With the beginning of the Tour de France just days away, one of it’s most famous winners – and most controversial – waded back into the public eye with tweets on an even more controversial subject.
Lance Armstrong, who won seven consecutive Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005 before being stripped of those titles due to doping violations, raised eyebrows with a string of tweets over the weekend touching on the controversy of transgender athletes in sports.
In a video that Armstrong posted to his account on Saturday, Armstrong said he was headed to Caitlyn Jenner’s house – who, despite being transgender herself, has been a vocal critic of biological males competing in female sports.
“With sensitive conversations and topics like this, people tend to either, it really comes down to, they’re really afraid to be fired, shamed or cancelled. It turns out I’m not that afraid of that. I think it’s an important conversation,” Armstrong said.
“I’m sort of fearless on this one,” he added.
In the caption to the video that Armstrong posted on Twitter, he seemed to draw a parallel between his doping scandal and being “cancelled,” writing: “Have we really come to a time and place where spirited debate is not only frowned upon, but feared? Where people’s greatest concern is being fired, shamed or cancelled? As someone all too familiar with this phenomenon, I feel I’m uniquely positioned to have these conversations.”
Armstrong then fired off a series of follow-up tweets, touching on the subject and teasing the upcoming conversation with Jenner on an episode of his “The Forward” podcast.
“Is there not a world in which one can be supportive of the transgender community and curious about the fairness of Trans athletes in sport yet not be labeled a transphobe or a bigot as we ask questions? Do we yet know the answers? And do we even want to know the answers?” he wrote.
“I do. Hence these conversations.”
As one might expect, the internet had a strong collective reaction to his tweets – noting the irony that one of the most notorious cheaters in athletics was the one having the conversation on fairness in sports.
“Lance Armstrong lecturing the world on ‘fairness’ in sports is like Rudy Giuliani doing a hair dye tutorial,” one Twitter user wrote. “Ain’t nobody buying what you’re selling, dude.”
“You are uniquely situated to sit this one out — as the biggest cycling cheater of all time,” another wrote.
Transgender athletes in sports has become a highly contentious subject, especially after male-born swimmer Lia Thomas won the Division I national championship as a woman after transitioning, nearly breaking Katie Ledecky’s record in the 400-yard freestyle.
Trans cyclist Austin Killips has also recently made news by winning a race in North Carolina by over five minutes.
Many conservative politicians and activists have spoken out against Thomas and other trans women competing in women’s sports, with the house GOP passing a bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded institutions.
