BREAKING NEWS: Armstrong Crashes In Tour of California, Abandons Race

((HT: KSEE-TV Fresno))

Lance Armstrong is going to the hospital for X-rays after crashing during the Tour of California.

Armstrong's coach, Johan Bruyneel, tweeted Thursday that Armstrong was involved in a "huge" crash and "had to abandon and is going to the hospital for Xrays."

In full: Sorry to report there was a huge crash, with Chechu and Lance involved. Lance had to abandon and is going to the hospital for Xrays.

The cyclists were on a two-lane road outside the California town of Visalia a few miles into the race when a rider in the main group skidded on some gravel and fell, causing others, including Armstrong, to crash.

Here's coverage of the scene, thanks to our friends at KSEE...

BREAKING NEWS: Armstrong Speaks On Landis Allegations

((HT: KGPE-TV/CBS47 Fresno))

Lance Armstrong has denied allegations made by Floyd Landis, who has admitted to consistent use of performance-enhancing drugs. He also accused Armstrong of doing the same thing while they competed together.

Armstrong said before today's fifth stage of the Tour of California that "it's our word against his word. I like our word."

Landis has sent a series of e-mails to any cycling official, sponsor, and/or cycling sponsor representative finally coming clean of what had been suspected all along...

Shocking no one...

The Wall Street Journal and espn.com reported the details of the e-mails Thursday.

Here's the media scrum in Visalia, California this afternoon ((eastern time)) where Armstrong went off on Landis...


The HQ likes how CBS 47 dumped out of their feed before Armstrong finished his last thought...

Lance Armstrong Goes Off

And rightfully so...
The European press has been chasing the 7-Time Tour de France champ claiming as the French yell at the top of the lungs: "Dopee! Dopee!"

Meaning the dude is a doper... Armstrong has long raised suspicion, but has never been at the wrong end of a positive test.

Now, he's back on his "Livestrong" crusade as a member of the Astana squad. He's using the Sacramento-starting Tour of California as a warm-up.

But the European press is more than happy to chase him all over again. And the Sunday Mail's Paul Kimmage is right back where he was when Armstrong was smacking the cycling world around. The two hit critical mass in Sacramento and it's video goodness of the nth-degree... trust me...

Here's the verbal beat-down...
((HT: VeloNews))


Here's Jason Kobely's piece from ABC 10...
Kimmage called Armstrong a cancer in a radio interview in September:
"This return, he wants us to believe that it's all about saving the world from cancer. That's complete bullshit. It's about revenge It's about ego. It's about Lance Armstrong. I think he's trying to rewrite his exit from the sport. He's sat back and he's watched the last two years and he cannot stand the idea that there are clean cyclists now that will overtake his legacy and buy the memory of all the crap that he put the sport through."

It was at the end of the interview where Kimmage acknowledged the "cancer has returned."

All that we can really say here at OSG HQ is:
Cycling has been a screwed up sport for a long time.
The Tour de France is an abject joke and a caricature of what it used to be. Publicly, we know who has been busted and we know who's been questioned over the whole thing. But Armstrong is the kind of lightning rod the sport needs for any kind of world-wide recognition- guilty of doping or not.

Kimmage, on the other hand, is a loudmouth whose job, first and foremost, is to get people to read his byline. Dropping the "cancer" word in describing a cancer survivor is profoundly uncool and ((expletive-adjective deleted)) unprofessional.

Karma and Kimmage will have one hell of a rejoin sometime soon.
We can't wait for that harmonic convergence.