahead of the peloton.
Thomas undertook a similar ride in 2005 after he had overcome chronic myeloid leukaemia and credits Armstrong with helping inspire him to fight the disease.
The ride, called One Day Ahead, aims to raise £1 million for the charity Cure Leukaemia.
Speaking at the SportAccord convention in Sochi, Russia, Cookson said, "I think he [Armstrong] needs to bear in mind that he may not get quite the welcome he would like in France riding around the route of the Tour the day before,” reports Yahoo! Sports.
"There are a lot of people already out on the route the day before the Tour and I am not so sure they would be delighted to see Lance Armstrong, so maybe he needs to bear that in mind.”
He added: "It is undesirable, I think it is disrespectful. I think there are plenty of ways of raising money for charity that Lance could do."
Last month Thomas, who travelled to Austin, Texas earlier this year to persuade Armstrong to take part said he had “no regrets” about inviting him.
“With Lance it was always going to be controversial, I knew that,” he said.
“But I feel it's time to allow him to carry on with his life.
"He’s paid for his past and he's going to pay more. It's for the governing bodies to sort that out. I just want to give him the opportunity of helping others.
"If his two days of involvement help get more revenue in for a good cause then that's great,” he added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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11 comments
Lance just wants to flip the bird at the French; remember that his first full Ironman was planned to be Nice.
I don't think anyone with knowledge of the history of cycling and, particularly, the history of doping in cycling should have a problem with that. If you think Richard Virenque won seven polka-dot jerseys clean or Laurent Jalabert managed to win both the green jersey and polka-dot jersey (different years) also clean, then you are clearly deluded; but the French believe that.
Hypocrites!
Maybe somebody who knows nothing about professional cycling might think that but nobody, least of all the French, think Virenque and Jalabert were clean. Perhaps it's because we in the English-speaking world have a relatively short history in this sport and we're still getting to grips with the fact that riders cheat. The French went through that about 50 years ago when Jacques Anquetil said in a television interview that only a fool would imagine it was possible to ride Bordeaux–Paris on just water.
You've completely (deliberately?) missed the point, Geoff. Like most fans of this sport I know that LA has paid a heavy price for what he did. That heavy price was well deserved in my opinion due the severity of his case and to the heavy price he forced others, some of them completely innocent, to pay. I'm happy for LA to get on with his life but I want him to do it away from the sport he did so much damage to.
I agree with Cookson: there are other ways he could raise money for charity. But as with everything Armstrong has ever done, this is as much or more about him than about charity or anybody else. He wants to get back into the limelight. He may be "welcomed" but not in the way he expects. I'm expecting it will be more like the "welcome" Alberto Contador experienced at the Giro a few years back.
Looks like Lance is now flogging second hand carpets.
Well, they really tied the room together.
Just shut up and let him ride his bike for charity for ***ks' sake
Oh, he'll be 'welcomed' all-right. Appropriately by most, although many Americans I know still idolise him.
Agreed. Surely this chap has more pressing priorities than a charity ride by Lance Armstrong?
I'm never quite taken in by this line of reasoning, as I don't believe Cookson has devoted any real time or resources to the issue. He just seems to have mentioned his opinion on the topic at a convention that I assume he was attending anyway. If he were actually using the UCI's power against Armstrong's charity ride endeavour, it would be an utter waste of resources and an abuse of position, and I'd be with you. But simply making a remark at a conference seems to be well within reason. I think it'd probably be MORE unreasonable to mute Cookson about any issue he isn't directly involved in.
Exactly. The man's allowed chew gum and walk at the same time.
"Ooh, you're so worried about motorists hitting cyclists, isn't the famine in South Sudan worse?"
"Ooh, you complain about dangerous bike paths, don't you care about the Ukips being racists?"
It's an infantile attempt at distraction. Yes, there are bigger things on Cookson's plate. No, that doesn't mean the efforts of an egregious and barely repentant drug cheat, who did untold damage to the sport's credibility, to leach respectability from a charity ride should be ignored until all the bigger things are resolved.
If Astana is allowed to race, why would one continue to care about what Armstrong does or does not?