CNN is reporting that Lance Armstrong may be stripped of his sixth Tour de France title. In a random check for banned substances, three were found in Armstrong's hotel room. The substances banned by the French that were found in his hotel room were as follows:

(1) Toothpaste
(2) Deodorant
(3) Soap

The French officials also found several other items that they had never seen before, including a testicle and a backbone...

...I found this joke in my in-box today. It's too funny, and anti-French, to have been created by me.

Actually Dan, I heard the real reason why they stripped Lance of the title...three foreign things that they are offended by:

1) Dedication
2) Determination
3) Integrity

Seems like these qualities in Lance show how much the French don't have these traits...

Had me going there. Very good one.

at first i was shocked, but then found it to be really funny!

dan dan dan...

You keep trying to turn Lance's victory in Paris into some sort of slight against the French... what are you going to do next year when he turns his attention to the Giro d'Italia?

The facts are that there are legions of French fans of Lance, and that his main rivals, professionally and 'politically' so zu sagen, are a German and an Italian. The fans who were cursing him, painting "EPO Lance" slogans on the road, and spitting on him coming up the Alpe d'Huez were, according to Lance's own account, for the most part German.

Actually, the biggest slight which results from Lance's victory is against the sport of cycling in general. What Lance's victory shows -- provided you buy his story about some steroid saddle-sore cream being used, the last and only time he tested positive in '99 -- more than anything is that someone who is truly a PROFESSIONAL cyclist, in the sense that they cycle for 10 - 11 months out of the year, will win, because the other guys aren't professionals in that sense. They don't take it as seriously as he does.

Now they're pissed, because they know if they're ever going to beat him head-to-head, they have to work that hard too.

Le Gadfly,

Lance may have legions of French fans, but he also has armies of French detractors. According to a recent poll, he is the third least popular athlete in all of France.
http://www.tdfblog.com/2004/07/armstrong_3rd_l.html