Recently the American athlete has taken a public beating in international competition. Nobody can forget Bode Miller's horrible display of skiing prowess at the 2006 Winter Olympics. The man kowtowed as the second-coming of Hermann Maier resembled a hung-over frat boy on spring break...and performed as so. Baseball struck a horrible blow back in the spring at the World Baseball Classic where the American team disgraced "America's game" by failing to make the semi-final game when they lost to both South Korea and Mexico in round 2 of the tournament. Who knew they liked baseball in South Korea? Tennis, a game that traditionally has American standouts, stumbled at the Grand Slams this year. The William Sisters, Lindsay Davenport, Andy Roddick and James Blake barely managed a dent at Wimbledon, The French Open, or the Australian Open. We won't even discuss soccer...that's an entirely separate article. So what's the deal? Is the American athlete down and out? Have the American teams begun to rely too heavily on reputation and those that came before them? Are we, the American public, so jaded that we simply expect too much out of our athletes? Or is this another example of the waning social, cultural, and political power that America is facing on a global front? --- Enter a Mennonite cyclist with a bad hip...a man who could potentially be the poster boy of the classic American dream and who has ushered in a new kind of American dominance in the sport of cycling. While some of you might have watched Tiger Woods pull out of his golfing slump this weekend at the British Open, another American invasion was happening across the Channel. While the name Floyd Landis might sound more Nordic than American, this Pennsylvania native took first place in the 2006 Tour de France. The Tour de France has been held since 1903 and winners have stood upon the podium 93 times. Easily, the Tour is the most physical and psychologically demanding race in the world. Riders cover 2, 272 miles of the French countryside. The rate at which the cyclists ride is equivalent to running a marathon every single day for three weeks. They take in nearly 10,000 calories a day to maintain their energy, and once they hit the Alps, they climb a vertical distance that is roughly equal to three Mount Everests. Sure, this may be old news, and few may care who wins the toughest cycling event in the world, but perhaps you should take notice. Lance Armstrong can credit his god-like presence to this ultimate test of athleticism and dedication. Armstrong won the Tour seven times and battled cancer at the same time, while Landis won his tour with a degenerate hip. You can hardly compare the two cyclists, but what these men have shown the world is there are no odds too great to overcome when pursuing a dream. In the history of the race, only three Americans have ever taken the top prize a total of 11 times. What makes Floyd's victory so unique is the circumstances in which he won his yellow shirt. Sure, Armstrong won the title 7 times and did this in between a serious battle with testicular cancer. Landis won his title with osteonecrosis, a hip-joint ailment which basically means he has no tissue between the joints in his hip and movement of any kind is incredibly painful. In the most serious stages of osteonecrosis, most people cannot walk or function on a daily basis. He rode with constant throbbing, hardly slept because of the injury, but Landis used the pain as a means to finish the race. He may have won the Tour de France last weekend, but this week he'll be getting his hip replaced. Now I ask you, how in God's name did a man with no hip win the toughest test of strength and endurance known to man? Was it divine intervention and sheer determination? Regardless, it is amazing. Americans came to idolize Lance Armstrong for his determination and endurance under pressure and unfathomable circumstances. In the same way, Landis will be forever immortalized as a hero who defied odds to conquer his greatest challenge. These are the stories that we can be proud of and should pay more attention to. While people sit around bemoaning the doping antics of certain professional athletes who have tainted the image of American athletics, these bullies overshadow the true stars who make sports enthralling and inspiring. --- America isn't down and out, we just focus on the wrong things. For some reason we love to watch the fall from greatness. We salivate at the thought of another celebrity divorce, a political scandal, and a cheating athlete. These are the stories that sell magazines and papers, but the real stories the ones that provide hope and awe and ultimately sell books, support foundations, and shine light on the things that really matter. Don't write off the American athlete just yet...because for every downfall a comeback is in the works.