Quote Originally Posted by jobob

There's almost a Bush-like attitude amongst some Lance fans - if you don't basically worship the freakin' ground he walks on, there's something wrong with you - "if you're not with him you're against him". Which is the reason why I don't belong to the Cult of Lance - I refuse to be told who I must root for, and I'm tired of him and his yellow bracelets and his endless self-promotion and his superstar girlfriend shoved down my throat.

- Jo.
Thanks jobob - for saying exactly as I feel. As this is an American board I've always been aware that there's probably a lot of support for Mr Lance and I've never wanted to upset too many people or step on anyone's toes.

From a view slightly closer to France and having been to the Tour for quite a few years I wouldn't say the French hate Lance - in fact in recent years they've started to warm to him.
One thing they disliked initially was his lack of passion - winning for him was a job (as he's often said) and the French like to see some emotion. He came across as cold and detached.
Initially Lance's french wasn't very good and he refused to give interviews to French TV in French, which didn't really help either, but he later explained that he didn't want to speak French in case he made an embarrasing mistake or said the wrong thing. I've heard him do interviews in French recently so he's obvioulsy been learning.

DISCLAIMER; I'm not French so any corrections welcome and this is only what I've picked up as a very general French feeling, so I could be totally wrong.

As for Ms Crow - maybe the Crow-bashing was my fault. I was joking about Lance hearing one of her songs and doing badly in the TT, because he had it stuck in his head. Thing is - I didn't even know she'd done some new stuff - there's not much call for Crow over here, so I was just mucking about.