Lance Armstrong on history: what the evidence says · JRE #737
JRE #737 · “Lance Armstrong” · aired
Lance Armstrong(guest)
“the Tour de France is 100 years old, right? So doping is cheating.”
What the evidence says
Armstrong claimed the Tour de France is 100 years old. The race was first held in 1903, won by Maurice Garin, making it 112 years old at the time of this December 2015 recording, not 100. The race's widely publicized centennial edition took place in 2003, and its 100th actual running (accounting for years canceled during the two World Wars) was in 2013; neither milestone aligns with a claim of the race being 100 years old in 2015. AP News confirms the 1903 founding date and lists the year-by-year winners beginning with Garin's 1903 victory. The claim is factually incorrect regardless of which "100 years" milestone Armstrong may have intended.