Lance has done it again // It's good to be an American

Today is also the final of the 102nd Tour de France, and American Lance Armstrong has done again what no other man had ever done before, not only win the Tour de France seven times, but win them straight in a row. Before the start of this tour, he stated that he wanted to go out on top and retire at the end, so this will be the last time that we will see him standing on the podium on the Champs-Elyssees.

Since I'm in the same time zone as France, I have been able to catch the last part of each day's stage when I got home from work. Yesterday, as I watched the final stage in Paris, the Italian sportscasters were commenting on the fact that in 20 years, the Americans have won the Tour de France 10 times (Greg LeMond, 3 times, Lance Armstrong, 7 times) and Italians have been riding in the tour since it's inception and they have only won the tour 9 times. As for the French, although they have won the tour more times than anyone else (I don't know the number off the top of my head), the highest Frenchman in this year's edition was in 11th place, almost 16 and a half minutes behind Lance and also behind two other Americans. It might be kind of early to say, but it looks like Americans are going to start owning the Tour de France. Yet another reason for the French to hate Americans while they eat Big Macs at McDonald's and teach English to their children in school.