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In the June/July 2010 issue of Men’s Journal: Lance Armstrong on being angry, tuned up, and ready to kick ass in this year’s Tour de France, the mystery of David Duval, a fallen golf superstar, and the search for a friend and a future in the aftermath of the earthquake that pummeled Haiti.
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A few choice words from Armstrong from Stephen Rodrick’s profile, Lance’s Revenge:

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On life after “retirement” and his return to riding:

“When I first retired, I got fat, ate a lot, and drank beer. Then I started running marathons and working out, and my upper body got way too big for racing. Then when I decided to ride again, it was too late; I couldn’t lose the muscle quick enough. Now I won’t even do 20 push-ups or swim 800 yards — it’s too risky. That was a big problem last year.”

On last year’s Tour De France and his third-place finish:

“Last year was interesting… in the sense that it was just a hobby. You get out there training hard, making all the sacrifices, traveling, racing, suffering, crashing, for nothing, other than you want to do it and it’s good for your foundation. I think for a guy doing it as a hobby, getting third was pretty good.”

On his desire to ride the hellish ascents of France one more time, with guys a decade younger:

“I think I love the pain and suffering of riding, and I know it won’t be much longer.”

On the Tour, it’s worldwide acclaim, and how he really feels about it:

“It’s the third-biggest sporting event in the world, and it attracts worldwide attention and worldwide sponsorship and millions of spectators a day. It’s massive. But in so many ways, it is completely ghetto. Everybody looks at the other person and thinks that they’re trying to fuck them over or they’re getting fucked.”

On being viewed as a leader:

“I’m not sure I’m that leader, but a lot of other guys in the group, guys that I didn’t need to kiss my ass, said, ‘I’m glad you’re here because you’ve given us some direction. If there’s one guy who’s going to have our back, and if it’s shitty hotels or dangerous road conditions or getting screwed around by different doping agencies, or whatever it might be, Armstrong’s going to get our back.’”

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From Chip Brown’s What the Hell Happened to David Duval?:

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“David Duval is On Fire” read the cover of the April 12, 1999, Sports Illustrated, showing the new star in his wraparound sunglasses, blowing the smoke off a sizzling midiron. By then the world rankings had made official what had been obvious for months: It was no longer Tiger Woods who was the number one player in the world. It was Duval, the four-time All-American from Georgia Tech with the hidden eyes and the fluid, homegrown swing that left him peering out over his right shoulder, his back in a twist, hands hoisted up around the side of his head as if he were trying to open a locket at the nape of his neck.

As much as Duval relished being the best, he wasn’t born for the showmanship of being number one. He didn’t smile easily like Tiger, didn’t play to crowds with uppercuts and primal screams. His three fist pumps and a hand smack after the immortal 59 were the most extravagant display of emotion most fans had ever seen from him.

He was as composed in adversity as in triumph. His signature Oakley shades, worn to correct astigmatism and protect his sensitive eyes, seemed symbolic of a desire to keep the world at bay, a reluctance to be seen. His shyness and social anxiety came across as callow self-absorption or a lack of empathy. He was suspicious of people who wanted his opinion just because he had a one beside his name. Unlike Woods, who in interviews had perfected the art of talking without saying anything, Duval spoke his mind, sometimes with a brutal lack of tact. He was candid and cerebral one moment, prickly and aloof the next.

He was the sort of golfer it was easier to admire than to love. He didn’t want your heart. Few fans mourned when his approach shot found the bunker on the Road Hole at St. Andrews in 2000 and he foundered in sand, taking four shots to get out and effectively ceding the Open Championship to Woods, the people’s choice. Duval won only once that year, and only once on the Tour the next year, capturing the 2001 Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. That November in 2001, on his 30th birthday, he won the Dunlop Phoenix championship on the Japan tour.

And that was it.

Slowly and all at once, the way people lose fortunes or love, he lost his game…
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From Mischa Berlinski’s Venance LaFrance is Not Dead:

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A couple of weeks after the earthquake, the werewolves came down from the hills.

“It’s serious!” one man said.

He was talking about the lougarou, a distant cousin of the werewolf. In Haitian lore the lougarou was a kind of sorcerer who had learned to transform himself into an animal — a cat, a goat, or even a cow. Thus disguised, the lougarou went out into the night to feast on the blood of small children. Two or three days after such a visitation, children would sicken and die. Now, with so many people in Port-au-Prince sleeping in the open air, the lougarou were believed to present an exceptional danger.

He told me that not here but farther up on the mountain the werewolves had already killed a number of small children. This was the way the lougarou story always went — not here, but not far away, the lougarou were prowling. Another man told me that a brigade vigilance was formed to keep an eye out. Our baby’s nanny later said that the police in her neighborhood had instituted a policy of zero tolerance for looters and lougarou: Both were killed on sight.

We were in the hills of Carrefour Feuilles, a neighborhood above Port-au-Prince. Before the quake small cinder-block houses had been stacked steeply one upon the next, climbing the bowls of the mountain, the inhabitants maneuvering through tiny alleyways. When the quake came, one house took down the next, leaving the entire hillside a smear of concrete and rubble and fallen satellite dishes.

“But why do lougarou want to suck children’s blood?” I asked.

The question provoked discussion. One man proposed it was a vice, like a taste for whiskey or smoking. Another man just shrugged. But a third man said, “Le lougarou — c’est le mal absolu.” The lougarou is absolute evil. I suppose, thinking it over now, that it was easier to stay awake at night watching for werewolves than it was to stay on guard for lethal aftershocks…

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