So Lance Armstrong acknowledges the suspicion - was he doped? - that lingers in some minds over his record string of seven Tour de France victories. And a desire to erase that doubt at least partly motivates his plan to come back as Mr. Clean and win another Tour to quiet the skeptics.

Wrong reason, Lance. In France, at least, that cause is likely long lost.

The tragedy of cycling and of Armstrong, the sport's most famous champion, is that it's simply impossible to turn back the clock and satisfactorily answer the questions that dogged his reign. The asterisk that clings to his generation of riders is as indelible as the white lines on French roads.

Too many of the people that Armstrong beat - Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, to cite just two of the biggest names - have since fallen from grace for that era not to be regarded as forever tarnished.

That doesn't, of course, mean that Armstrong is guilty by association but it does help explain the persistent doubts that he now wants to - but likely won't - silence.

"There's this perception in cycling ...," Armstrong told Vanity Fair in explaining his comeback, that "the generation that I raced with was the dirty generation.

"Granted, I'll be totally honest with you, the year(s) that I won the Tour, many of the guys that got second through 10th, a lot of them are gone. Out. Caught. Positive tests. Suspended. Whatever. So I can understand why people look at that and go, 'Well, (they) were caught - and you weren't?'"

But then Armstrong's logic gets tougher to follow. He says that this time, he'll submit himself to "a completely comprehensive" drug-testing program. "There will be no way to cheat."

Maybe. But that won't whitewash the past.

No matter how dramatic the idea of returning at the ripe age of 36, he turns 37 on September 18, or how transparent and rigorous about dope testing he now says he will be, Armstrong has scant chance of winning back skeptics in France who believe he must have been injecting to dominate their beloved Tour.

It wasn't just unproven doping accusations that riled some French. Armstrong literally blew away less well-prepared rivals with his single-minded rigor and zeal, his hard training, attention to detail, tolerance for physical pain and now-you-see-me, now-you-don't surging rides up mountain passes. He surrounded himself with the best support riders who worked like sheepdogs in herding the pack, sapping opponents of the will and energy to attack. To critics, it seemed all so clinical, so unromantic, so brash American and perhaps just too damn successful.

As Christian Prudhomme, the race's no-nonsense director, said on Wednesday: "Suspicion accompanies each of his victories since 1999."

Prudhomme was adamant: Armstrong will, like all riders, be subjected to stringent new anti-doping standards. They have been implemented since the American's era, in the wake of doping scandals that snared other riders in the years after Armstrong retired in 2005.

"There won't be any exceptions," Prudhomme said.

That hardly ranks as a warm French "Bonjour!"

(Agencies via Shanghai Daily September 12, 2008)