Another Reason to Dislike the French

See, I'm guessing that the French just like attacking any American, especially a Texan, who's successful...

Lance Armstrong went on the offensive Wednesday, saying it was "preposterous" for the Tour de France director to suggest the legendary cyclist "fooled" race officials and the sporting world by doping.

Comments by Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc appeared in the French sports daily L'Equipe on Wednesday, a day after the newspaper reported that six urine samples provided by Armstrong during the first of his seven Tour championships in 1999 tested positive for the red blood cell-booster EPO.

"I actually spoke to him for about 30 minutes and he didn't say any of that stuff to me personally," Armstrong said, referring to Leblanc.

"But to say that I've fooled the fans is preposterous. I've been doing this a long time. We have not just one year of only 'B' samples; we have seven years of 'A' and 'B' samples. They've all been negative," he said during a conference call from Washington.

In his comments to L'Equipe, Leblanc sounded convinced that Armstrong was guilty of doping, saying the onus was on him to explain the newspaper's findings.

"For the first time — and these are no longer rumors, or insinuations, these are proven scientific facts — someone has shown me that in 1999, Armstrong had a banned substance called EPO in his body," Leblanc told the newspaper.

"The ball is now in his court. Why, how, by whom? He owes explanations to us and to everyone who follows the tour. Today, what L'Equipe revealed shows me that I was fooled. We were all fooled."

The Tour did not respond Wednesday to a request by The Associated Press to interview Leblanc.

The tour director was hardly the only target of Armstrong's ire Wednesday. He also questioned the validity of the science involved in testing samples that were frozen seven years ago and how those samples were handled since. He also charged officials at the suburban Paris laboratory that processed them with violating the World Anti-Doping Agency code by releasing the results to the newspaper.

"It doesn't surprise me at all that they have samples. Clearly they've tested all of my samples since then to the highest degree. But when I gave those samples," he said, referring to 1999, "there was not EPO in those samples. I guarantee that."

Fellow cyclists came to Armstrong's defense Wednesday.

"Armstrong always told me that he never used doping products," five-time winner Eddy Merckx told Le Monde newspaper. "Choosing between a journalist and Lance's word, I trust Armstrong."

L'Equipe is owned by the Amaury Group whose subsidiary, Amaury Sport Organization, organizes the Tour de France and other sporting events. The paper has often raised questions about whether Armstrong has ever used performance enhancing drugs. On Tuesday, the banner headline of its four-page report was "The Armstrong Lie."

I'd like to think that for once, a story that's too good to be true doesn't turn out to be just that. And in this case, I'm with Eddy Merckx -- considering how many times Lance was tested in his career, I don't think he could have gotten away with this if he wanted to do so.

Besides, when's the last time the French launched a successful attack on anything?