In this final update before we all stop caring about cycling for another year, the sport may have finally found the key to its future success—a hero and a villain. But which one is which? I can probably guess how most of the readers of this site feel, but the truth is that most Americans still love Lance Armstrong. A lot. And most of the world hates America and its champion. A lot. If that's not a recipe for smash mouth, cutthroat, in-you-face bike riding I don't know what is.

Contador arrived back in his homeland to the strains of his national anthem—which Tour officials forgot to play when he accepted his trophy—and then quickly mouthed off about his non-friend Lance, who was obviously not that helpful.

He is a great rider and has completed a great race, but it is another thing on a personal level, where I have never had great admiration for him and I never will."

Lance fired back via his only form of communication, Twitter:

Seeing these comments from AC. If I were him I'd drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn't win.

hey pistolero, there is no "i" in "team". what did i say in March? Lots to learn. Restated.

Burn? I guess. Anyway, in just 11 short months both men will be back in France with new teams and then the cycling smackdown is on. If only they would give the riders wifflebats to smack each other with as they dodge spectators on 45-degree inclines, then we'd have a real sport.

With Tour Over, Contador Reveals Dislike for Armstrong [NY Times]
AFP: Armstrong hits back at Contador criticism [AFP]
Armstrong sets the stage to be a Tour de France force in 2010 [USA Today]

Or maybe he's just fine with standing on the podium. Right now he's third, about five minutes and change behind Contador, who kept the lead after the last competitive leg of the race. Usually on the final stage to Paris, cyclists clink champagne classes and play Axis & Allies amongst one another as they pedal to the finish.

The pride Armstrong carries is by no means a secret, but he seems to be content, this year, to be part of a team that includes a champion. At least until next year, when Armstrong slips some extra testosterone into his teammate's bottle of Evian. That'll teach him who beat cancer!

Garate Takes Tour Stage; Contador Virtually Seals Win [Bloomberg]
Chugging Along, His Ego in Tow [New York Times]

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Boy, these days sure are dull when athletes stay alive and privacy isn't invaded. There's nothing left to do but buy a foam Wii baseball bat and try to re-live lost childhood moments. Enjoy the textual orgasm of Cohen, Daulerio, And Associates tomorrow. Rinse.

Melissa Ann Rice apparently committed suicide days after she was charged with grand theft by fraud. Posing as Jonathan Jay, she won the sympathies of Lance Armstrong and other celebrities and netted thousands of dollars from national cancer foundations.

Little is known about the extent of the scam, and even less about Rice herself, beyond that she may have once passed some bad checks. According to KPVI News in Pocatello, Idaho, Rice had recently copped to the hoax.

Sgt. Doug Metcalf: "Last week she was supposed to arrive in Arizona for actual surgery and when the charities said hey good luck on your surgery, we'll have somebody there, that's when this Melissa contacted them and said hey this is a fraud I'm sorry."

That's when the sheriff's office got involved.

Metcalf says many people were victims of this scam. Detectives say a fund was set up where thousands of dollars was being collected. That money is safe because it was never sent to the Ammon address. But it's unclear how much money was sent directly to her Ammon apartment. With a warrant in hand, deputies went inside and recovered numerous items donated for Jonathan like an autographed guitar from country singer Kenny Chesney, and a skateboard from Tony Hawk.

We linked to this yesterday, but reading Jonathan Jay's Blogger profile now, you can maybe start to make out a sad, twisted 24-year-old behind the curtain:

My name is Jonathan Jay, I was diagnosed with Anaplastic Astrocytoma [[Brain Cancer]] in April of 2008 & am currently undergoing treatments. I have a huge list of things I plan on accomplishing before I die so I will not let Cancer defeat me. Upon beating my Cancer I will start to train so I can compete in the Ford Ironman in Kona Hawaii as well as Climb Mount Rainier with Sean Swarner and race in the Great Wall Marathon in China. I have adopted the LIVESTRONG & Keep Climbing philosophy into my life & have been a better person because of it. I am not ordinary so don't expect me to be. I have my own style & my own way of doing things. I consider myself a good friend and will do anything I can for those I care about. I love music & cannot survive without my IPod; it holds the fuel that keeps me going throughout the day. I also rarely go anywhere without my phone. I miss seeing my friends & going to school. I love learning & plan on becoming a surgeon & performing medical miracles with my mind. Pictures amaze me. I love to read & enjoy writing which is why I have a blog.

Woman Suspected of Cancer Fraud Scam is Found Dead [KPVI]
EARLIER: Was Lance Armstrong Duped By A Cancer Fake?

According to Britain's Sky News, Armstrong "enjoyed chatting online to Jonathan" and last week tweeted a message of support. People reportedly donated to the teen's family, and a Livestrong campaigner, Gena Solar, was set to visit the boy in Arizona recently when she learned it was a "well planned scam." Her account skimps on details about how the fraud was exposed, but does suggest it was all elaborately planned:

I do Community Outreach for the CancerClimber Association. ... I do admin on a couple of sites we have set up and "Jonathan" sent in a message. I first viewed his site that was loaded with pictures of a young boy, some healthy and some with cancer which also told his story. It was linked to a blogspot that we were all told was set up by his family where the parents updated often. There was no reason to NOT believe this kid had cancer. After viewing his pages I then started correspondence with him. Messages giving him HOPE and just trying to lift his spirits. I then introduced him to my network of young adult cancer survivors and he started to join many groups that I was not even aware of until now.

Before any correspondence was exchanged I had told him I needed written permission from his parents and I got it. An email set up as his Father saying it was okay for Jonathan to contact me. I also received phone numbers and via that route text messages from the father. After that time I got his address and sent out a packages of LIVESTRONG Bands, a LIVESTRONG Notebook and Lances Book.

Over the past 10 months I and many people have talked to Jonathan on the phone and sent packages. I received packages back with hand written notes and gifts that I now know were ultimately bought by other people. "Jonathan" told me a long story of lies about how his Dad lost his job, his Mom was out of the picture and they were struggling financially. So my heart broke for them. And it goes on from there.

My Twitter Account was set up for Jonathan. He was on way before I was and his story got out and before I got on he was at approximately 10,000 followers. I then allowed him to help me get on and dove right into everything that was going on. He was not my child that is why I never referred to him as my son, but "my kiddo." He sent me a gift on Mothers Day that was a necklace with his name & D.O.B along with my daughther's name and told me I was the Mother he never had. That is when he came up with the RAD FAMILY hence RadMom, RadSis, etc... And I could go on.

"Jonathan" was supposed to have brain surgery this week in Arizona, and Solar writes that she was "packed and ready to go" when she "received the email stating it was all a lie." Word of the hoax quickly reached Armstrong, who on Monday called it "seriously disturbing news." Meanwhile, Jonathan Jay's Blogger profile is still up. On it, "Jonathan" writes, "I love learning & plan on becoming a surgeon & performing medical miracles with my mind," which, in a way, he did. He created a teenage cancer patient who could leverage the sympathies of a famous athlete and a vast grassroots fundraising network, all with his mind. Livefake.

Cyclist Armstrong 'Fell For Teen Cancer Hoax' [Sky News]
Jonthan Jay White aka @jonthanjay is a fraud [Gena Solar's blog]

Barring an unforeseen "accident," Contador is in the driver's seat and in great shape to win the Tour next week. Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong has been laid low with painful reminders of his own mortality. After two weeks of posturing and feints and impassioned Tweets, Sunday's Stage 16 sealed the deal. Late in a day of tough mountain climbing, Contador made a break for the finish line and Armstrong could not follow.

I suppose I should lay off a bit and give the man credit for admitting what few other elite athletes are able to—he is not the best anymore. He was beaten soundly on Sunday and because of the odd team/individual nature of the sport, Lance was forced to confess in front of God and Jeremy Schaap that Contador was the man now, and he was merely his supporting cast. Lance will swallow his pride and do his best to help Alberto get his second tour victory. Then he will finish second—okay, after three years off, that's pretty good—and ride off into a sunset of nubile movie stars and rock star orgies. I mean ... being a family man and growing old with Robin Williams. Not a bad deal.

The real winner in all this? Kazakhstan, the Stone Age autocratic backwater that sponsors Contador and Armstrong's Team Astana. Doesn't this inspiring story make you want to move Kazakhstan now?

Alberto Contador says he believes Lance Armstrong's assertion of full support [ESPN]
Cadel Evans tips Bradley Wiggins to win yellow jersey [Telegraph]
LiveStrong, RideWeird [TNR]

You see, back in the ye olde times of the early 1990s, cyclists had to make their own calculations and decisions in the middle of a race. Then some kid named Armstrong came along with his cellphone-sponsored walkie-talkie team and won the whole thing and now riders would apparently forget how to pedal if they didn't have someone whispering in their ear all day. So to try and make things interesting, Tour officials have banned the now omnipresent radios for two stages just to see what happens. (So far nothing. Today's stage unfolded exactly the way everyone thought it would.)

There was some grumbling about the whole thing, but the good news is that it gave Robin Williams an opportunity to do what he does best—make fun of deaf people. Now before you watch this video and say "Wow, Robin Williams is old!" and then feel guilty when he shows off his heart surgery scar, I just wanted to say ... Robin Williams is old. How he became best buds with Lance is anyone's guess, but I guess cycling races are the new like Laker games for insufferable Hollywood types. Until Armstrong stops winning, that is, which will never happen as long as he has his trusty radio and magical wristbands.

With 10th-stage radio silence, Tour undergoes new twist [USA Today]
Lance Armstrong Chats With Robin Williams [Livestrong]

Onto the ass-probing in question. This is a portion from Reilly's® latest column where he goes deep inside the cancer-fighting machine that is Lance Armstrong:

He was already the oldest winner in 57 years when he claimed his seventh in 2005. Then he took nearly four years off, went through about 17 girlfriends, had a child in June (Max), raised God knows how much hope and money to fight cancer, and then decided, "You know what? I'm not done."

Armstrong is pushing himself so hard on this Tour that if you want to see him, you have to see all of him, butt naked, on the massage table. And so it was to this famous rump I asked: What would be sweeter, the first one, after surviving 14 tumors, or this one?

Rub. Knead. Pound.

"This one," he finally said, "because, even to me, it seems impossible. Even in the eyes of the experts, this is absolutely crazy. You can't get away from the facts: I'm an old guy. But, damn, I've worked hard. If I win, I'll have worked harder for this one than any of the other seven."

Rub. Knead. Pound beers. Anyway, who wants to go home? You? Excelsior.

PHOTO: Photo Lady Twitter
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Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Oh sweet death.

Maybe this is an ungenerous reading. But it's hard not to see the commercial as another expression of Armstrong's galactic persecution complex, one that completes the process whereby the cyclist has wrapped himself so completely in his own worthy cause that anyone who questions the one is necessarily questioning the other. Slate.com's Bill Gifford is exactly right to argue this is a move cribbed from the playbook of resentment politics ("Sarah Palin in spandex?" the headline asks). Gifford writes of the commercial:

Over somber piano music, we see black-and-white scenes of doctors at an operating table, cancer patients in hospital gowns, a bald man hooked up to a respirator, a man with one leg on a treadmill. All of this is intercut with scenes of Armstrong riding his bike. "The critics say I'm arrogant," Armstrong says. "A doper. Washed up. A fraud. That I couldn't let it go." Pause. "They can say whatever they want. I'm not back on my bike for them."

It's jarring, dramatic, and memorable-and not in a good way. While it's curious that a multinational company chooses to sell athletic wear in this fashion, the ad is even more interesting for what it tells us about Armstrong's psyche. On its surface, it reinforces the idea that Lance is standing behind the victims of a disease that nearly claimed his life. That is indisputable. It also, however, pushes the idea that Armstrong is some kind of savior. His Shepard Fairey-designed bikes are emblazoned with two numbers. The first, 1,274, is the number of days between his last race and his comeback. The second, 27.2, represents the number of people, in millions, who died from the disease during that time. Is Armstrong suggesting that there's some kind of causal link between him not riding his bike and people dying from cancer?

The ad also implies, disturbingly, that the cyclist's "critics"-and that includes everyone who thinks he's arrogant-are equivalent to cancer. It is apparently not enough for him to ride his bike and lead a positive campaign. He can't help but go after his detractors at the same time. And you thought Sarah Palin was divisive.

Armstrong's petulance is understandable, at least to a point: He's been held up as the face of doping in a sport that owes its very existence to doping. Its earliest practitioners were, as author John Hoberman has written, "continuing the work of of experimental physiologists interested in learning how much abuse animals or humans could take" and who, to weather the stress, spiked their coffee with cocaine and strychnine and took nitroglycerin to aid their breathing. If he has been persecuted, it has been for the sins of his own sport.

The result, however, is that he has curdled into the joyless, scowling Nixon-on-a-bike we see today, one who snarks at his critics from his Twitter account and who needs useful idiots like Rick Reilly to lighten up his image. (Seriously, read Reilly's latest. He talks to Armstrong's bare ass.) This may render him largely insufferable to a segment of the public, but it makes him a perfect pitchman for a shoe company that sells a certain spirit of sporty resentment, and sells it hard. The Nike commercial is the latest step in Armstrong's personal evolution. He has critic-proofed himself. In his mind, he is beyond any questions of guilt and innocence now. He is the Messiah of the infirm.

JerkStrong [Slate.com]

Armstrong's Astana team tore up a time trial today leaving him in a virtual tie with Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland for leadership of the Tour. (Cancellara will wear the yellow jersey based on fractions of a second.) But when Armstrong joined Astana it already had a leader, Alberto Contador, who won the race in 2007. Surely, he would be the one that the team would back as its premier rider?

But then in Stage Three, Lance saw his moment and burst off with the lead pack to gain 40 seconds on Contador. And Armstrong was clearly doing most of the pushing in the team trial. Now four stages in, Lance is tied for first, Contador is in third, and his team is going to have to make a decision about which horse to back.

That's if Lance doesn't decide to chuck it all and head back to Hollywood. He was fined by race officials yesterday for showing up late to a pre-stage registration. Where was he? Talking Dodgeball sequels with Ben Stiller. (Seriously. Stiller was there to award the yellow jersey to Cancellara today for some reason.) I don't understand why the French are so down on this guy!

This all could all mean nothing, of course, because the riders haven't even reached the mountains where ... say it with me ... "the race really begins." There's also the possibility that I have no idea what I'm talking about. Cycling on TV is surprisingly difficult to follow. What's the deal with all those European accents, Versus?

Stage 4 Astana Wins TTT, Armstrong Misses Yellow [Bicycling]
Lance rewrites the script [Yahoo]

Tour de France: Stage 1 [East Coast Bias]

This comes to us via True/Slant. In 2006, Craig S. Atwood and Richard L. Bowen published a paper in provocatively contrarian Medical Hypotheses — sort of the Slate.com of medical journals — in which they argued that Armstrong actually derived an athletic advantage from the treatment, in 1996, of his testicular cancer, known leg-crossingly as an orchiectomy:

While it is perceived that cancer, surgeries and chemotherapy might actually impede sports performance, the above evidence would suggest that unilateral orchiectomy promotes physiological maturation and athletic performance by enhancing fuel metabolism, muscle repair and erythroid function. Therefore, Armstrong's athletic advantage is most likely due to his unique genetic and physiological makeup coupled to the endocrinological changes induced by his unilateral orchiectomy, not drugs as suspected by certain reporters, cycling enthusiasts and French cycling authorities. Indeed, the use of drugs such as erythropoietin would be foolish given that there is evidence to suggest this mitogen can promote tumor growth.

Not that any of you athletes out there should try this at home:

The question remains then, would you give your left testicle to win the Tour de France? Only the foolish would undergo orchiectomy or administer drugs to alter sex hormone levels to enhance performance in endurance sports given the long-term risks to health and longevity. Likewise, the use of exogenous LH/hCG would be similarly problematic. Irrespective of this, artificially modulating these hormones for increasing human endurance performance is difficult due to the short half-life of LH in the blood. And while recombinant hCG has a longer half-life, it would be easily distinguishable from endogenous hCG. We do not recommend unilateral orchiectomy or endogenous sources of these hormones as performance enhancing modalities.

I have no idea if any of this is plausible, but the paper does boast an impressive array of footnotes and multisyllabic words, which leads me to believe the theory is not — you'll excuse the pun — entirely nuts. Science, however, has yet to answer the most important question about Lance Armstrong, which is what on earth compelled one of history's finest and most respected athletes into the arms of an Olsen twin?

Lance, enhanced [True/Slant]
Metabolic clues regarding the enhanced performance of elite endurance athletes from orchiectomy-induced hormonal changes (PDF) [Medical Hypotheses]

The Wall Street Journal ran a story June 10 about an alleged feud between Armstrong and Greg LeMond. Armstrong called the piece "sensational," and not in the good way. He wrote a letter to the editor. The editor made some edits. Armstrong didn't like the edits. He said the editor "removed the pertinent and topical parts. Frustrating." I bet!

So what do you do if you're Lance Armstrong and The Wall Street Journal won't run your letter to the editor? You publish it on your own blog, of course. (And, in the process, negate any chance of The Journal actually printing your rebuttal.) Here's how the rejected "editorial submission response" starts:

I am writing in response to the article written by Reed Albergotti which inaccurately and ineptly described what Mr. Albergotti perceived as an ongoing feud between Greg LeMond and me. In general, the article fell far short of minimum journalistic standards on many levels. The article was egregiously one-sided, omitted essential material facts and contained many facts which Mr. Albergotti knew, or should have known, were either false or highly questionable.

I'm sure The Journal was positively giddy to be lectured about journalistic standards — especially when the preacher triple spaced between sentences — but Armstrong does go on to make pertinent points in the rest of the letter, even if some of the words are poorly used and there seems to be a superscripted "1" instead of an apostrophe. In fact, the letter is a fair response, and as Mike Kord points out, Armstrong is unique in that he responds to his critics instead of ignoring them.

In the end, all Armstrong really needed was a good editor. Hey, wait a minute...

Feud sends cycling world spinning [WSJ]
Lance Armstrong's Editorial Submission Response [LiveStrong]
Armstrong takes on WSJ report [Examiner]

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We made it! Nothing new tomorrow, but the site will be back Tuesday. Get your towels ready. Thanks for your continued support of Deasdpin, and Happy Memorial Day, folks.

Finally—finally!—some closure in the form of a few relatively dickish pullquotes from Armstrong's upcoming biography:

"She wanted marriage, she wanted children; and not that I didn't want that, but I didn't want that at that time because I had just gotten out of a marriage, I'd just had kids [Luke, Grace and Bella]," Armstrong, 37, reveals. "Yet we're up against her biological clock - that pressure is what cracked it."

So there you have it: The ticking of that biological clock—oh, these lady-types and their selfish desires to have "families" n' shit!—lead an exasperated Armstrong to pedal away from the too-needy, baby-craving Crow as fast as his trusty Cannondale would carry him. It's hard to blame him, though, as his post-Crow dating life (Kate Hudson, whichever Olsen twin was on conjugal leave from rehab, etc etc) demonstrated a free spirit tearing through Hollywood like a priapic Matt Leinart let loose in an ASU sorority house. But now we're sure he's ready to settle down, and because we've just mentioned the phrase "biological clock" again, we're required to suggest that Armstrong fill Manny Ramirez up with beautiful babies before his gynecologist-prescribed hormones wear off. It's a perfect match, really: Manny's not a nagger, and they're gonna make some adorable, Hall-of-Fame-quality kids.

Lance Armstrong: Sheryl Crow's 'Biological Clock' Led to Our Split [Fox News]

The French anti-doping agency, AFLD, says that Armstrong "violated" their rules by failing to fully cooperate with a testing official who showed up at his house for a random drug test. While Lance's people confirmed the guy's credentials, Armstrong says he asked for and received permission to take a shower—which means he was out of sight of the official for 20 minutes (what no webcam?) and that's plenty of time to fill up the ol' Whizzinator, if you know what I mean.

AFLD said they have the authority to punish Armstong and that could maybe hamper his Tour de France comeback ride this summer. I know it's very difficult to take sides in a battle between Lance Armstrong and the French, but how many times can he escape from their grasp before they finally admit that no one cares about cycling unless an American superstar is dominating it?

Lance Armstrong violated testing rules, French anti-doping agency claims [ESPN]