Success Story: Tour de Lance

Bud Greenspan, the Olympic documentarian who rarely produces a film without the words “glory,” “courage” or “honor” in the title, knows the triumph of the human spirit when he sees it. He saw it again Sunday, when Lance Armstrong surged onto Paris’ Champs Elysees as the Tour de France winner.

“It is the greatest comeback in the history of all sports,” Greenspan had said a few days earlier from his office in New York, announcing that he and Edward Pressman (“Reversal of Fortune,” “Wall Street”) have acquired movie rights to Armstrong’s story.

“I had been looking for the male counterpart to the film I did on Wilma Rudolph, who couldn’t walk without a brace until she was 12 because of polio. This is so incredible it affected me to tears.”

With all due respect to the U.S. women’s soccer team, Armstrong’s comeback is the feel-good story of the summer.

Less than three years ago, Armstrong was given a 50-50 chance to live and a one-in-10 chance that he would ever ride a bicycle competitively again after testicular cancer spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain.

On Sunday, he became the second American in the 96-year-history of the Tour de France to win arguably the world’s most challenging sporting event.

So why can’t we all feel good about it?

For some, Armstrong’s story is too good to be true.

From the point in the three-week race it became apparent that the 27-year-old Texan would not relinquish the yellow jersey of the tour leader, we have been inundated with suggestions, most of them advanced by the French media, that his performance has been enhanced by banned drugs.

Evidence eventually surfaced last week in the form of a topical cream containing a minute amount of a corticosteroid, an illegal substance under certain circumstances, that Armstrong said he applied to soothe his saddle sores.

The equivalent of rubbing Desenex between your toes for athlete’s foot, it was not considered a violation of International Cycling Union (UCI) drug rules. Yet, the French media considered themselves vindicated and the final few days of the tour wound toward Paris under a gray cloud.

*

As we have been reminded often in recent days, we onced lived in Camelot. No one questioned that Roger Bannister could run a four-minute mile, that Wilt Chamberlain could score 100 points in a game, that men could walk on the moon. Even if they weren’t absolutely sure, spectators left Wrigley Field one afternoon saying they had seen Babe Ruth call his shot. They wanted to believe.

Today, not even seeing is believing.

“In sports and out of sports, cynicism today is unmistakable, omnipresent and palpable,” Russ Gough, an ethics professor at Pepperdine and a cycling fan, said last week.

“It started happening with Vietnam and Watergate and so forth, but now cynicism is at an all-time high. We are at a point in Armstrong’s case, a very poignant case, that we’re almost like sharks. If we sense a drop of blood in the water, a feeding frenzy ensues.”

Blame the media. Almost everyone does. But, as Gough acknowledges, it’s not entirely our fault.

I’m as guilty as anyone in regard to the late Florence Griffith Joyner. Some days, I feel lousy about it. But it’s doubtful that anyone in the media would have cast doubt on her sprint records, which remain unchallenged more than 10 years later, if suspicion had not been so pervasive among track and field administrators, coaches and athletes.

In Armstrong’s case, the French media are believed to have been merely following the lead of France’s cycling federation, which is embroiled in a dispute with the UCI over the efficacy of the international federation’s drug testing stemming from last year’s Tour de France drug scandals.

Mike Plant, president of USA Cycling, said that the French also are motivated by “sour grapes,” because their riders have had a particularly dismal tour, not winning any stage of the event. He wrote an angry letter last week to Daniel Baal, the president of the French federation, to protest accusations against Armstrong.

But if members of the media are too quick to react to such suspicions, it could be because they so often have turned out to be true.

The first time I was confronted with a journalistic dilemma that has since, unfortunately, become de rigeur for sportswriters occurred during the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where U.S. female swimmers alleged that the East Germans were using drugs.

The most outspoken among the Americans, Shirley Babashoff, was branded in the U.S. media as “surly Shirley.” I hope that all of us who typed those words since have apologized to her.

Not 20 years later, U.S. female swimmers were making similar accusations about China. This time, they were taken seriously in the media, and, again, they were right. Ben Johnson . . . Michelle Smith . . . how many examples do we need?

It’s not as if reporters have to search for these stories.

The feel-good story of last summer was tainted for some when it was revealed that Mark McGwire used androstendione. No reporter dug through McGwire’s locker. He left it out for everyone to see. Why shouldn’t he? It’s not banned in baseball. But it did underline the fact that he’s not exactly “The Natural.”

*

Our cynicism, however, is not confined to drugs in sports.

Brandi Chastain yanks her shirt over her head in exultation after scoring the decisive penalty kick in the Women’s World Cup final against China and immediately there are questions about whether her reaction was spontaneous or contrived to promote Nike’s new sports bra, on the design of which, we learn later, she served as a consultant.

Can we accept anything as real?

Gough believes that we should.

“With cynicism so thick you can cut it with a knife, we have to worry about what we are imparting to your children and my children,” he said.

“They are being cultivated and habituated to a sports world that is negative, and yet, 90% of what goes on in college and professional sports is educational, inspirational, character building and fun. It is basically good.

“The story of Lance Armstrong is inexorably good. It is a very clear and much-needed story of valor that should serve as an inspiration for cancer patients and non-cancer patients alike. I would stake my reputation and everything that I own that he is as clean as he can be.”

Plant tells the story of calling Armstrong in his Indianapolis hospital room less than 48 hours after he underwent surgery for two silver-dollar-sized lesions on his brain. Armstrong invited him to dinner, which Plant assumed meant bedside with food provided by the hospital cafeteria.

When Plant arrived in his room, Armstrong was dressed and ready to go out. After their dinner, Armstrong went to an Indiana Pacers’ game before returning to his hospital bed.

“He has a stronger will than any athlete I’ve ever seen,” Plant said.

That doesn’t mean that Armstrong never became discouraged during his comeback. After failing to finish a race last year, he said he was ready to quit the sport. But he didn’t.

After he won the first stage of the Tour de France this year, he told a former coach he was ready to “kick [butt].”

That he did. My shirt is off to him.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

86th Tour de France

*--*

STAGE DATE SITE Pro. July 3 Puy-du-Fou, France 1 July 4 Montaigu to Challans 2 July 5 Challans to Saint-Nazaire 3 July 6 Nantes to Laval 4 July 7 Laval to Blois 5 July 8 Bonneval to Amiens 6 July 9 Amiens to Maubeuge 7 July 10 Avesnes-sur-Helpe to Thionville 8 July 11 Metz 9 July 13 Le Grand Bornand to Sestrieres 10 July 14 Sestrieres to L’Alpe de Huez 11 July 15 Bourg d’Oisans to Saint-Etienne 12 July 16 Saint-Galmier to Saint-Flour 13 July 17 Saint-Flour to Albi 14 July 18 14th stage: Castres to Saint-Gaudens 15 July 20 Saint-Gaudens to Piau-Engaly 16 July 21 Lannemezan to Pau 17 July 22 Mourenx to Bordeaux 18 July 23 Jonzac to Futuroscope 19 July 24 Futuroscope 20 July 25 Arpajon to Paris

STAGE WINNER OVERALL Pro. Lance Armstrong, U.S. Armstrong 1 Jaan Kirsipuu, Estonia Armstrong 2 Tom Steels, Belgium Kirsipuu 3 Steels Kirsipuu 4 Mario Cipollini, Italy Kirsipuu 5 Cipollini Kirsipuu 6 Cipollini Kirsipuu 7 Cipollini Kirsipuu 8 Armstrong Armstrong 9 Armstrong Armstrong 10 Giuseppe Guerini, Italy Armstrong 11 Ludo Dierckxsens, Belgium Armstrong 12 David Etxebarria, Spain Armstrong 13 Etxebarria, Spain Armstrong 14 Dimitri Konyshev, Russia Armstrong 15 Fernando Escartin, Spain Armstrong 16 Etxebarria Armstrong 17 Steels Armstrong 18 Gianpaolo Mondini, Italy Armstrong 19 Armstrong Armstrong 20 Robbie McEwen, Australia Armstrong

*--*

*

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com