The European press has renewed their love-hate relationship with Lance Armstrong. Lance, as the alleged instigator of the protest last week during Stage 9 of the Giro D'Italia, was branded a troublemaker by some members of the press. Lance claims he wasn't the instigator of the boycott and only asked by others to speak on the behalf of the peleton which was concerned about rider's safey. The slow-down by the cyclists was brought to a head after a particularly gnarly crash the day before when Spanaird Pedro Horillo Munoz lost control on downhill, hairpin turn and plunged 60 meters over the mountain guardrail and into ravine. He was airlifted to a hospital after being rescued by a team of climbers. His injuries were substantial and serious. Professionally cycling, especially in the Grand Tours is a very tough and dangerous sport. Downhill speeds on some of the mountain stages in this year's Giro have neared 70 mph. Imagine what traveling 70 mph on a 15 pound bike would feel like. The slightest road imperfection could take you down. It would be like going down on a motorcycle-on the interstate.
The issue in stage 9 that brought the race to a crawl supposedly had more to do with automobile traffic and parked cares being too close to the race course although the frequency and severity of crashes in this year's race likely was a factor as well. Unfortunately, the riders picked Milano, which loves the cycling like few other towns in which to make their concerns known. Not everyone was happy with the action, including some riders. Lance apologized to fans the next day for the protest but then stated he was done talking to the press since they got the story wrong. This is problem for Eurosport which has put together a daily segment called "Planet Armstrong" to recount the Italian adventures of the most famous one-nut cyclist in the world.
Now, in return, the Europress has vowed to stop reading Lance's twitter posts because he won't talk to them.
This is what they're missing:which is you'll have to agree isn't really very much. It's hard to write stories around Twitter posts. Now I goint to stop trying!
Getting a massage. Great Lake Swimmers on the ipod.
about 6 hours ago from TwitterBerry
St 14 done. Hot, hilly, and fast. And this insanely steep finish in Bologna. Break went early and stayed away.
about 7 hours ago from TwitterBerry
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