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SPORTING GOODS

The Tour de France begins today, and the US is all in a twitter because Lance Armstrong will be racing in it after a hiatus of four years.

I can't see this as a good development: Armstrong doesn't exactly come into the race as America's Golden Boy. His divorce from a woman who chastely stood by him when he had testicular cancer has made him something of a pariah in the American sports scene. He's also now 37 years old and seems to be evincing the behavior of too many aging athletes (and rock stars, for that matter): not being able to call a career a career. My real concern is that in the next week or so he'll be detected using some kind of enhancement drug, and then his entire career will be brought into question. (For what it's worth, I've always been of the opinion that he's a user who's gotten away with it.)

Finally, I must add (irreverently) that anyone who was named after former Dallas Cowboys wideout Lance Rentzel might want to be careful about his various activities.