Le Tour de Farce

 Puppeteer Franz Walters at Vienna's Theater Monokel
with 'Les maries de la Tour Eiffel' from Jean Cocteau

"Go on, Lance!" I'd cry from the crowded sidelines halfway up a mountain pass. I'd be joyfully waving a large green hand or brandishing some other Tour souvenir tossed my way from the publicity caravan. I'd be dancing like a marionette. 

But now, sad to say, I am one of the many who feel betrayed following the doping confessions of the Tour de France 'champion' Lance Armstrong.

Armstrong, who 'won' Le Tour a record seven times, recently confessed on television to Oprah Winfrey that he had 'doped' in all of his 'victories'.

Yes, I was one of those gullible Lance Armstrong fans who travelled half way across Europe (twice!) to see my 'hero' in action. I stood with like-minded friends at the roadside and cheered and applauded  when the invincible strong man rode by.

At last, here is an honest Tour de France rider, winning by the sweat of his brow, his intelligence, his months of winter training, his sacrifices, and not only that but also beating his illness in the process. I defended him up to the hilt. I decried his rival Jan Ulrich and others who said Lance Armstrong was doping. If he was doping they would have found it by now, I said. And I said it often.

I quoted Lance Armstrong's words:  I am the most dope-tested athlete on the planet. They have never found anything.

And so I believed the 'great' man. What else could I do? I bought two of his books. And having read them I recommended them to people. To friends who had cancer. Inspiring, I said.

This so-called betrayal is nothing to me. I will soon get over it. Maybe I already have. We tend quickly to do so when we discover that our sporting 'heroes', our children's and grandchildren's role models,  are nothing but cheats.

Perhaps the whole dirty business will be a Tour de France watershed. Perhaps Le Tour will be clean from now on. Perhaps in future the punishments will fit the crimes. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. Like Le Tour itself we've been here before. Several times. It seems there's nothing more to be done. It seems there's no alternative.

A year is a long time in sport.

Millions of duped cycling fans will, in the absence of any credible alternative, simply have to shake off   their feelings of disappointment  and betrayal and after a time out for reflection build anew their hope and trust.

C'est la vie.

Others will feel unable to do so, they will no longer dance for the puppeteer.

Either way. It's a crying shame.