Witnessing the reaction in Old Europe to champion cyclist Lance Armstrong's record-breaking sixth Tour de France win, I was reminded of a telling scene in Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning movie about the 1924 British Olympic team.
In it, two Cambridge University dons confront Jewish student and runner Harold Abrahams (played by Ben Cross) and accuse him of adopting a professional attitude—of striving for individual success at the expense of esprit de corps. Abrahams's restrained but angry reply includes this memorable riposte: "You yearn for victory just as I do, but achieved with the apparent effortlessness of gods."
My seat in Old Europe is in Munich, from which I watched not only Armstrong's extraordinary, awe-inspiring performance but the tangible reluctance among European observers to acknowledge it as such. After he achieved his record-breaking title, a BBC reporter went out of his way to rank the American biker below several past Tour greats. During the three-week race, rumors of drug-taking were revived by the French and others, though the five-time champion and cancer survivor had never failed a drug test.
On the German TV station I watched, Armstrong's early wins in the mountains were attributed to his team members' assistance, his dominance in the two individual time trials was played down, his rivals—no matter how visibly inferior—were lavished with praise and attention while the real star was virtually ignored. When Armstrong snatched a last-second victory from a German biker in a stage he did not need to win, a stunned German commentator struggled for words to describe the Texan. "He's so . . . ambitious," he said finally, echoing the Cambridge dons' distaste.
